5 ms·

[flagged]

fruitworks 1y ago
At some point of development, the only way to progress without spiraling complexity is to break backwards compatibility. You might be interested in studying the internals of X11 and wayland to learn more. In a commercial project like windows, this sort of project is a total no-go. However in a collaborative community project like linux userspace, developers have more freedom to make design decisions in spite of short-term consequences. >The people that develop Linux desktop are deeply unserio The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man. -Frank Herbert Don't take yourself too seriously, it might ruin you!
- vlovich123 1y ago
  In a commercial project like Windows this has been done many times - both Windows and MacOS switched to compositing window managers and have done deep surgery under the hood you never see. The difference is that internals can be mandated top down whereas in a bazaar model with lots of casual non interested observers throwing pot shots and no budget to support the work, relying on largely volunteer time, it’s much harder and takes longer to accomplish.
  - saidinesh5 1y ago
    > on largely volunteer time Are Linux desktop projects still run mostly by volunteers these days anymore? The kernel itself is heavily funded by, contributed to by so many large companies. A lot of user space projects are all maintained by companies or maintainers who work for companies like Redhat, Canonical, Suse etc ... Didn't Wayland itself get popular during Nokia/Intel Meego days? I remember there being automotive compositors, Jolla Phone all using wayland.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- asveikau 1y ago
  People do large rewrites that subtly break expectations and need to slowly add back features to get parity with the old thing at Microsoft all the time. Source: I worked there at the end of the 2000s. Sometimes it's very visible, like they are pushing a new UI framework. Other times it's under the hood, like they changed how a lot of GDI works.
- dodomodo 1y ago
  You got it backwards, once you have users, they are your "greatness", if you go to the path of self gratification, are are betraying your users. Of course some times sacrifices have to be made, but you have to understand the graveness of them. I don't like the current state of Windows, but Microsoft won't ever break such a huge portion of applications that run of Windows just for the sake of some refactoring.
temp0826 1y ago
Wayland has been around for 15+ years now and I've been using it daily for probably 10. At this point I have to assume comments like this are unserious.
- hodgehog11 1y ago
  Good for you. Meanwhile, many other people have been encountering _serious_ issues for much of those 10 years. This is well documented. Downplaying the issues of other users is a great way to make people dislike the product.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - exiguus 1y ago
    What are this issues beside VNC or ssh -X does not work? Or my Software Y (still) does not support Wayland?
    - Zambyte 1y ago
      > ssh -X waypipe
    - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
      Actually I don't think any of those are problems? * VNC is covered by wayvnc (unless you're on GNOME or maybe? KDE, but those have their own implementations) * ssh -X should be covered by waypipe * application software should generally work in XWayland (which okay is a little cheaty but if it works it works) The two pain points I'm currently aware of are: * Unified vs fractured ecosystem: In practice, everyone on X11 used Xorg and every window manager and desktop environment had the same basic features because of it. You could always control the keyboard layout via setxkbmap, every screenshot tool worked everywhere, xrandr/arandr were always available to configure displays, etc. In Wayland there is never one answer to anything; not every compositor lets you configure the keyboard and if they do each one has their own way to do it, there are 3 different screenshot protocols (supposedly KDE and wlroots are converging so only GNOME will be doing their own thing but I'm not holding my breath), display configuration is completely up to compositor choice, etc. * The accessibility story isn't there. There's work on it, so eventually the outcome will probably be "just throw out the a11y tools you're used to and switch to these new ones", but for now the current status is "they're working on it but it isn't there yet".
ongy 1y ago
The core devs were all paid to work on it when I was still active. Not sure how many of the gnome (mutter) people are paid. Last I checked, the nvidia support was donated by nvidia (paid) for both KDE and Gnome. I think KDE got some work sponsored by valve (before gamescope), though I'm not quite sure on that. Overall, outside the sway/wlroots group I was a part of at the time, people generally worked adjacent or directly on wayland for day jobs.
yyyk 1y ago
X withering away was inevitable once you consider the 'economic' situation - very few people worked on it once the commercial Unix vendors went down. There was little practical enthusiasm for a common layer. Even before Wayland, its role was reduced more and more. Wayland is natural evolution of this where most of the work is offloaded to more resourced Desktop environments and the org mostly sets standards.
- slackfan 1y ago
  X wasn't withering away, it was pointedly being poisoned.
  - gf000 1y ago
    Feel free to include any kind of source for that. Otherwise, it is just FUD.
    - slackfan 1y ago
      Sure, the developer culture of the people working on X has been "This is too difficult/obscure/shitty therefore it should die." There have been repeated posts about this to various forums, news.ycombinator.com included. Refusal to accept fixes, as well as a full pivot of the project to a targeted sundown instead of any attempt to attract developers to the project. Sources: The X project itself, hackernews discussions, both in articles and in comments. It's not my job to educate you.
- o11c 1y ago
  And X11 is all the better now that fewer people are working on it. I don't need new features in my windowing system, I just need it to stay out of my way.
dang 1y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dodomodo 1y ago
  I was wrong to word myself the way I did, but my comment is simple not shallow, what I'm trying to say is that the amount of work done is not worth the architectural advantages of Wayland. It's a simple argument that people in the replies didn't fail to understand, but did fail to have a good response too. My real violation of the guidelines is this in my opinion: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
  - dang 1y ago
    Thanks for that! I appreciate the guideline swap, and also your original intention. Btw, it's not uncommon that a commenter (you in this case) will respond to a mod (me in this case) with substantive information that they didn't include in their original comment, which explains what they really meant to say. We call this the 'rebound' phenomenon (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20rebound&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). It's a pity that the comment doesn't come out this way to begin with! But it's hard to remember that the state in one's head isn't transmitted automatically, and also hard to figure out which bits of it need to be put into a comment. Something about getting resistance (like a mod reply) stimulates this process. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to activate it more proactively.

