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:
“I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.”
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845)
“The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.”
—Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911)