A new version of the X11 windowing system, used by Unix-like operating systems including Linux, will become generally available in ten days time. What's significant about this one is that it's likely to be the one that will face most users in future distributions. Known as X11R6.7, it's the first release from the XOrg consortium, which was originally founded to steer the specification in May 1999, but only recently decided to do something about, citing the glacial pace of development by the XFree86 consortium. XOrg created the XOrg Foundation which is backed by IBM, Sun and HP and blessed by Jim Gettys, one of the authors of the original X11 specification twenty years ago. XFree86 continues to be supported by a clutch of smaller Linux distributions, including Conectiva and Slackware, although the big players including Novell and Red Hat have thrown their weight behind XOrg's efforts.
News source: The Register