[flagged]

At some point of development, the only way to progress without spiraling complexity is to break backwards compatibility. You might be interested in studying the internals of X11 and wayland to learn more. In a commercial project like windows, this sort of project is a total no-go. However in a collaborative community project like linux userspace, developers have more freedom to make design decisions in spite of short-term consequences. >The people that develop Linux desktop are deeply unserio The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man. -Frank Herbert Don't take yourself too seriously, it might ruin you!

vlovich123 1y ago
In a commercial project like Windows this has been done many times - both Windows and MacOS switched to compositing window managers and have done deep surgery under the hood you never see. The difference is that internals can be mandated top down whereas in a bazaar model with lots of casual non interested observers throwing pot shots and no budget to support the work, relying on largely volunteer time, it’s much harder and takes longer to accomplish.
- saidinesh5 1y ago
  > on largely volunteer time Are Linux desktop projects still run mostly by volunteers these days anymore? The kernel itself is heavily funded by, contributed to by so many large companies. A lot of user space projects are all maintained by companies or maintainers who work for companies like Redhat, Canonical, Suse etc ... Didn't Wayland itself get popular during Nokia/Intel Meego days? I remember there being automotive compositors, Jolla Phone all using wayland.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
asveikau 1y ago
People do large rewrites that subtly break expectations and need to slowly add back features to get parity with the old thing at Microsoft all the time. Source: I worked there at the end of the 2000s. Sometimes it's very visible, like they are pushing a new UI framework. Other times it's under the hood, like they changed how a lot of GDI works.
dodomodo 1y ago
You got it backwards, once you have users, they are your "greatness", if you go to the path of self gratification, are are betraying your users. Of course some times sacrifices have to be made, but you have to understand the graveness of them. I don't like the current state of Windows, but Microsoft won't ever break such a huge portion of applications that run of Windows just for the sake of some refactoring.

