In addition to the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) having to decide on whether i686 support should end for Fedora Linux (including multilib), another contentious proposal is on replacing the X.Org X11 Server with the controversial XLibre fork.
Recently opened is a change proposal for using XLibre as the X11 server beginning on Fedora 43. The change proposal argues:
“Replace the X.Org X11 Xserver (xorg-x11-xserver) with the X11Libre (XLibre) Xserver, an actively maintained fork.
…
A long time has passed since the last major release of the X.Org X11 Xserver. Even bugfix releases have become rare. Therefore, this Change proposes replacing the nearly unmaintained upstream with a maintained fork, the X11Libre XServer.The upstream maintainer of X11Libre had been the most active remaining contributor to the X.Org X11 Xserver before the fork. The Change Owner is well aware of the controversies around the X11Libre upstream maintainer (FreeDesktop.org CoC violations, controversial political views, conspiracy theories, rants against Red Hat), but believes that the benefit of shipping maintained software outweighs the potential annoyances when having to deal with upstream.
There is no intent to ever replace the Xwayland implementation, only the standalone Xserver and its subpackages (Xnest, Xvfb, Xephyr), and possibly the driver packages (xorg-x11-drv-*).”
This proposal follows the recent XLibre 25.0 release and the upstream X.Org Server recently reverting many changes from the XLibre author.
The XLibre change proposal for Fedora 43 was today brought to the Fedora devel list for discussion and will then be voted upon by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee likely in the next week or two. The change regardless though won’t impact too many users at large considering Fedora has been at the forefront of Wayland-based desktop sessions and XWayland continuing to be available.
