The X Window System was created in the mid-1980s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1988, MIT formed a member-funded consortium to provide the technical and administrative leadership necessary to support further development of the X Window System. In 1992, MIT and the membership decided it was in their best interests to move the consortium out of MIT and create an independent, stand-alone organization. All rights to the X Window System were assigned by MIT to X Consortium, Inc. on January 1, 1994. X Consortium, Inc. closed its doors on December 31, 1996. All rights to the X Window System have been assigned to the Open Software Foundation.
The X Consortium was financially self-supporting through membership fees. There are no license fees associated with the use of X Window System standards and code developed by the X Consortium. Membership in the X Consortium was open to any organization willing to execute a membership agreement.
The X Consortium was a highly participative body. Members were encouraged to actively cooperate with the staff and other members in the design and review of proposed specifications, and in the design, coding and testing of sample implementations of those specifications.
The X Consortium accomplished most of its work using electronic mail over the Internet, with individual mailing lists for working groups. Internet electronic mail connectivity was viewed as a requirement for useful participation in X Consortium activities. Meetings were held as necessary, often in conjunction with industry conferences and trade shows.
President: Bob Scheifler Office Manager: Janet O'Halloran Director of Marketing: Paul Lavallee Director of Engineering: Jim Fournier Manager, X Window System: Matt Landau, emeritus Technical Director, X Window System: Ralph Swick Technical Staff, X Window System: Donna Converse, emeritus Stephen Gildea, emeritus Kaleb Keithley Arnaud Le Hors Ralph Mor, emeritus Ray Tice Dave Wiggins, emeritus Managers, CDE Development: Giora Guth Peter Bohnert, emeritus Manager, CDE Quality Engineering: David Brooks CDE Architects: Kevin Samborn Daniel Dardailler, emeritus Technical Staff, CDE Development: Art Barstow Pascale Dardailler David Kaelbling Mitch Greess Robert Seacord Technical Staff, CDE Quality Engineering: Chris Burleson Tom Cavin Sami Mohammed Mark Schuldenfrei Manager, Systems Administration: Kevin Ethier Technical Staff, Systems Administration: Mike Donati Amy Rich, emeritus Anne Salemme
Robert W. Scheifler, President, X Consortium Dr. Forest Baskett, Senior VP of R&D, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Harold D. Blair, Apogee International Corp. Roger S. Gourd, Gourd & Associates Dr. Robin Hillyard, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer, Novasoft Systems Don McGovern, General Operations Manager and Executive Dir., Hewlett Packard Peter J. Shaw, Senior VP, NetManage Michael Tobias, President, Tech-Source, Inc.
To reach the X Consortium public ftp machine, use anonymous ftp to: ftp.x.org
Adobe Systems Inc. Cray Research, Inc. Digital Equipment Corp. Fujitsu Limited Hewlett-Packard Company Hitachi Ltd. IBM Corporation Megatek Corp. Motorola, Inc. NEC Corporation Novell, Inc. Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. OMRON Corporation SCO, Inc. Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG Silicon Graphics, Inc. Sony Corporation Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tektronix, Inc.
Boundless Technologies Hummingbird Communications Ltd. Insignia Solutions, Ltd. Mercury Interactive Corp. NetManage, Inc. Network Computing Devices VisiCom Laboratories, Inc. Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc.
Hughes Aircraft Company
ASTEC, Inc. BARCO Chromatics, Inc. CenterLine Software, Inc. CliniComp, Intl. Component Integration Laboratories, Inc. Draper Laboratory. Electronic Book Technologies, Inc. Gallium Software, Inc. Georgia Institute of Technology Human Designed Systems, Inc. INRIA - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc. Investment Management Services, Inc. Jupiter Systems KL Group Inc. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Metheus Corporation Metro Link, Inc. Object Management Group, Inc. Open Software Foundation Performance Awareness Corp. Peritek Corp. Petrotechnical Open Software Corp. Point Technologies, Inc. Shiman Associates, Inc. Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Software Development Corp. SOUM Corporation Spectragraphics Corp. Tech-Source, Inc. TriTeal Corp. White Pine Software, Inc. World Wide Web Consortium. The XFree86 Project, Inc. X Inside, Inc.