temp0826 1y ago

Wayland has been around for 15+ years now and I've been using it daily for probably 10. At this point I have to assume comments like this are unserious.

hodgehog11 1y ago
Good for you. Meanwhile, many other people have been encountering _serious_ issues for much of those 10 years. This is well documented. Downplaying the issues of other users is a great way to make people dislike the product.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- exiguus 1y ago
  What are this issues beside VNC or ssh -X does not work? Or my Software Y (still) does not support Wayland?
  - Zambyte 1y ago
    > ssh -X waypipe
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    Actually I don't think any of those are problems? * VNC is covered by wayvnc (unless you're on GNOME or maybe? KDE, but those have their own implementations) * ssh -X should be covered by waypipe * application software should generally work in XWayland (which okay is a little cheaty but if it works it works) The two pain points I'm currently aware of are: * Unified vs fractured ecosystem: In practice, everyone on X11 used Xorg and every window manager and desktop environment had the same basic features because of it. You could always control the keyboard layout via setxkbmap, every screenshot tool worked everywhere, xrandr/arandr were always available to configure displays, etc. In Wayland there is never one answer to anything; not every compositor lets you configure the keyboard and if they do each one has their own way to do it, there are 3 different screenshot protocols (supposedly KDE and wlroots are converging so only GNOME will be doing their own thing but I'm not holding my breath), display configuration is completely up to compositor choice, etc. * The accessibility story isn't there. There's work on it, so eventually the outcome will probably be "just throw out the a11y tools you're used to and switch to these new ones", but for now the current status is "they're working on it but it isn't there yet".

ongy 1y ago

The core devs were all paid to work on it when I was still active. Not sure how many of the gnome (mutter) people are paid. Last I checked, the nvidia support was donated by nvidia (paid) for both KDE and Gnome. I think KDE got some work sponsored by valve (before gamescope), though I'm not quite sure on that. Overall, outside the sway/wlroots group I was a part of at the time, people generally worked adjacent or directly on wayland for day jobs.

yyyk 1y ago

X withering away was inevitable once you consider the 'economic' situation - very few people worked on it once the commercial Unix vendors went down. There was little practical enthusiasm for a common layer. Even before Wayland, its role was reduced more and more. Wayland is natural evolution of this where most of the work is offloaded to more resourced Desktop environments and the org mostly sets standards.

slackfan 1y ago
X wasn't withering away, it was pointedly being poisoned.
- gf000 1y ago
  Feel free to include any kind of source for that. Otherwise, it is just FUD.
  - slackfan 1y ago
    Sure, the developer culture of the people working on X has been "This is too difficult/obscure/shitty therefore it should die." There have been repeated posts about this to various forums, news.ycombinator.com included. Refusal to accept fixes, as well as a full pivot of the project to a targeted sundown instead of any attempt to attract developers to the project. Sources: The X project itself, hackernews discussions, both in articles and in comments. It's not my job to educate you.
o11c 1y ago
And X11 is all the better now that fewer people are working on it. I don't need new features in my windowing system, I just need it to stay out of my way.

dang 1y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dodomodo 1y ago
I was wrong to word myself the way I did, but my comment is simple not shallow, what I'm trying to say is that the amount of work done is not worth the architectural advantages of Wayland. It's a simple argument that people in the replies didn't fail to understand, but did fail to have a good response too. My real violation of the guidelines is this in my opinion: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
- dang 1y ago
  Thanks for that! I appreciate the guideline swap, and also your original intention. Btw, it's not uncommon that a commenter (you in this case) will respond to a mod (me in this case) with substantive information that they didn't include in their original comment, which explains what they really meant to say. We call this the 'rebound' phenomenon (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20rebound&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). It's a pity that the comment doesn't come out this way to begin with! But it's hard to remember that the state in one's head isn't transmitted automatically, and also hard to figure out which bits of it need to be put into a comment. Something about getting resistance (like a mod reply) stimulates this process. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to activate it more proactively.