LinuxPower.org: The Berlin Project: Interview with lead developer Stefan Seefeld

[ Thanks to Christian
Schaller for this link. ]

“The core of the Unix GUI has for many years been X. Whether X
is really a good choice to be the engine of a modern desktop GUI is
something which is being discussed from time to time in various
Linux community forums. Personally I am not one of those who feel
that X is ready for retirement, but when I by coincidence ran
across Stefan Seefeld on IRC a little while back I jumped at the
opportunity to do an interview with him. Stefan Seefeld is the
leader of the Berlin Project, the project which most people refer
to when alternatives to X are being discussed. So if you want to
learn more about the project that many feel could pose a serious
challenge to X’s dominance of the Unix desktop, please read
on.”

” Tell us briefly about Berlin and what you are trying to
accomplish?”

“Stefan: Our goal is to create a modern user interface that is
modular and extensible; a user interface that is adaptable to a
wide range of hardware as well as very different user
requirements.”

“There has been much work put into X lately with additions like
OpenGL/GLX support and anti-aliasing, are the some technical
barriers you feel that X can’t easily solve which makes Berlin a
better choice for the future?”

“Stefan: The points you are making are all related to one
particular implementation of X, not the X protocol itself. The new
renderer is usable as an extension, i.e. both the server as well as
the client have to be aware of it. This is due to the fact that the
X protocol isn’t sufficiently abstract to make high quality font
rendering an implementation detail. In fact, most of the
interesting developments around Graphical User Interfaces are
taking place on the client side, i.e. renderers like libart, or
compound document architectures (CDAs) such as Bonobo. We feel that
this is the wrong place for it, i.e. these are things that belong
into one central place – the display server.”

Complete
Story