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"You're here complaining that a maintainer isn't around to add features in a thread that's literally a major maintainer of X server telling you he's not going t

"You're here complaining that a maintainer isn't around to add features in a thread that's literally a major maintainer of X server telling you he's not going to work to maintain the project anymore." The difference is that a huge number of essential features both exist and actually work in X, but not in Wayland. That particular X developer might have abandoned X, but X itself is still here, still works, and still does what I need. Can't say the same about Wayland, yet...

emersion 6y ago
Nobody is forcing you to use Wayland. Nobody is arguing that X.org's server will disappear from the face of the earth.
- jolmg 6y ago
  > Nobody is arguing that X.org's server will disappear from the face of the earth. Actually, that's exactly one of the major reasons put forth for switching to Wayland. The very comment you replied to quotes it: >>> a major maintainer of X server telling you he's not going to work to maintain the project anymore If the project ends up truly unmaintained, it really would end up disappearing from the face of the earth as the platform under it (the hardware, the kernel, etc.) changes to the point that it becomes non-functional.
  - horsawlarway 6y ago
    I'm sorry, this sounds like some strange mix of entitlement and unwillingness to explore new solutions. You don't want people to use a new thing because it might siphon off resource you're benefitting from now? If you love X, go work on it, or pay people to. Otherwise... what possible point are you trying to make?
    - jolmg 6y ago
      > ... entitlement and unwillingness ... You don't want ... Did I express any want in my comment? I didn't even say anything about my preferences. I wonder if perhaps you replied to the wrong comment? > what possible point are you trying to make? To correct emersion about Wayland being an option. Do you think what I said was incorrect?
  - Joeri 6y ago
    X disappearing from the face of the earth would be a great thing for wayland, because people would be forced to fix the remaining issues. I’ve seen this happen multiple times with replacement systems: as long as people can escape back to the old system the new one remains rough around the edges, but once the old one is turned off the new system rapidly improves to production level quality.
    - jolmg 6y ago
      > people would be forced to fix the remaining issues. The problem is that they can't be fixed, as I understand. People are asking for things that some see as features and others see as bugs. The only way to keep everyone happy is for both to continue co-existing, but unless something changes, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
      - sjy 6y ago
        The issues can’t be ‘fixed’ in the Wayland protocol, but have been addressed by individual compositors and libraries like wlroots. The difficulty is not in building a decent Wayland desktop from scratch (GNOME, Sway and ChromeOS have all done this), but in rewriting X11 window managers, screen sharing apps and automation tools that perform functions that are the compositor’s responsibility under Wayland.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Why would they be forced to fix the remaining issues instead of telling users they don't really need the features that they have deprecated?
  - emersion 6y ago
    >as the platform under it (the hardware, the kernel, etc.) changes to the point that it becomes non-functional. The kernel has a pretty strong backwards-compatibility stance, so you'd need to wait a long time. Nobody stops you from running an outdated and insecure distribution to use X11 (in this hypothetical future). Nobody stops you from patching X11 to support newer interfaces. If you want to stick with X11, you can. Nobody urges you to upgrade.
- bitwize 6y ago
  That's precisely what people are arguing. That's precisely what Kristian Høgsberg wanted from the get-go: for X to simply go away, except as a compatibility layer for "legacy applications". (And I bet Xwayland will eventually be deprecated and unsupported, except for Red Hat's government clients or something.) X has been quasi-officially deprecated for years now, with Wayland offered as its replacement.
  - ajaxnwnk 6y ago
    > (And I bet Xwayland will eventually be deprecated and unsupported, except for Red Hat's government clients or something.) No, sorry. X11 clients are eternal, there's just way too many of them out there that are line-of-business and will never be ported to anything else. So I'm always going to need some solution to make those apps work, and since for the foreseeable future that probably means "run a nested X server that translates things to the native display server's API", that means Xwayland isn't going away any time soon, and if/when it does it'll be replaced by some other translation layer I'll need to support.
bitwize 6y ago
s/That particular X developer/All X developers, except maybe for Keith Packard/g The X development community has decided, almost unanimously, that Wayland is the way forward. More powerful and knowledgeable forces than you have cast this die for you. It is now upon you to either adjust, or step up and contribute where Wayland is lacking.
- mixedCase 6y ago
  Or, we could just use X if it still works for us. I don't need any "more powerful and knowledgeable forces" to tell me what works for me and what doesn't. I'd like to use Wayland. But there's no replacement to my bspwm+picom setup that works with a little configuration. Tough luck, guess I won't be using Wayland for now.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Yeah, except what happens when the apps and toolkits you use drop X support because they consider X a dead end? What will you do then? This is NOT a hypothetical. Projects have dropped ALSA support and adopted a policy of PulseAudio or GTFO -- and ALSA has more commitment to its long-term maintenance than Xorg now does. And I suspect the next phase will be Wayland maintainers putting pressure on toolkits to drop X support, much like Lennart pressured the GNOME community to hard-depend on systemd.
    - djur 6y ago
      At that point the Wayland ecosystem is hopefully mature enough to make the switch less painful than it is now. I don't see anyone saying they'd rather toss their computer in the garbage than ever use Wayland, just that it doesn't currently meet their needs.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      I do not think it is wise to spread fear. Fear is the reason people attack Wayland. Lets keep them separate. I have no PulseAudio, solved Skype with apulse, though I don't use much media except browser, player and tuner.

