Enlightenment 0.16.8.9 has been released. It contains several bugfixes and other improvements. "Version 0.16 of the Enlightenment window manager was released in 2000, along with its dependencies Imlib and Fnlib, and remains in heavy usage today. While rumors of its death still circulate, DR16.8.9 was released on August 11th, 2007, and it remains in development today with a long life still ahead of it. DR16 has been the choice of power users and artists due to its low overhead, highly graphical, widely theme-able, extremely configurable, yet unobtrusive interface. Nearly all functions of the window manager can be handled without mouse input, including application launching via e16keyedit. It also remains highly portable, with ports avalible for Linux on all platforms, FreeBSD, IRIX, Solaris X86 and Sparc, HP-UX, AIX, OS/2, and more."
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"They should do a feature freeze for E17 and start focusing on bugfixing so there will be a chance of a final version before 2020."
What's it to you? Have you paid them money? Invested anything in the project? If the answer is anything but yes it's none of your business what they do or how long it takes.
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e17's elegant simplicity is unmatched. I keep up with the cvs, there has been a whole bunch of progress lately. I could care less about whether or not the masses are treated to a formal release.
e17 is far from dead. obsolete? I would call it refreshing for a linux power user who wants a state-of-the-art desktop without a trace of bloat.
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2005-07-08
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E17 is amazing from a technical point of view. Its APIs are clean and lightweight. You get OSX-like effects without heavy cpu/ram usage.
Unfortunately, usability speaking, its not that good. I doubt these guys care about today's usability standard. It doesn't seem like there's focus on usability.
However, since E17 APIs are very well designed, it's possible to build more components for it to make it very usable. I mean, if I had to work on a DE tomorrow, I would use E17 as foundation, no doubt about that.
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if I had to work on a DE tomorrow, I would use E17 as foundation, no doubt about that.
But you're not doing it. And nobody else is doing it. And the E guys say that E is not competing against kde/gnome.
Which is why enlightenment is irrelevant. Sure, it's great technology, unmatched in some areas even when compared with OS X or Vista. But it's just that, a toy for programmers and geeks - not a useful desktop environment that is goint to make linux competitive against propietary operative systems.
This is why I only care about KDE and Gnome, since they're the people who cares about making linux competitive in the Real World. Enlightenment is nice in the sense that it makes gnome/kde guys realize there's a lot of room for improvements, but nothing else. This could be fixed in the E guys aimed at doing a full desktop, but since they aren't and are not going to do it, they're irrelevant.
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Hmmm, E17 is going to be a desktop shell where every parts of what you see can be configure through easy config dialog (unlike Gnome).
E17 is going to have a file manager that support device handling through hal.
And it's gonna be faster than anything else with similar functionalities.
You can use gnome control center for the 1% of time where you need to add a user or configure your wireless connection. for the 99% of time that you actually work on your computer, I don't see what is missing in E17...
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E16 imo is one of the best designed and easy to use desktops WM's today. Everything is just a mouse button click away.
The only "real" configuring of this window manager is the menu wich is super simple.
E17 is even prettier. You can't tell me XGL is surpassing and using less cpu than the capabilities and looks that E17 is doing right now in it's alpha or beta form or however they classify it.
Oh, I forgot XGL has cubed desktops and weird minimize and maximize functions that don't do anything for you besides look cool. E17 is pretty and functions properly to the most part. Only time you get into some heavy cpu usage on E17 is with some of the very heavy animated backgrounds. Oh wait, something that XGL can't do... guess we will group that into the cubed rotation that xgl has so no wins there. 
Edited 2007-08-12 04:12
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Wow... Just wow...
I might put some stock into your opinion about E17, but you clearly don't even understand what Xgl is, so how can I trust that you really know what you're talking about when it comes to E17?
Xgl, for your future reference, is simply an X server. It's an X server that is designed to run onto top of hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers. It does not provide any of the functionality you claim it provides.
If you want the functionality you attribute to Xgl, you'll have to use a compositing window manager such as beryl or compiz. True, you can use beryl and/or compiz with Xgl. But you can also use Xgl separately or, with many video cards, compiz/beryl separately.
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Eyecandy is a waste of time if you are actually using your computer in a work environment.
Certainly, if your a Desktop 'hobbyist' and enjoy tinkering with animated backgrounds and icons, then it's great. Or if your a graphics developer, working on Desktop enhancement - fantastic.
For those who use the desktop as a means to an end, it's useless clutter which gets in the way.
Having said that, if all the eyecandy is turned off, how does enlightenment rate in terms of speed and ease use when compared with other projects, such as XFCE?
Most the hardcore linux programmers and developers I've met use highly customised FVWM desktops, simply because it's fast, highly configurable and not full of eyecandy.
Different strokes I guess. Still, my interest in enlightenment kinda makes me want to give the latest release a go 
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"Eyecandy is a waste of time if you are actually using your computer in a work environment."
Why in the hell can't you have both? All the time on here it has to be one OR the other. Please tell me why a desktop environment has to be bleak to be productive. Guess what? It doesn't. Users want a good looking desktop because to them it would mean a well designed OS no matter what was under the hood. A more pleasant work space is a more productive work space.
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I really don't understand some of the responses here.
Rasterman & co. isn't hacking on Enlightenment to compete with KDE/GNOME, to take over the world, or to build a gateway into another dimension (the latter would probably already be done by now) - he is doing it because he bloody well can. What the E team have done up until now is almost groundbreaking - that amount of shininess and smoothness using such little system resources.
God [you can't tell because it's in sentence-onset position, but that's a lower-case 'g'], I can't recall the last time any other desktop environment or window manager made me go "niccce". And not just a "niccce" because of flashy effects, but also because of smoothness, speed, and so on.
That said, I don't particularly like E17 at this point; GTK+ apps look god [see?] awful compared to the shiny E apps, simply because GTK+ doesn't even have HALF the capabilities the E libs have. On top of that, E lacks decent configuration tools, and is just a tad bit too different to just jump in to. The moment it gains a bit more maturity, and a little more community support, I'll be sure to dive into it.
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It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Enlightenment is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Enlightenment community when IDC confirmed that Enlightenment market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all desktops. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Enlightenment has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Enlightenment is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent PC Magazine comprehensive usability test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Enlightenment's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Enlightenment faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Enlightenment because Enlightenment is dying. Things are looking very bad for Enlightenment. As many of us are already aware, Enlightenment continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
E17 is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time E17 developers Rasterman and Darl McBride only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: E17 is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
E-project leader Orrin Hatch states that there are 7000 users of E16. How many users of E17 are there? Let's see. The number of E16 versus E17 posts on OSNews is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 E17 users. E18 posts on OSNews are about half of the volume of E17 posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of E18.
All major surveys show that Enlightenment has steadily declined in market share. Enlightenment is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Enlightenment is to survive at all it will be among desktop dilettante dabblers. Enlightenment continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save Enlightenment from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Enlightenment is dead.
Fact: Enlightenment is dying.
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Early last year I ran e17 on pretty much all my boxes.
ThenI started having to run gnuplot more often.
I posted to edevlop.org about how I wish wireframe resize were fixed since opaque only resize on gnuplot as a network application was totally intolerable.
I got a response: gnuplot was broken and should be fixed.
Anyways, I haven't been running 'e' since then and there's no solution I've seen for these types of "misbehaving" applications.