The X Window System (commonly known as X11, based on its current major version being 11, or shorted to simply X) is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and rich input device capability for networked computers. It creates a hardware abstraction layer where software is written to use a generalized set of commands, allowing for device independence and reuse of programs on any computer that implements X.
X originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The protocol version has been X11 since September 1987. The X.Org Foundation leads the X project, with the current reference implementation, X.Org Server, available as free and open source software under the MIT License and similar permissive licenses.
Read more about X Window System: Purpose and Abilities, Design, Principles, User Interfaces, Implementations, Limitations and Criticism, Competitors, Future Directions, Nomenclature, Release History
Famous quotes containing the words window and/or system:
“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Authority is the spiritual dimension of power because it depends upon faith in a system of meaning that decrees the necessity of the hierarchical order and so provides for the unity of imperative control.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)