Siggraph & Window Systems

I'm spending the week at Siggraph, which is always fun. This is the one conference a year that I can attend and just sit in paper sessions and listen and learn. I've been going to Siggraph for an embarrassing number of years. In the distant past, I used to do a lot of graphics work and my first project at Sun was to build a PostScript-based window system called "NeWS" (the Networked, extensible, Window System). It died years ago for a variety of reasons, but lots of folks loved it. I keep getting questions about it, particularly since Apple's window system bears some resemblance to it. Just a few minutes ago I ran into an old friend who asked the inevitable "Whatever happened to... Could you get Sun to release the source so we could resurrect it?". I probably could get the source released, but it would be a bad idea. A couple of years ago I wrote a paper about what I'd do if I were asked to design a window system today. I never published it other than to hand it around to a few friends. So now, it's here.
August 10, 2004