[gentoo-dev] Re: Categories for GUI stuff x11 and wayland

[Duncan]

Kent Fredric posted on Sun, 03 Sep 2017 18:44:00 +1200 as excerpted:

> On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 14:01:08 -0400
> "William L. Thomson Jr." <wlt-ml@××××××.com> wrote:
>
>> Examples
>> x11-libs/gtk+
>> x11-terms/terminology
>
> "desktop" came to mind for me for some reason.
>
> "desktop-apps/"
> "desktop-libs/"
> "desktop-terms/"
> "desktop-themes/"
>
> All appeal more to me than
>
> "gui-apps/"
> "gui-libs/"
> "gui-terms/"
> "gui-themes/"
>
> "Gui" just seems too vague and generic here, and also feels like
> double-dipping.

Vague/generic agreed in general.  I'm not sure enough what you meant
by double-dipping (tho I have a couple ideas) to say I agree there.

But...

> And it will be additionally confusing if any of those apps don't have
> any GUI, like for instance:
>
>   gui-apps/xset
>
> That just seems backwards to me.
>
>    desktop-apps/xset
>
> Alright, I guess.
>
> Maybe a category for non-graphical desktop-related tools should exist
> instead.
>
>    desktop-tools/xset

How many of these xorg-suite apps have-been/will-be actually ported to
wayland?  I was under the impression that most of them will not be
ported, and it'll be the up to whatever compositor and accompanying
toolkit you choose to provide that functionality, as they generally
already do... to a point.  Certainly the compositor (aka
super-window-manager) is the only app allowed to control/delegate many
of the functions xset, xrandr, etc, set for xorg in common, for
security reasons, because wayland simply doesn't let one app mess with
and spy on another app's input stream, for instance, as X does.  If only
the compositor and/or apps it specifically authenticates for the purpose
are allowed to do such settings, it quickly becomes a toolkit/DE function,
and generic versions don't make a lot of sense as they simply won't work.

In which case, keeping the "legacy" x11-* names for such x-specific apps,
the better to eventually deprecate, mask, and send off to the
user-maintained "X-sunset" overlay, may make the most sense and will
almost certainly be less trouble.

And where there is a port, as presumably there is or will be for
many of the x11-libs, does it make sense to keep separate x11-*
and wayland-* categories where they differ, or throw them all together
in a heap?

Meanwhile, the objection to "desktop-*" is that it may well look about
as relevant in a few years as "mainframe-*" would look today, due to
mobile, wearables, and possibly ultimately injectibles.

> IDK.
>
> I'm not committed to anything I've said here, just food for thought.

Same here.  My biggest concern is simply avoiding, if possible, setting
up new categories now, only to have to redo them in 2-5 when hindsight
makes them look stupid.  It may not be possible, but to the extent it
is...  Other than that, I've no particular shed color preference, other
than don't make it 50 characters long or something so exotic we
have to refer to it as "the category formerly known as x11-*." =:^)

-- 
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