Apple Releases Beta 3 of X11

maxentius writes "Apple says the just released beta of X11 adds: pseudocolor (8-bit) visual plane support; option to quit X11 without presenting warning dialog; Command-Q keyboard shortcut to quit X11; Command-, to bring up preferences dialog; keyboard mappings with dead keys fixed; linking against libGL no longer results with multiple definitions of glGetColorTableEXT; locked files left behind in /tmp no longer block non-admin users from starting X11; windows can be resized by user to any size and not be limited by the Dock's height; dragging remotely hosted windows no longer causes crash; hardware accelerated scrolling in 16 bit mode now works; X server no longer crashes if application tried to retrieve data back from the framebuffer using XGetImage; bug fixes and other feature enhancements."

I'd go with "a good sign of progression" myself

[RalphBNumbers]

They include alot of big improvements in almost every beta release. I think it's a sign of Apple's good quality standards (well, that and an interest in avioding support issues) that they're still calling them betas, alot of companies release far buggier and less feature complete software as 1.0 versions.

Re:How much longer are we going to get betas?

[birdman666]

I personally think it's nice that they are releasing betas to the general public for these projects. People have been playing around with betas of apple software for years, I'm sure multiple people who are reading this have installed 'Rhapsody'. So instead of making people who prefer to be on the bleeding edge of the MacOS obtain their beta products using methods not exactly 'legal', they just let us have them with the warning that they aren't quite perfect yet. For some reason, Apple people just can't wait for new products to come out. I appreciate Apple giving us our crack now, rather than making us wait for it.

Re:How much longer are we going to get betas?

[Luxviaest]

Not only do I agree with your comment, I also happen to think that they are releasing them to the public so that those people who happen to be within the programming community can check out the programs and help Apple debug them far more quickly then they could on their own. Another factor which comes into play is the concept of bragging rights that come with the release of say a new X11 client, or a brand new web browser.

Just my 2 cents...

Re:How much longer are we going to get betas?

[EddydaSquige]

I think that apple released a beta of iSync not because it wanted to, but because palms support for OS X was so lacking and that was effecting consumer opinion of the Mac.

As far as Safari and X11 go, these are built upon open source, and while they don't have to realease to the public for debugging, it is the norm.