Re: FVWM: fvwm3? [on Wayland]

I'm going to document my own hatred for Wayland here, not that it will 
make any difference to its unstoppable adoption and the subsequent 
likely demise of FVWM. Note that I'm not an expert on the subject(s) nor 
do I have the time or inclination to become one as I'm 100% convinced 
that what I don't know, or any educated rebuttals to my arguments, won't 
change my overall conclusions.

Wayland is the latest and greatest step in the destruction of the basic 
design concepts that are why UNIX, 50+ years after its inception, is the 
world's dominant operating system. It completely misses the point of 
separating functionality into independent and interchangeable software 
components. I have read the Wayland FAQ for years about why X11 needs to 
be replaced, and it boils down to exactly two points:

1. X11 is old.
2. It supports stippled line drawing which nobody uses any more.

OK ...  1) what's wrong with that, and  2) update the API to deprecate 
un- and under-used functionality.

Integrate the WM into the graphics server? What's next -- integrate the 
server into the kernel? Impossible you say, Linus would never accept 
that? Yeah, after years of him hating on C++ he accepted Rust because 
it's memory-safe. (Insist on smart pointers in C++. Problem solved.) 
I'll always venerate Linus for his contribution to computing -- the 
Herculean accomplishment of cracking Intel's insane X86 architecture to 
turn the toy Minix into a full-fledged virtual memory UNIX 
implementation -- but 30 years of being worshipped as a demigod might 
have gone to his head. (He recently demonstrated in one of his famous 
flamings, justified because the pull request in question broke the 
kernel, that he doesn't know how to read a stack trace.)

I need FVWM, and therefor by extension X11 as has been documented here, 
because nothing else supports my customized desktop UI which allows me 
to be twice as productive as the alternatives. Not so much the visual 
look (an extension of MWM, perfect) but the bindings of the three mouse 
buttons, and most importantly the ability to iconify applications to 
specific positions on the desktop. All of the 
Gnomes/KDEs/M$Windows/Apples with their taskbars and iconboxes (in FVWM 
terms) require me to search by name or icon glyph through a constantly 
changing arrangement instead of my intuitive muscle memory moving the 
mouse to a known place on the screen and clicking there. I don't even 
have to look.

Remote X11 rendering between two networked machines? I guess the Wayland 
designers didn't understand that concept. Either they don't care about 
high-end users in a professional environment, or they're only targeting 
the 99.9% demographic of casual users. "A GUI application? You mean a 
web browser connected to a cloud server, right?" I've long suspected 
that all of these visionaries leading us forward from the same boring 
old software technologies must have secret closets full of black 
turtleneck shirts, Levis blue jeans, and white running shoes in 
preparation for when they become the next Steve Jobs -- wealthy, famous, 
and beloved by all humanity. See GNOME 3 for a precedent.

I'd like nothing more than to see a "Rebel Alliance" Linux distro that 
maintains X11, GTK and Qt, System V Init, config files without D-Bus, 
and everything else that already works (mostly) perfectly (plus any 
needed fixes/updates/improvements). But the huge amount of effort 
required (50+ highly capable and committed developers) probably means it 
won't ever happen. And I'm far too over-committed with my own open 
source projects to be able to contribute. "Retro" distributions already 
exist, but as Thomas astutely points out, the nail in the coffin will be 
when Firefox and Chromium stop working on them. You can have all the 
Konquerors, Vivaldis, Operas, GNOME Webs, etc. you want, but you'll 
eventually run into e-commerce, news, and governmental websites -- all 
required to function in current global society -- that fatally inform 
you your browser isn't supported and to come back when you're using 
something else.

I suppose I'll hang on to FVWM/X11/etc as long as I can for my real 
work, probably having to add a separate/dedicated "modern" Linux box 
with Wayland and all the rest for online tasks. Maybe they'll keep `scp` 
running for the rest of my natural life so I'll at least be able to move 
important documents over to the "real" machine for inspection, analysis, 
and archiving.

Sign me,
Disgusted