From cairo  Mon Apr 26 19:17:48 2021
From: Bill Spitzak <spitzak () gmail ! com>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:17:48 +0000
To: cairo
Subject: Re: [cairo] Release management for Cairo
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If somebody really wants to get in there and get development started on
this again, that would be great! Maybe Cairo can be saved. There was hope
once upon a time that all the toolkits would use Cairo for drawing. Instead
all the toolkits are writing their own rendering code, a redundant waste of
resources. Imagine if all that work had gone into Cairo!

The xlib backend is partially implemented by pixman and that has been a
problem as there is even less maintenance of that. If I understand
correctly, pixman is supposed to be in the X server, but such remote
rendering is used very little, or none, by Cairo (the xlib backend triggers
a switch to local rendering in many cases, and Wayland does not support
remote rendering at all). It is obvious the X server is not passing
everything through unchanged to pixman, making the idea that local and
remote rendering can share code by reusing the pixman api not work in
practice. I think it would be a good idea to dump pixman (and remote xlib
rendering), moving the code to Cairo xlib backend and (hopefully) cleaning
it up.

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 9:03 AM Uli Schlachter <psychon@znc.in> wrote:

> Am 25.04.21 um 19:12 schrieb Emmanuele Bassi:
> [..]
> >  - Xlib
> >  - XCB
>
> P.S.: AFAIK cairo-xcb started as a fork of cairo-xlib that then got a
> rewrite. Or three. It would be nice to merge them into a single
> cairo-x11 backend.
>
> Once upon a time, I suggested removing cairo-xlib and relying on the
> existing cairo-xcb-xlib mechanism to provide the cairo-xlib API. This
> was rejected because it would introduce new bugs. The existing
> cairo-xlib bugs are at least known.
>
> Providing cairo-xcb ontop of cairo-xlib is not possible, so back then I
> started working on a little cairo-internal X11 abstraction that could
> then be implemented for both xcb and xlib. I did this by starting from
> the existing cairo-xlib backend so that (hopefully) no new bugs are
> introduced. I stopped (in 2017, according to git) because I didn't
> really see the point anymore (neither backends had any activity, so
> trying to merge them also had little gain).
>
> Anyway, why I explain this:
> If wanted / deemed useful, I can try to continue working on this.
> --
> =E2=80=9CSome people are worth melting for.=E2=80=9D - Olaf
> --
> cairo mailing list
> cairo@cairographics.org
> https://lists.cairographics.org/mailman/listinfo/cairo
>

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<div dir=3D"ltr"><div>If somebody really wants to get in there and get deve=
lopment started on this again, that would be great! Maybe Cairo can be save=
d. There was hope once upon a time that all the toolkits would use Cairo fo=
r drawing. Instead all the toolkits are writing their own rendering code, a=
 redundant waste of resources. Imagine if all that work had gone into Cairo=
!</div><div><br></div><div>The xlib backend is partially implemented by pix=
man and that has been a problem as there is even less maintenance=C2=A0of t=
hat. If I understand correctly, pixman is supposed to be in the X server, b=
ut such remote rendering is used very little, or none, by Cairo (the xlib b=
ackend triggers a switch to local rendering in many cases, and Wayland does=
 not support remote rendering at all). It is obvious the X server is not pa=
ssing everything through unchanged to pixman, making the idea that local an=
d remote rendering can share code by reusing the pixman api not work in pra=
ctice. I think it would be a good idea to dump pixman (and remote xlib rend=
ering), moving the code to Cairo xlib backend and (hopefully) cleaning it u=
p.</div></div><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote"><div dir=3D"ltr" class=3D"gmai=
l_attr">On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 9:03 AM Uli Schlachter &lt;<a href=3D"mailt=
o:psychon@znc.in">psychon@znc.in</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class=
=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rg=
b(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Am 25.04.21 um 19:12 schrieb Emmanuele Bas=
si:<br>
[..]<br>
&gt;=C2=A0 - Xlib<br>
&gt;=C2=A0 - XCB<br>
<br>
P.S.: AFAIK cairo-xcb started as a fork of cairo-xlib that then got a<br>
rewrite. Or three. It would be nice to merge them into a single<br>
cairo-x11 backend.<br>
<br>
Once upon a time, I suggested removing cairo-xlib and relying on the<br>
existing cairo-xcb-xlib mechanism to provide the cairo-xlib API. This<br>
was rejected because it would introduce new bugs. The existing<br>
cairo-xlib bugs are at least known.<br>
<br>
Providing cairo-xcb ontop of cairo-xlib is not possible, so back then I<br>
started working on a little cairo-internal X11 abstraction that could<br>
then be implemented for both xcb and xlib. I did this by starting from<br>
the existing cairo-xlib backend so that (hopefully) no new bugs are<br>
introduced. I stopped (in 2017, according to git) because I didn&#39;t<br>
really see the point anymore (neither backends had any activity, so<br>
trying to merge them also had little gain).<br>
<br>
Anyway, why I explain this:<br>
If wanted / deemed useful, I can try to continue working on this.<br>
-- <br>
=E2=80=9CSome people are worth melting for.=E2=80=9D - Olaf<br>
-- <br>
cairo mailing list<br>
<a href=3D"mailto:cairo@cairographics.org" target=3D"_blank">cairo@cairogra=
phics.org</a><br>
<a href=3D"https://lists.cairographics.org/mailman/listinfo/cairo" rel=3D"n=
oreferrer" target=3D"_blank">https://lists.cairographics.org/mailman/listin=
fo/cairo</a><br>
</blockquote></div>

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