X.Org Foundation

The X.Org Foundation is a non-profit corporation chartered to research, develop, support, organize, administrate, standardize, promote, and defend a free and open accelerated graphics stack. This includes, but is not limited to, the following projects: DRM, Mesa 3D, Wayland, and the X Window System and its primary implementation, the X.Org Server.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Organization

The X.Org Foundation was founded on 22 January 2004.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The modern X.Org Foundation came into being when the body that oversaw X standards and published the official reference implementation joined forces with former XFree86 developers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The creation of the Foundation marked a radical change in the governance of X (see the history of the X Window System). Whereas the stewards of X since 1988 (including the previous X.Org, part of The Open Group) had been vendor organizations, the Foundation is led by software developers and using community development on the bazaar model, which relies on outside involvement. Membership is also open to individuals, with corporate membership being in the form of sponsorship.

In 2005 the X.Org Foundation applied for 501(c)(3) non-profit status. In 2012, with the help of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), the Foundation gained the status. In 2013, the Foundation lost the status because they did not fill a tax form (it had no income to declare and did not get any info from SFLC) and in the same year it regained the status, after clearing up the issue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, the X.Org Foundation joined Software in the Public Interest (SPI)<ref name=Larabel2023/> who would manage the bureaucracy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2019, freedesktop.org formally joined the X.Org Foundation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2023, The X.Org Foundation decided to join Software Freedom Conservancy,<ref name=Larabel2023>Template:Cite web</ref> which took over the bureaucratic roles SPI had had previously.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fields of activity

The X.Org Foundation does not provide technical guidance, roadmaps or deadlines, releases or supervision of any kind.

The X.Org Foundation does provide communication tools (in relation with freedesktop.org), an annual physical meeting and money to help developing the free graphics stack.

• a physical annual meeting (X.Org Developer's Conference)
• Travel sponsorship:
• The X.Org Foundation participated as an organization of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). This allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects over the summer .
• Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC): EVoC is a GSoC-like project, funded by the X.Org Foundation. It allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects during their vacation, at any time of the year.
• Communication: Google+Template:Update inline and Twitter Google+/YouTube: Store and/or link to talk videos, slides, blog articles or G+ posts related to projects under our umbrella (Martin Peres); Twitter: Mostly security issues, random updates (Alan Coopersmith).
• There is an X.Org developer guide written by Alan Coopersmith, Matt Dew and the X.Org team; edited by Bart Massey at https://www.x.org/wiki/guide/

The X.Org Foundation organizes the annual X.Org Developer's Conference (XDC) and sponsors students to work on X.Org as part of their X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC) initiative.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The X.Org Server and xlib are the reference implementation of the X protocol, and is commonly used on Linux and UNIX; it is the fundamental technology underlying both the modern GNOME and KDE desktops and older CDE desktop environment; applications written for any of these environments can be run simultaneously.

File:Xclock animation linux.gif

xclock

Template:AnchorAlong with reference implementation of X protocol, the X.org Foundation hosts development of several utilities and example applications, including xcalc on-screen calculator, xclock simple digital and analog clock, xedit text editor, xload periodically updated histogram of the average system load, xterm terminal emulator, and xeyes which shows, by default, a pair of eyes that follow the mouse cursor.

As of April 2013, the Board of Directors consisted of Alan Coopersmith, Alex Deucher, Martin Peres, Matt Dew, Matthias Hopf, Peter Hutterer (Secretary), Stuart Kreitman (Treasurer), and Keith Packard.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:Anchor X.Org Developer's Conference

The physical meeting is the X.Org Developer's Conference (XDC/XDS),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> which is organized once a year, around September/October and alternates between North America and Europe and lasts for 3 days. The board of directors can cover the travel and accommodation expenses to the developers who couldn't attend an X.Org-related conference (XDC or FOSDEM?) otherwise.

Conference history

Event and year	Date	Host city	Venue	Resources	Themes
XDC2004	28–30 April	Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA	Cambridge Research Laboratory	[1]
XDC2005	12–14 February	Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA	Cambridge Research Laboratory	[2]	X.Org Server, Cairo, xephyr, ...
XDC2006	8–10 February	Santa Clara, California, USA	Sun Microsystems campus	[3]	Xgl,
XDC2007	7–9 February	Menlo Park, California, USA	TechShop Menlo Park facility	[4]
XDS2007	10–12 September	Cambridge, United Kingdom	Clare College	[5]
XDC2008	16–18 April	Mountain View, California, USA	Google campus	[6]
XDS2008	3–5 September	Edinburgh, United Kingdom	Edinburgh Zoo	[7]	XKB, MPX, ...
XDC2009	28–30 September	Portland, Oregon, USA	University Place Hotel, Portland State University	[8]
XDS2010	16–18 September	Toulouse, France	Toulouse 1 University Capitole	[9]
XDC2011	12–14 September	Chicago, Illinois, USA	McCormick Tribune Campus Center	[10]
XDC2012	19–21 September	Nuremberg, Germany	SUSE campus	[11]
XDC2013	23–25 September	Portland, Oregon, USA	University Place Hotel, Portland State University	[12]	DRM, DRI3, XCB, nouveau, etc.
XDC2014	8–10 October	Bordeaux, France	Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique (LaBRI)	[13]	Wayland, Tizen, FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD, Mesa 3D, etc.
XDC2015	16–18 September	Toronto, Canada	Seneca@York campus, Seneca College	[14]	GLSL compiler, Nouveau, libinput, Freedreno, Etnaviv, amdgpu, drm, etc.
XDC2016	20–22 September	Helsinki, Finland	Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences	[15]
XDC2017	20–22 September	Mountain View, California, USA	Google Bldg 1055	[16]
XDC2018	26–28 September	A Coruña, Galicia (Spain)	Computer Science Faculty of University of A Coruña	[17]
XDC2019	2–4 October	Montreal, Canada	Concordia University Conference Centre	[18]
XDC2020	16–18 September	Virtual	Virtual	[19] Template:Webarchive
XDC2021	15–17 September	Virtual	Virtual	[20]
XDC2022	4–6 October	Minneapolis, Minnesota	University of St. Thomas	[21]
XDC2023	17–19 October	Coruña, Spain	PALEXCO	[22]
XDC2024	9–11 October	Montréal, Canada	Concordia University Conference Center	[23]
XDC2025	29 September – 1 October	Vienna, Austria	TU Wien	[24]

Template:Anchor X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC)

X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC) is a Google Summer of Code (GSoC)-like project initiated in 2008 funded by the X.Org Foundation. It allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects during their vacation, at any time of the year.

An example of an accepted EVoC project from 2014 is to work on nouveau, the free and open-source graphics device driver for GeForce-branded GPUs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> NVA3/5/8 are the engineering names of the Tesla-based GT215, GT216 and GT218.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Free and open-source graphics device driver
• List of free-software events

External links

• Template:Official website