Mailing List Archive

Frank Peters posted on Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:36:09 -0400 as excerpted:

> Up and coming, like it or not, from the Freedesktop project is the
> X-Window replacement called Wayland. Gentoo is already involved with
> Wayland although it is still considered experimental.
>
> My concern is whether or not Wayland will totally supplant X-Window or
> will it exist as an option to X-Window. That is, when Wayland becomes
> finally ready for prime time, will we all be forced to adopt it with no
> alternative or will the standard X-Window also be a choice?

Good question. Note that it can actually be seen as two separate
questions, one in general, and one as it applies to gentoo, specifically.

For the general case, from all I've read, all the informed sources seem
to expect the two to coexist together for some time, if I were to guess,
I'd say three years or so minimum, and likely far longer in some distros,
particularly those like gentoo and debian that support platforms running
more than just the Linux kernel and general GNU-based userland. Given
that the BSDs tend to move at a somewhat slower pace than Linux and some
of the wayland technology is currently most developed on Linux, it'll
likely be longer, I'd guess at least five years and very possibly a
decade or more, on them.

It's also worth noting that with some of the enterprise distros having
support terms of nearing a decade, even if/when "current" linux drops
xorg, support will still be around for xorg (on those old distros) for a
(relatively) very long time.

Of course the picture is rather more complex than that simple top-of-the-
fold summary implies.

* "xwayland" is an xserver run as a wayland client. There are already
xwayland patches for xorg that make it run as a wayland client instead of
directly, and now that xorg-server 1.15 has been delayed in ordered to
add more features, the xwayland patches could well make it. This will
provide the X-protocol backward compatibility for wayland, so it can
continue to run X apps that haven't been ported to wayland yet.

(In the original plans I remember reading that the plan was for this to
work both ways, such that wayland could be run as an X client, as well,
but I haven't read anything about that lately so I don't know what the
status is on that.)

* Wayland is already using mesa as one of its OpenGL backends backends
(with others available where hardware isn't able to run OpenGL/EGL),
rendering to OpenGL/EGL. So currently X-based apps that speak OpenGL/EGL
should continue to run as well, using xwayland for the X-protocol stuff
they do, and mesa (or other OpenGL/EGL implementations) where they
already speak OpenGL directly.

So there shouldn't be too much problem with people being stranded with X
apps they can no longer run, because xwayland, a modified xorg-server,
will be available for wayland, and X clients can talk to it as they
always have to xorg, and to mesa or other opengl/egl implementation
directly where they are already bypassing X using them.


* On the flip-side, it's worth noting that the wayland/weston devs and
xorg devs are generally the same people. After wayland gets going, their
focus is going to be almost entirely on it, and while xorg may still be
"supported", don't expect many new features, and at some point, drivers
for new hardware and the like will probably dry up too, altho legacy
hardware will of course continue to be supported and to work in existing
form for rather longer. (This is of course for the Linux side. The BSDs
will likely continue support for somewhat longer as well, altho just as
with KMS vs UMS, they'll likely eventually be forced to adapt, as in
general they simply don't have the developer power to continue xorg
development at its current level.)

* In practice, much like the story we're seeing play out with systemd,
while xorg will remain around for some time and existing features will
probably continue to work in general as they always have, just as the
various alternative init systems are, it's likely many of the newer
features will only function as designed and/or will only be "supported"
on wayland. And, as we're seeing with gnome and systemd already, I
predict they'll be dropping support for anything but wayland/weston
sooner rather than later, basically leaving the non-linux platforms and
those who aren't ready to make that change out in the cold, at least as
far as gnome goes. Just as we're seeing with systemd, distros such as
gentoo who want to continue to support gnome with xorg will be able to do
so for a couple releases, but at some point upstream gnome's code base
will have diverged significantly enough that it'll force distros into
only supporting wayland/weston for their gnome users, as well.

* However, just as kde has announced that they plan to continue support
for the BSDs and for Linux without systemd, and at least currently,
that's what they're doing, kde will continue to support xorg, too.

* Again as with systemd, other gtk-based desktops will continue to
function for awhile with xorg, but just as the BSDs aren't able to
support the xorg code base on their own, the other desktops won't be able
to support continued gtk development, at least not to the same level and
at the same speed, on their own, and they'll ultimately have to either go
wayland-only as well, or jump off of gtk, to qt or the like, again, as is
already happening due to gnome/gtk's growing systemd dependence.

* I don't know enough about enlightenment to be able to intelligently
comment/predict for it.

* Again, the few x-protocol-only apps and basic wms such as the *box
family and icewm, should continue to "just work" within the X domain,
regardless of whether they're running on xorg-server on the kernel and
hardware directly, or whether they're running on xorg-server as xwayland
on wayland, since AFAIK, they're pretty basic x-protocol in their
requirements.

So in the general case, basically what you should see is that with the
exception of gnome and to a lessor extent the other gtk-based desktops
and apps, existing xorg functionality should continue to be maintained,
at least for existing hardware, for quite some time. But expect new
features and new hardware support to eventually dry up and blow away, as
the new-feature/new-hardware focus will now be on wayland. Still, even
if it's via xwayland and mesa, existing xorg/opengl/egl-based apps should
continue to function, as xwayland and mesa will continue to provide
backward compatibility support for x-protocol/opengl/egl.


For the gentoo-specific case, given the above and the systemd precedent,
I think what's likely to happen there should already be pretty clear.
Gentoo isn't dropping openrc support any time soon (the horizon remains
unchanged, in practice about two years out minimum, even if they were to
decide to drop it today, and there's absolutely NO hint of that) and it's
extremely unlikely they'll drop xorg support either, at least not with a
warning lead time of multiple years, for very much the same reasons
including the fact that unlike systemd and (I think) wayland, gentoo (and
debian) run on more than just Linux, so alternatives much remain
supported as long as those non-linux platforms remain supported.

Again, the parallels to the systemd situation are very high. Those
running gnome are likely to find themselves with another tough choice,
gnome and systemd/wayland or give up gnome in ordered to keep openrc/
xorg. Gnome upstream always /has/ been the "there's only one true way,
ours, and if you don't see it, well, you're just lost", type, and that's
unlikely to change.

gentoo/kde will very likely follow their upstream and continue providing
support as well, helped by the fact that the qt toolkit they're built on
continues to provide very wide support, including for the BSDs as well as
(GNU/)Linux, and for MSWindows and various mobile OSs such as Android
(definitely non-gnu/Linux). In fact, that's one of the reasons we're
already seeing some of the other formerly gtk-based desktops switch to qt-
based, as with both systemd and wayland and with gnome dominating gtk
development, they see the writing on the wall.

And as with the general case, the pure x-protocol and opengl/egl based
apps and toolkits should continue to "just work" on either "legacy" xorg,
or via xwayland, as gentoo really has no reason to throw roadblocks in
the way, where there shouldn't be any upstream. At worst, just as
gentoo's doing today only adding one more reason to the pile, gentoo
(along with other distros in similar circumstances) will maintain
"trivial" patches as necessary to keep them working on gentoo. It's when
the patches get more than trivial that things become a problem, but
that's generally due either to deliberately uncooperative upstreams, or
to upstreams simply disappearing and their packages eventually dying "of
natural causes" due to pure bitrot.

> Another concern centers around all of the udev/dbus stuff which I have
> so far successfully managed to completely avoid. A second question then
> is how much will Wayland be dependent on udev? Will it be an option or
> mandatory?

*THAT* is a very good question -- unlike the above, one I don't have an
answer for.

To the extent that my experience and knowledge /does/ provide an answer,
it's this observation: Udev functionality tends to remain in general
optional as for the most part it's simply "plug-n-play" type
functionality like detecting new hardware and autoloading modules and
automounting storage drives when they appear. As long as you continue to
be comfortable doing things the "manual" way, which you'd seem to be,
udev continues to be optional, and my best guess is that it will
/continue/ to be so with wayland, of course with the obvious trade-off,
that you'll likely have to do the wayland equivalent of providing an
xorg.conf, since my best guess is that wayland will very likely depend on
udev to autoconfigure.

Dbus, OTOH, is I'd say an entirely different story. There are already X-
based (and possibly some non-X-based as well) apps that communicate only
via dbus. Presently, these are reasonably easily avoided, since the only
apps able to make a sufficiently solid assumption about dbus being
available are the automation/autoconfig type apps, and you're already
avoiding those to avoid udev. However, with wayland there will be a MUCH
STRONGER assumption that dbus will be available, since part of the whole
purpose of wayland is to be able to drop legacy compatibility from wayland
and its new protocol and only implement that via xwayland and the like,
so unlike with the x-protocol, the compatibility layer can be dropped as
soon as there's no further clients requiring it.

Thus, while it's ONLY a guess, it's a best-guess, wayland itself may well
require or at least assume dbus, and it's very-to-extremely-likely that
wayland clients will assume dbus to the level of hard-requirement as well.

But there's two bright sides to that:

1) As above, existing x-protocol and opengl/egl clients should continue
to work with few if any changes as they run on top of xwayland which will
be providing the compatibility layer they require. So if you're getting
along without it now as you say you are, you shouldn't have to worry
about existing x-based apps, and will only need it for new apps and/or
apps ported to wayland, presumably with new features added in the
process. If you're content with existing functionality, therefore, you
should be fine until existing apps die of old-age and bit-rot.

2) There's a project already well underway that will make dbus a kernel
provided service, since the kernel is in the best position to enforce the
necessary security as well as to be able to make the necessary bandwidth
guarantees, both of which have been proven to be major challenges with
the existing userland based implementation.

Thus, it's very likely that at some point you'll enable (or disable) the
dbus kernel feature much as you enable (disable) any other kernel feature
today, and the currently required userland baggage that provides the
feature currently will no longer be required.

Of course a kernel-feature-dbus means that unlike today, dbus should be
available from very early userspace stage, without forcing an initr* or
other similarly cumbersome workaround.

Whether that addresses your personal concerns about dbus I don't know,
but it should certainly go quite some distance to address the security,
bandwidth and simply hassle issues associated with dbus today, so it's
very possible that it will.

Of course, while given the people involved I'd put the chances of kernel-
dbus happening at well above 50%, I'm *NOT* sure of the status of
existing patches, if any, which means AFAIK while the plans are already
quite concrete and I believe there's /some/ code already, AFAIK it's
still close enough to vaporware status that it's not yet a given, and
things could well still change. But kernelspace-dbus (or at least
something looking and functioning similar enough that existing userspace
shouldn't have to be /entirely/ rewritten to use it) is definitely the
plan, anyway, I do know that much.

--
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

On Sat, 19 Oct 2013 07:11:05 +0000 (UTC) you corralled some electrons and
wrote:

> Frank Peters posted on Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:36:09 -0400 as excerpted:
>
> > Up and coming, like it or not, from the Freedesktop project is the
> > X-Window replacement called Wayland. Gentoo is already involved with
> > Wayland although it is still considered experimental.
> >
> > My concern is whether or not Wayland will totally supplant X-Window or
> > will it exist as an option to X-Window. That is, when Wayland becomes
> > finally ready for prime time, will we all be forced to adopt it with no
> > alternative or will the standard X-Window also be a choice?
>
> Good question. Note that it can actually be seen as two separate
> questions, one in general, and one as it applies to gentoo, specifically.
>

Ahem. Duncan, I was ready to archive this reply: tl;dr, but I'm glad I
stuck with it. It's a long read, but I sincerely appreciate your
perspective and detailed analysis of the current state of Wayland and
dbus/udev.

Thanks!.

~David

> For the general case, from all I've read, all the informed sources seem
> to expect the two to coexist together for some time, if I were to guess,
> I'd say three years or so minimum, and likely far longer in some distros,
> particularly those like gentoo and debian that support platforms running
> more than just the Linux kernel and general GNU-based userland. Given
> that the BSDs tend to move at a somewhat slower pace than Linux and some
> of the wayland technology is currently most developed on Linux, it'll
> likely be longer, I'd guess at least five years and very possibly a
> decade or more, on them.
> ...

Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> skribis:
> * In practice, much like the story we're seeing play out with systemd,
> while xorg will remain around for some time and existing features will
> probably continue to work in general as they always have, just as the
> various alternative init systems are, it's likely many of the newer
> features will only function as designed and/or will only be "supported"
> on wayland. And, as we're seeing with gnome and systemd already, I
> predict they'll be dropping support for anything but wayland/weston
> sooner rather than later, basically leaving the non-linux platforms and
> those who aren't ready to make that change out in the cold, at least as
> far as gnome goes. Just as we're seeing with systemd, distros such as
> gentoo who want to continue to support gnome with xorg will be able to do
> so for a couple releases, but at some point upstream gnome's code base
> will have diverged significantly enough that it'll force distros into
> only supporting wayland/weston for their gnome users, as well.

The between the lines here is that you have certain people for whom
backwards compatibility is an afterthought, stability is ‘not fun’,
and competition of different approaches is to be squelched by peer
pressure. All these points are really, to me, arguments for getting
away from Gnome as soon as one can (which I have already done, and
also switched to eudev).

David Klann posted on Sat, 19 Oct 2013 10:10:06 -0500 as excerpted:

> Ahem. Duncan, I was ready to archive this reply: tl;dr, but I'm glad I
> stuck with it. It's a long read, but I sincerely appreciate your
> perspective and detailed analysis of the current state of Wayland and
> dbus/udev.

Thanks. FWIW that tends to be my style and people seem to either love or
hate it. I've lots of thanks from people that find it helpful... but I
know there are others that ultimately killfile "Duncan's ranblings" too.

And I'm OK with that. I've always felt one has an absolute right to a
killfile, with or without reason given, and if they truly find my posts a
waste, then honestly, killfiling them probably is best.

But thanks for reminding me. I've been trying to remember a tl;dr
summary when I get into "epistle mode", and obviously I forgot on that
one, so the reminder (as well as the thanks=:^) is definitely appreciated.

And not to break my arm patting myself on the back or anything, but in
all seriousness, if someone spends as much time on the Linux news sites
as I do and can't have /some/ clue about general trends such as wayland
and systemd, they really need to reevaluate what they're doing with that
time. So hopefully I'm at least somewhat close, because if I'm not, I
really am wasting a lot of time for nothing! And if I can help someone
else with what I've gleaned, so much the better as it's more payback for
the investment! =:^)

Long (typical Duncan I guess) way of saying... thanks! =:^)

--
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

Barry Schwartz posted on Sat, 19 Oct 2013 10:11:40 -0500 as excerpted:

> The between the lines here is that you have certain people for whom
> backwards compatibility is an afterthought, stability is ‘not fun’,
> and competition of different approaches is to be squelched by peer
> pressure. All these points are really, to me, arguments for getting away
> from Gnome as soon as one can (which I have already done, and also
> switched to eudev).

FWIW, as an "if there's a choice, offer an option" kdeer, I've never
quite figured out what the "there's only one true way, our way" approach
of gnome made any sense at all for an "if there's an option, make it a
USE flag" gentooer, but I guess there's gentooers out there for whom it
must make sense... for a time anyway... or /whatever/ gnome did wouldn't
be an issue for gentoo as no gentooers would be using it.

Regardless, I do realize that there's people for whom the gnome approach
makes sense, I guess the "I just want it to work without me having to
think about a choice" folks. And I'm *VERY* glad there's a gnome out
there for those sorts of people, because if there wasn't, they'd be even
MORE determined to kill the choice in kde and other desktops that I so
much depend on (I've never seen a default desktop I liked and I don't
expect I ever will, which means I really DO depend on the ability to
reconfigure it into something I DO like!), and in Linux in general.

But I STILL can't figure out how someone can be a gnome gentooer, because
it just doesn't make sense to me as to me the gentoo and gnome approaches
are polar opposites. But they're out there. <shrug>

(Honestly, I really /would/ like to see an explanation of how someone who
finds the configurability of gentoo a feature not a bug, can find the
same configurability a bug not a feature as gnome folks seem to. I must
assume people are reasonable and thus that there's logic behind their
reasoning, but /I/ certainly don't see it in this case, and that really
/does/ bother me! So I really /would/ appreciate it if someone could
explain that logic to me!)

--
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

Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> skribis:
> But I STILL can't figure out how someone can be a gnome gentooer, because
> it just doesn't make sense to me as to me the gentoo and gnome approaches
> are polar opposites. But they're out there. <shrug>

It’s not just that, but the Gnome approach is like the Microsoft/Apple
approach, of reducing choice while at the same time forcing one into
pet project, non-standard software. In this case, X is a very old and
relatively stable standard throughout the Unix world, and so should
not be treated as if it were an afterthought, no matter how much one
loves one’s own ideas. I plan to resist change towards something else
for as long as I can.

I view Gentoo not only as flexible but also as rock-solidly
conservative. So I have hope to be on solid ground for a long time to
come. It’s one reason I came back to Gentoo after using Exherbo for a
while -- those guys were following the trends too much for me!

On Sat, 19 Oct 2013 07:11:05 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

>
> * On the flip-side, it's worth noting that the wayland/weston devs and
> xorg devs are generally the same people. After wayland gets going, their
> focus is going to be almost entirely on it,
>

The X-Window system, which goes back to the 1980's, is probably overdue for
replacement, and I would certainly welcome a modernized overhaul of the
Linux graphics foundation. But I would also hate to see more "fascism" erupt
as we are seeing with the freedesktop project. It's too bad that Torvalds himself
could not oversee *all* of Linux/GNU development rather than just the kernel.

Anyway, I would like to get started early with wayland. Doing an "emerge -pv"
for both wayland and weston (and also GTK+3 with wayland enabled) does not show
any requirements that I do not already have or could easily accommodate, and I may
install everything now just to see what's what.

I don't expect any definitive answer and I realize that I will have to do my
own research, but would doing this simple emerge process with wayland/weston/gtk+3
provide, right now, a representative version of the final wayland/weston product?
Or is the current Gentoo implementation just an incomplete step toward the final
wayland?

Frank Peters

On Sat, 19 Oct 2013 11:24:26 -0500
Barry Schwartz <chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:

>
> It’s not just that, but the Gnome approach is like the Microsoft/Apple
> approach, of reducing choice while at the same time forcing one into
> pet project, non-standard software.
>

Those are my sentiments completely.

Gnome, however, is a desktop environment, and, as far as I'm concerned,
all desktop environments are excessively bulky and totally unnecessary.
There is nothing that can be done with a DE that can't be done without
a DE. I never use a DE. A simple windows manager is good enough -- and
Linux/GNU is the only OS that allow me that choice.

However, what does concern me is that the "Gnome approach" will also
be the approach taken by Wayland/Weston, and indeed by anything that
is associated with the freedesktop project.

Many will say: "If you don't like it, then fork it." The problem is that
a graphical subsystem like X or Wayland is not the simplest of matters to fork.
A graphical subsystem requires a lot of resources and expertise to develop and
those few that possess those resources also will have the power to control the
destiny of Linux/GNU. It is not a satisfying thought.

Frank Peters

Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
> However, what does concern me is that the "Gnome approach" will also
> be the approach taken by Wayland/Weston, and indeed by anything that
> is associated with the freedesktop project.

There is a slow tendency to spread out and try to make everything one
big Gnome, from the kernel up, whether we like it or not.

I have a special problem with freedesktop in general because years and
years ago I figured out that fontconfig’s pattern matcher is a huge
mistake, in its very design, and needed to be purged ASAP; I pointed
out the problem, even wrote a less dysfunctional variant that I use to
this day, but was faulted for pointing out the problem but not also
volunteering to take responsibility to fix it. And I was told how
could it be so bad if everyone uses it? I realize today what happened:
we are being driven in the free software world largely by peer
pressure, same as in the Microsoft/Apple world. The computer
programming culture is badly infected with a be-like-your-peers virus
(which may also help explain the harassment of women that is becoming
a big problem in ‘tech’).

I’m worried about Wayland and such because of all this. I want
quality, and projects that could let fontconfig remain horribly broken
(unable to find or correctly distinguish different fonts) for years
and years are very unlikely to provide it. For that reason, for now at
least, I’d rather resist than try to go with the flow. It is almost
the kind of ‘dignity’ problem that FSF writing attributes to the use
of proprietary software; ironic, given that Gnome is still nominally
(if not in spirit) a GNU project.

Linus, of course, doesn’t get too caught up in that; he’ll tell you it
sucks, and who is going to win that battle? Linus wins by default. :)
(I do wish we had a _working_ GNU/Hurd as alternative, but that never
will happen.)

Frank Peters posted on Sat, 19 Oct 2013 13:01:33 -0400 as excerpted:

> Anyway, I would like to get started early with wayland. