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Brent Busby posted on Mon, 30 Dec 2013 10:52:14 -0600 as excerpted: |
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> Totally agree. I love FVWM (and WindowMaker), and I think the ability |
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> to change to a whole different kind of desktop if you want is one of the |
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> greatest features of X. I have a feeling Wayland users are going to end |
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> up with a desktop that's theme-able (in the way you can theme a Windows |
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> desktop), but not completely replaceable with any of twenty wholly |
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> different desktop/window managers. |
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I'm somewhat more optimistic than that. |
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Certainly wayland is a huge change that will change the landscape of GUI |
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Linux as we know it in a huge way, relegating huge swaths of current but |
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deep-in-maintenance-mode X-based apps to legacy status unless someone |
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picks them up and updates them for wayland; absolutely no question about |
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that. |
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And I think at one point there was a danger of wayland effectively fully |
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integrating the WM into it. But at least in a number of areas (including |
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client-side decorations), the kde/kwin folks simply said no, that's not |
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going to work for us and we will not be doing it that way, period. |
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That was the big no to the way wayland and weston had things planned, but |
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some other projects took advantage of it and the consequent hooks made |
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available and no longer 100% assumptions, and are doing their own thing |
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now too. |
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I /think/ that's part of why weston broke off into a separate project -- |
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it's now the reference implementation of what is sort of a parallel to WMs |
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(but the comparison is only a rough one, they're technically working at |
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rather different levels, with compositing manager being a better |
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description of the wayland side), with wayland now exposing a protocol |
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both weston and other implementations can use. |
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And for certain, kde is going to have its own implementation, because as |
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I said, there were certain bits of the original implementation as now |
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found in weston, that were unacceptable to kde. |
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That leaves the way open for others as well, and I've read of at least |
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one other independent project working on its own implementation, tho at |
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this point I think they're actually using weston too. |
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I expect that as kde frameworks' wayland implementation matures as a full |
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second implementation of the compositing manager, showing the way and |
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working out some of the original oversights and kinks for others, we'll |
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eventually see other choices develop as well, either fully independently, |
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or as forks of the original big-two original reference weston, and kde |
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frameworks kwin (I don't know if there's a final name for the kde |
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frameworks wayland compositor yet, or if they'll keep the kwin name). |
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Whether it'll ever develop into the complex ecosystem of WM variants we |
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have for X after all these decades, or whether it'll remain at a list in |
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the single digits, remains to be seen, but I believe the opportunity is |
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and will remain there for devs who get that itch to scratch, in part |
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thanks to kde/kwin's early NO, that will not work for us and we will not |
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accept it, to parts of the original plan. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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