Well, we got this way because back in the old days (yes, when dinosaurs
roamed the earth, and the mountains were mere hills) an X server was
called a server because it provided services, namely the ability for an
application to present its output to the user.  Somewhere along the way
we all decided that, just because there were more cases of machines
providing application/compute or database services, that the user was
therefore always a client.

X didn't really get anything wrong - an X server provides display
services.  The rest of the world got things wrong when it decided that
the human being (and his/her local machine) was always a client.

:)

On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Jeffrey Ohlmann wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Mark Andres wrote:
> 
> > First of all, to set the "standard" X terminology straight, an X *server*
> > is the machine that drives the display. In your case, the Macintosh
> > running MI/X is the X *server*. You can the run X *clients* from any
> > machine that can connect to the X *server*. 
> 
> How did this horrible reversal of vocabulary occur?  It seems predestined
> to cause confusion in this present age of "client-server" architectures. 
> I think we need a popular decree "normalizing" the X nomenclature.  It's
> like saying I own a 1995 Honda Highway and it drives me on the car.
> 
> :)
> 
> Jeff Ohlmann
> 
> 
> 

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