Editing X Window System (section)

==Competitors==
Some people have attempted writing alternatives to and replacements for X. Historical alternatives include [[Sun Microsystems|Sun]]'s [[NeWS]] and [[NeXT]]'s [[Display PostScript]], both [[PostScript]]-based systems supporting user-definable display-side procedures, which X lacked. Current alternatives include:
* [[macOS]] (and its mobile counterpart, [[iOS]]) implements its windowing system, which is known as [[Quartz (graphics layer)|Quartz]]. When [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer]] bought NeXT, and used [[NeXTSTEP]] to construct Mac OS X, it replaced Display PostScript with Quartz. Mike Paquette, one of the authors of Quartz, explained that if Apple had added support for all the features it wanted to include into X11, it would not bear much resemblance to X11 nor be compatible with other servers anyway.<ref>{{Cite web |author=mpaque |date=August 19, 2003 |title=Why Apple didn't use X for the window system |url=https://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&cid=6734612 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112181649/https://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&cid=6734612 |archive-date=Nov 12, 2023 |website=Slashdot}}</ref>
* [[Wayland (protocol)|Wayland]] is being developed by several X.Org developers as a prospective replacement for X. It works directly with the [[GPU]] hardware, via [[Direct Rendering Infrastructure|DRI]]. Wayland can run an X server as a Wayland compositor, which can be rootless.<ref>{{cite web
 | url    = https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch05.html
 | title  =   X11 Application Support
|website=Wayland 
|first1=Kristian |last1=Høgsberg 
|date=2012
|url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230924095142/https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch05.html |archive-date= Sep 24, 2023 }}</ref> The project reached version 1.0 in 2012. Like Android, Wayland is [[EGL (API)|EGL]]-based.
* [[Mir (software)|Mir]] was a project from [[Canonical Ltd.]] with goals similar to Wayland.<ref>{{cite web|title=MirSpec – Ubuntu Wiki|url=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130617002119/https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mir/Spec?action=show&redirect=MirSpec|archive-date=17 June 2013|access-date=6 March 2013|publisher=Wiki.ubuntu.com}}</ref> Mir was intended to work with mobile devices using ARM chipsets (a stated goal was compatibility with Android device-drivers) as well as x86 desktops. Like Android, Mir/UnityNext were EGL-based. Backwards compatibility with X client-applications was accomplished via Xmir. The project has since moved to being a [[Wayland compositor]] instead of being an alternative [[display server]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://assets.ubuntu.com/v1/bd787c8a-canonical-mir-datasheet-2018-12-20.pdf| title  = Canonical Mir Datasheet| date   = 20 December 2018}}</ref>
* Other alternatives attempt to avoid the overhead of X by working directly with the hardware; such projects include [[DirectFB]].<ref>[http://fbdri.sourceforge.net/ DRI for framebuffer consoles] 15 December 2009</ref> The [[Direct Rendering Infrastructure]] (DRI) provides a kernel-level interface to the [[framebuffer]].

Additional ways to achieve a functional form of the "network transparency" feature of X, via network transmissibility of graphical services, include:
* [[Virtual Network Computing]] (VNC), a very low-level system which sends compressed bitmaps across the network; the Unix implementation includes an X server
* [[Remote Desktop Protocol]] (RDP), which is similar to VNC in purpose, but originated on Microsoft Windows before being ported to Unix-like systems, ''e.g.'' [[NX technology|NX]]
* [[Citrix XenApp]], an X-like protocol and application stack for Microsoft Windows
* [[Tarantella, Inc.|Tarantella]], which provides a Java-based remote-gui-client for use in web browsers