O’Reilly Network takes a look at the Yopy PDA, the third in its
series on Linux PDA’s. Besides the usual run down the specs, this
review offers insight into an interesting design decision: G.Mate
has decided to drop the W Window System for X.
“…Because of the incompatibility between W and X, not
to mention the inability to import and export displays to W, the
porting of applications has been significantly hindered. Despite
complaints by developers on the Yopydeveloper.org mailing list,
G.Mate stuck by its decision, arguing it provided faster displays
and a commitment to other commercial parties to provide the W
environment. [Note: See the update at the end of this article].Fortunately for the developer community, Young Hoon Kim, a
G.Mate programmer, ported X to the YOPY and made it available
“unofficially.” Finally, giving up trying to hold back water,
G.Mate agreed an X environment would become the new base
installation for the YOPY, dumping W Windows. In addition, a 2.4.x
kernel would be made available, largely based on the work done by
the Handhelds.org group.This shift in direction demonstrates (again) that introducing an
incompatible technology without strong justification just won’t
work. Particularly amongst open/free programmers, no one is willing
to invest in your new technology unless its worth their time. While
W may be faster than X on a 206-MHz machine, is it worth the loss
of compatibility? Empirically, NO!”