\r\n"Choice" is what open source is supposed to be about, and if a good measure of\r\ncompatibility can be maintained between two environments designed for users\r\nwith different needs, I think that would be excellent.\r\n

Absolutely. I don't think you're interpreting my comments as opposing\r\nchoice or dictating X. I'm not doing either. Rather, I'm indicating\r\nthat any alternative will be dead in the water until it addresses (or\r\novercomes by other means, e.g.: massive cash infusions from elsewhere)\r\nthese structural / systemic issues.

\r\n. . that Fresco thing is addressing all your requirements, except I don't know\r\nabout "vastly superior" - that kind of depends on how you want to look at it.\r\n

I've checked in on Berlin periodically over the years. It never\r\nseemed to be going much of anywhere. Likewise this is the first I've\r\nheard of Fresco. I'll scope it out...

\r\nIn any case, I see no reason why people who need the capabilities of X can't\r\ncontinue using X, but for "normal desktop users", much of the X stuff isn't\r\nuseful, but raw performance, smoothness and ease of programming are very\r\nuseful for a number of application types.\r\n

If apps need to be specifically targetted at one system or the other,\r\nand if Fresco doesn't provide network transparency in a model at least\r\nsuperficially similar to X (e.g.: client -display host:0),\r\nthis isn't sufficient, as there's now the very significant\r\nthreshold barrier of either writing network-transparent apps, or apps\r\nfor the system which aren't backwards-compatible to X. I see this as a\r\nkiller.

\r\nOnce again, I'm not the programmer here, I'm the marketing guy, and I see X\r\nshowing up in perhaps the majority of complaints and problems with Linux.\r\nProblems that affect marketability are good things to fix, and right now, with\r\nthe XFree86 group coming rather unhinged, might be a good time to look at the\r\nX situation.\r\n

I'd still prefer to see specificity greater than "I see X showing up\r\nin the majority of complaints". As a bug report, [link|http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html|it fails minimum acceptance criteria].

I'll address the Fresco FAQ in another post.