4 ms·

It's been almost two decades and we're still taking steps backwards on accessibility and features because of Wayland. From day 0 Wayland put their idea of a be

It's been almost two decades and we're still taking steps backwards on accessibility and features because of Wayland. From day 0 Wayland put their idea of a beautiful design above the needs of users. It's hard to see how we can claim to be inclusive when even our most basic decisions are hostile to large groups of users. I never thought I would say this, but after 30 years of open source and Linux I don't see much of a bright future. Everyone I know from the community back then has moved on to using a Mac because of these issues.

hwsrtejk 1y ago
Absurd ideas like "applications shouldn't be able to spy on or manipulate each other without explicit permission from the user".
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  Nobody said anything about that. Is there any reason that Xorg couldn't tack on a permission system, other than that it would be inelegant?
  - fanf2 1y ago
    There were X11 extensions that implemented access controls, eg in TrustedSolaris.
  - cies 1y ago
    > Is there any reason that Xorg couldn't tack on a permission system, other than that it would be inelegant? That's the whole reason for Wayland's existence: such things were not "easily" possible... Linux+Xorg desktop would be hopelessly insecure for ever because these security features were deemed too hard to the point of not being "worth it". So Wayland was started. Someone is developing XLibre, and Xorg fork. It may be pulled off, but I doubt it. Making Xorg safe was tried many times for many safety-holes.
    - antisol 1y ago
      > Linux+Xorg desktop would be hopelessly insecure for ever People keep repeating this claim over and over, but in nearly 30 years as a Linux user and tech news reader, I've seen exactly zero news articles about an epidemic of Linux keyloggers. > Making Xorg safe was tried many times for many safety-holes * citation needed
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- nurettin 1y ago
  "There should be global hooks and applications should be able to register themselves should they wish" would solve all these cases, but horse blinders are also very important to wear.
- roenxi 1y ago
  Wayland, traditionally, has not believed that. It believed "applications shouldn't be able to spy on or manipulate each other" and doesn't give users any mechanism to suggest that they might have permission to do so because the idea of that happening was just not on their radar. I'm not sure about the modern state of Wayland but last time I saw it the situation was terribly messy and I was forced back to X11 because I rely on screensharing to do my job properly.
  - ac29 1y ago
    > I was forced back to X11 because I rely on screensharing to do my job properly. Wayland screensharing has worked for a long time. I remember using it early in the pandemic when the entire working world seemed to move to Zoom/etc for meetings. So, at least ~5 years?
    - light_hue_1 1y ago
      This is a great example of how horrible the situation is under Wayland. Screen sharing sometimes works. Sometimes doesn't. For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1ebwaz4/is_wayland_screen_sharing_working/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1ebwaz4/is_wayland_scr... There are countless such threads. Something that always worked perfectly out of the box now has endless workarounds per compositor/desktop system that you use.
      - antisol 1y ago
        Exactly this. Somehow the wayland evangelists don't seem to understand that it's not acceptable that something that was trivial to do and reliable for decades is suddenly buggy and broken half the time. I RESOLVED IT by using the x11 protocol Lol, yep, that's the solution for most of these issues.
- Lammy 1y ago
  I gave my explicit permission by choosing to run the software in the first place.
tapoxi 1y ago
But the Mac compositor (Quartz) implements the same permission model as Wayland, that's why you get a popup requesting permissions to share screen etc.
- wmf 1y ago
  This particular case is about accessibility not permissions. AFAIK accessibility still isn't completely supported in major Wayland compositors so it's a legitimate complaint.
koiueo 1y ago
> Everyone I know from the community back then has moved on to using a Mac because of these issues. It's your bubble. At the same time, I know many who have been forced to use Macs (macOS is new windows), but keep using Linux outside of work.

hwsrtejk 1y ago

Absurd ideas like "applications shouldn't be able to spy on or manipulate each other without explicit permission from the user".

yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
Nobody said anything about that. Is there any reason that Xorg couldn't tack on a permission system, other than that it would be inelegant?
- fanf2 1y ago
  There were X11 extensions that implemented access controls, eg in TrustedSolaris.
- cies 1y ago
  > Is there any reason that Xorg couldn't tack on a permission system, other than that it would be inelegant? That's the whole reason for Wayland's existence: such things were not "easily" possible... Linux+Xorg desktop would be hopelessly insecure for ever because these security features were deemed too hard to the point of not being "worth it". So Wayland was started. Someone is developing XLibre, and Xorg fork. It may be pulled off, but I doubt it. Making Xorg safe was tried many times for many safety-holes.
  - antisol 1y ago
    > Linux+Xorg desktop would be hopelessly insecure for ever People keep repeating this claim over and over, but in nearly 30 years as a Linux user and tech news reader, I've seen exactly zero news articles about an epidemic of Linux keyloggers. > Making Xorg safe was tried many times for many safety-holes * citation needed
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
nurettin 1y ago
"There should be global hooks and applications should be able to register themselves should they wish" would solve all these cases, but horse blinders are also very important to wear.
roenxi 1y ago
Wayland, traditionally, has not believed that. It believed "applications shouldn't be able to spy on or manipulate each other" and doesn't give users any mechanism to suggest that they might have permission to do so because the idea of that happening was just not on their radar. I'm not sure about the modern state of Wayland but last time I saw it the situation was terribly messy and I was forced back to X11 because I rely on screensharing to do my job properly.
- ac29 1y ago
  > I was forced back to X11 because I rely on screensharing to do my job properly. Wayland screensharing has worked for a long time. I remember using it early in the pandemic when the entire working world seemed to move to Zoom/etc for meetings. So, at least ~5 years?
  - light_hue_1 1y ago
    This is a great example of how horrible the situation is under Wayland. Screen sharing sometimes works. Sometimes doesn't. For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1ebwaz4/is_wayland_screen_sharing_working/ https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1ebwaz4/is_wayland_scr... There are countless such threads. Something that always worked perfectly out of the box now has endless workarounds per compositor/desktop system that you use.
    - antisol 1y ago
      Exactly this. Somehow the wayland evangelists don't seem to understand that it's not acceptable that something that was trivial to do and reliable for decades is suddenly buggy and broken half the time. I RESOLVED IT by using the x11 protocol Lol, yep, that's the solution for most of these issues.
Lammy 1y ago
I gave my explicit permission by choosing to run the software in the first place.

tapoxi 1y ago

But the Mac compositor (Quartz) implements the same permission model as Wayland, that's why you get a popup requesting permissions to share screen etc.

wmf 1y ago
This particular case is about accessibility not permissions. AFAIK accessibility still isn't completely supported in major Wayland compositors so it's a legitimate complaint.

koiueo 1y ago

> Everyone I know from the community back then has moved on to using a Mac because of these issues. It's your bubble. At the same time, I know many who have been forced to use Macs (macOS is new windows), but keep using Linux outside of work.