X costs (was X sucks)

[Dick Dunn]

gamiddle at watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) writes:
> X does suck, but its popularity seems inevitable, since it doesn't cost any
> money...

Guy, I know what you mean, but you're wrong.  X costs a bundle.

First, it costs at least 4 Mb extra RAM, one notch of CPU upgrade (and an
FPU helps), and probably about 20 Mb of disk--PER MACHINE.  There are some
additional display costs (relative to what a better window system would
require), but they're harder to figure.

Next, although the software base code is "free", it takes a lot of work to
make it into usable software.  You have to port the server to various
display interfaces (and in the PC-compatible world, there are scores of
them); then you've got to tune it up.  Both of these are made much harder
by the gratuitous complexity in X.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd at ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...While you were reading this, Motif grew by another kilobyte.