Re: questions and sundry gripes about X11 multihead (it's a rant)

Brent Busby posted on Mon, 30 Dec 2013 10:52:14 -0600 as excerpted:

> Totally agree.  I love FVWM (and WindowMaker), and I think the ability
> to change to a whole different kind of desktop if you want is one of th=
e
> greatest features of X.  I have a feeling Wayland users are going to en=
d
> up with a desktop that's theme-able (in the way you can theme a Windows
> desktop), but not completely replaceable with any of twenty wholly
> different desktop/window managers.

I'm somewhat more optimistic than that.

Certainly wayland is a huge change that will change the landscape of GUI=20
Linux as we know it in a huge way, relegating huge swaths of current but=20
deep-in-maintenance-mode X-based apps to legacy status unless someone=20
picks them up and updates them for wayland; absolutely no question about=20
that.

And I think at one point there was a danger of wayland effectively fully=20
integrating the WM into it.  But at least in a number of areas (including=
=20
client-side decorations), the kde/kwin folks simply said no, that's not=20
going to work for us and we will not be doing it that way, period.

That was the big no to the way wayland and weston had things planned, but=
=20
some other projects took advantage of it and the consequent hooks made=20
available and no longer 100% assumptions, and are doing their own thing=20
now too.

I /think/ that's part of why weston broke off into a separate project --=20
it's now the reference implementation of what is sort of a parallel to WM=
s=20
(but the comparison is only a rough one, they're technically working at=20
rather different levels, with compositing manager being a better=20
description of the wayland side), with wayland now exposing a protocol=20
both weston and other implementations can use.

And for certain, kde is going to have its own implementation, because as=20
I said, there were certain bits of the original implementation as now=20
found in weston, that were unacceptable to kde.

That leaves the way open for others as well, and I've read of at least=20
one other independent project working on its own implementation, tho at=20
this point I think they're actually using weston too.

I expect that as kde frameworks' wayland implementation matures as a full=
=20
second implementation of the compositing manager, showing the way and=20
working out some of the original oversights and kinks for others, we'll=20
eventually see other choices develop as well, either fully independently,=
=20
or as forks of the original big-two original reference weston, and kde=20
frameworks kwin (I don't know if there's a final name for the kde=20
frameworks wayland compositor yet, or if they'll keep the kwin name).

Whether it'll ever develop into the complex ecosystem of WM variants we=20
have for X after all these decades, or whether it'll remain at a list in=20
the single digits, remains to be seen, but I believe the opportunity is=20
and will remain there for devs who get that itch to scratch, in part=20
thanks to kde/kwin's early NO, that will not work for us and we will not=20
accept it, to parts of the original plan.

--=20
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman