Jim Gettys, one of the original X Window System programmers (among many
other things) has put up a lengthy call
to the community to take the lead in the design of desktop software.
“Our fundamental advantage we have is the ability to experiment and
modify all areas of the stack; from hardware, to the window system, though
toolkits to applications. Just as compositing has allowed a thousand
flowers to bloom (most of which stink, but we’ve picked some that smell
pretty sweet) in eye candy, accessibility and in other areas, compositing
and other modern free software technologies can be used in new an
unexpected ways. We are able to perform experiments, and have a large
audience to test the experiments radically faster than commercial
software.”