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:
“Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)