emersion 6y ago

Nobody is forcing you to use Wayland. Nobody is arguing that X.org's server will disappear from the face of the earth.

jolmg 6y ago
> Nobody is arguing that X.org's server will disappear from the face of the earth. Actually, that's exactly one of the major reasons put forth for switching to Wayland. The very comment you replied to quotes it: >>> a major maintainer of X server telling you he's not going to work to maintain the project anymore If the project ends up truly unmaintained, it really would end up disappearing from the face of the earth as the platform under it (the hardware, the kernel, etc.) changes to the point that it becomes non-functional.
- horsawlarway 6y ago
  I'm sorry, this sounds like some strange mix of entitlement and unwillingness to explore new solutions. You don't want people to use a new thing because it might siphon off resource you're benefitting from now? If you love X, go work on it, or pay people to. Otherwise... what possible point are you trying to make?
  - jolmg 6y ago
    > ... entitlement and unwillingness ... You don't want ... Did I express any want in my comment? I didn't even say anything about my preferences. I wonder if perhaps you replied to the wrong comment? > what possible point are you trying to make? To correct emersion about Wayland being an option. Do you think what I said was incorrect?
- Joeri 6y ago
  X disappearing from the face of the earth would be a great thing for wayland, because people would be forced to fix the remaining issues. I’ve seen this happen multiple times with replacement systems: as long as people can escape back to the old system the new one remains rough around the edges, but once the old one is turned off the new system rapidly improves to production level quality.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    > people would be forced to fix the remaining issues. The problem is that they can't be fixed, as I understand. People are asking for things that some see as features and others see as bugs. The only way to keep everyone happy is for both to continue co-existing, but unless something changes, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
    - sjy 6y ago
      The issues can’t be ‘fixed’ in the Wayland protocol, but have been addressed by individual compositors and libraries like wlroots. The difficulty is not in building a decent Wayland desktop from scratch (GNOME, Sway and ChromeOS have all done this), but in rewriting X11 window managers, screen sharing apps and automation tools that perform functions that are the compositor’s responsibility under Wayland.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Why would they be forced to fix the remaining issues instead of telling users they don't really need the features that they have deprecated?
- emersion 6y ago
  >as the platform under it (the hardware, the kernel, etc.) changes to the point that it becomes non-functional. The kernel has a pretty strong backwards-compatibility stance, so you'd need to wait a long time. Nobody stops you from running an outdated and insecure distribution to use X11 (in this hypothetical future). Nobody stops you from patching X11 to support newer interfaces. If you want to stick with X11, you can. Nobody urges you to upgrade.
bitwize 6y ago
That's precisely what people are arguing. That's precisely what Kristian Høgsberg wanted from the get-go: for X to simply go away, except as a compatibility layer for "legacy applications". (And I bet Xwayland will eventually be deprecated and unsupported, except for Red Hat's government clients or something.) X has been quasi-officially deprecated for years now, with Wayland offered as its replacement.
- ajaxnwnk 6y ago
  > (And I bet Xwayland will eventually be deprecated and unsupported, except for Red Hat's government clients or something.) No, sorry. X11 clients are eternal, there's just way too many of them out there that are line-of-business and will never be ported to anything else. So I'm always going to need some solution to make those apps work, and since for the foreseeable future that probably means "run a nested X server that translates things to the native display server's API", that means Xwayland isn't going away any time soon, and if/when it does it'll be replaced by some other translation layer I'll need to support.

bitwize 6y ago

s/That particular X developer/All X developers, except maybe for Keith Packard/g The X development community has decided, almost unanimously, that Wayland is the way forward. More powerful and knowledgeable forces than you have cast this die for you. It is now upon you to either adjust, or step up and contribute where Wayland is lacking.

mixedCase 6y ago
Or, we could just use X if it still works for us. I don't need any "more powerful and knowledgeable forces" to tell me what works for me and what doesn't. I'd like to use Wayland. But there's no replacement to my bspwm+picom setup that works with a little configuration. Tough luck, guess I won't be using Wayland for now.
- bitwize 6y ago
  Yeah, except what happens when the apps and toolkits you use drop X support because they consider X a dead end? What will you do then? This is NOT a hypothetical. Projects have dropped ALSA support and adopted a policy of PulseAudio or GTFO -- and ALSA has more commitment to its long-term maintenance than Xorg now does. And I suspect the next phase will be Wayland maintainers putting pressure on toolkits to drop X support, much like Lennart pressured the GNOME community to hard-depend on systemd.
  - djur 6y ago
    At that point the Wayland ecosystem is hopefully mature enough to make the switch less painful than it is now. I don't see anyone saying they'd rather toss their computer in the garbage than ever use Wayland, just that it doesn't currently meet their needs.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    I do not think it is wise to spread fear. Fear is the reason people attack Wayland. Lets keep them separate. I have no PulseAudio, solved Skype with apulse, though I don't use much media except browser, player and tuner.