Linux.conf.au 2020 – Thursday – Session 2 – Origins of X / Aerial Photography

The History of X: Lessons for Software Freedom – Keith Packard

1984 – The Origins of X

  • Everything proprietary
  • Brian Reid and Paul Asente: V Kernel -> VGTS -> W window system
    • Ported to VAXstation 100 at Stanford
    • 68k processor, 128k of VRAM
    • B&W
  • Bob Scheifler started hacking W -> X
  • Ported to Unix , made more Unix Friendly (async) renamed X

Unix Workstation Market

  • Unix was closed source
  • Vendor Unix based on BSD 4.x
  • Sun, HP, Digital, Apollo, Tektronix, IBM
  • this was when the configure program happened
  • VAXstation II
    • Color graphics 8bit accelerated
  • Sun 3/60
    • CPU drew everything on the screen

Early Unix Window System – 85-86

  • SunView dominates (actual commerical apps, Ddesktop widgets)
  • Digital VMS/US
  • Apollo had Domain
  • Tektronix demonstrated SmallTalk
  • all only ran on their own hardware

X1 – X6

  • non-free software
  • Used Internally at MIT
  • Shared with friends informally

X10 – approx 1986

  • Almost usable
  • Ported to various workstations
  • Distribution was not all free software (had bin blobs)
    • Sun port relied on SunView kernel API
    • Digital provided binary rendering code
    • IBM PC/RT Support completed in source form

Why X11 ?

  • X10 had warts
  • rendering model was pretty terrible
  • External Windows manager without borders
  • Other vendors wanted to get involved
    • Jim Gettys and Smokey Wallace
    • Write X11, release under liberal terms
    • Working against Sun
    • Displace Sunview
    • “Reset the market”
    • Digital management agreed

X11 Development 1986-87

  • Protocol designed as croos-org team
  • Sample implementation done mostly at DEC WRL, collaboration with people at MIT
  • Internet not functional enough to property collaborate, done via mail
    • Thus most of it happened at MIT

MIT X Consortium

  • Hired dev team at MIT
  • Funded by consortium
  • Members also voted on standards
    • Members stopped their on develoment
    • Stopped collaboration with non-members
  • We knew Richard too well – The GPL’s worst sponsor
  • Corp sponsors dedicated to non-free software

X Consortium Standards

  • XIE – X Imaging Extensions
  • PIX – Phigs Extension for X
  • LBX – Low Bandwidth X
  • Xinput (version 1)

The workstation vendors were trying to differentiate. They wanted a minimal base to built their stuff on. Standard was frozen for around 15 years. That is why X fell behind other envs as hardware changed.

X11 , NeWs and Postscript

  • NeWS – Very slow but cool
  • Adobe adapted PostScript interpreter for windows systems – Closed Source
  • Merged X11/NeWS server – Closed Source

The Free Unix Desktop

  • All the toolkits were closed source
  • Sunview -> XView
  • OpenView – Xt based toolkit

X Stagnates – ~1992

  • Core protocol not allowed to change
  • non-members pushed out
  • market fragments

Collapse of Unix

  • The Decade of Windows

Opening a treasure trove: The Historical Aerial Photography project by Paul Haesler

  • Geoscience Australia has inherated an extensive archive of hisorical photography
  • 1.2 million images from 1920 – 1990s
  • Full coverage of Aus and more (some places more than others)

Historical Archive Projects

  • Canonical source of truth is pieces of paper
  • Multiple attempts at scanning/transscription. Duplication and compounding of errors
  • Some errors in original data
  • “Historian” role to sift through and collate into a machine-readable form – usually spreadsheets
  • Data Model typically evolves over time – implementation must be flexible and open-minded

What we get

  • Flight Line Diagrams (metadata)
  • Imagery (data)
  • Lots scanned in early 1990s, but low resolution and missing data, some missed

Digitization Pipeline

  • Flight line diagram pipeline
    • High resolution scans
    • Georeferences
  • Film pipeline
    • Filmstock
    • High Resolution scans
    • Georeference images
    • Georectified images
    • Stitched mosaics + Elevation models

Only about 20% of film scanned. Lacking funding and film deteriorating

Other states have similar smaller archives (and other countries)

  • Many significantly more mature but may be locked in propitiatory platforms

Stack

  • Open Data ( Cc by 4.0)
  • Open Standards (TESTful, GeoJSON, STAC)
  • Open Source
  • PostGreSQL/PostGIS
  • Python3: Django REST Framework
  • Current Status: API Only. Alpha/proof-of-concept

API

  • Search for Flight runs
  • Output is GeoJSON

Coming Next

  • Scanning and georeferencing (need $$$)
  • Data entry/management tools – no spreadsheets
  • Refs to other archives, federated search
  • Integration with TerriaJS/National Map
  • Full STAC once standardized
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