wayland
The problem with Wayland is really not the protocol itself, nor that it is extension-based (that is actually a very good thing!), nor some weird conspiracy theory about it 'competing' with Xorg or being some kind of 'takeover' (it's the same people developing it! It's effectively just the next version.)
The real, actual problem with Wayland is that some desktop environments started defaulting to its use before it and its ecosystem were at feature parity with the systems and tools people were already using. Some projects jumped the shark. That's it.
We can be critical of something like Wayland without losing all nuance and inventing conspiracies and doom that don't actually exist.
re: wayland
@joepie91 that seems more like a problem with the desktop environment devs not being patient. I was quite stubborn about using Xorg until relatively recently because of how desktop environments jumped the shark, exactly as you said. I assumed until recently that it was still not particularly usable and I was pleasantly surprised.
re: wayland
@ch0ccyra1n I don't know enough about the internal politics within desktop environment projects to know what exactly drove these decisions; all I can see from my perspective is Wayland *just about* starting to be usable (with a bunch of major features still in staging/unstable), but some DEs have already been shipping it for a long time with predictable complaints following that (like missing screensharing).
Maybe the devs were impatient, maybe some manager in a company somewhere jumped the shark, maybe it was a consequence of Xorg support being unsustainable, maybe it was something else, I really have no idea about that part, unfortunately.
(My perspective is mainly that of a Wayland implementer with no direct involvement in other implementations)
re: wayland
@aylamz @ch0ccyra1n When people talk about "issues with Wayland", they generally aren't talking about the general technical quality like the performance or tearing, but rather about tools they have come to rely on (toolbars, screenreaders, automation scripts, etc.) no longer working.
> The reason for the wayland push is/was (afaik, might be wrong) to get more people to use wayland, to get the issues fixed faster. The wayland issues aren't going to get fixed if no one's using it.
Sure, but there's a reason why tech companies have gradual rollouts and 'insider programs' and whatnot for these things. You want to do this in a controlled manner, and on an opt-in basis for as long as possible (even if actively encouraged), to avoid setting everyone's workflows on fire, like has been happening here.
The desire is understandable, but switching everyone over to an incomplete replacement and then letting them be the guinea pigs without ever getting their agreement, is absolutely the wrong way to go about this, and that is why people despise Wayland so much.
re: wayland
@joepie91 @ch0ccyra1n fdo/kde/gnome are not a tech company though, they are (mostly) volunteers and enthusiasts etc, working with way less resources and also the dynamic is completely different: the devs are much more motivated to fix stuff if their and their users' workflow is broken.
it's not great but that's just how FOSS with limited resources is I guess :/
re: wayland
@aylamz @ch0ccyra1n Indeed they are not tech companies, but I don't see why that would mean they can't do gradual rollouts or testing channels (especially with eg. GNOME getting backed by Red Hat). The concept is not very complicated to implement.
> the devs are much more motivated to fix stuff if their and their users' workflow is broken.
I'm sure, but is this software being made for the developers, or is it being made for the users? Because it's the users who end up suffering.
re: wayland
@joepie91 @ch0ccyra1n > all I can see from my perspective is Wayland *just about* starting to be usable
I've been using wayland ever since I switched to linux (around 2020-2021 I think?) and it has always been a better experience for me than xorg. And that was with nvidia proprietary drivers even. Xorg sucks.
The reason for the wayland push is/was (afaik, might be wrong) to get more people to use wayland, to get the issues fixed faster. The wayland issues aren't going to get fixed if no one's using it. And also devs want to retire xorg ASAP because its an awful mess that nobody wants to deal with. (so I've heard anyway, I don't have any xorg/wayland dev experience, only as a user of DEs and apps).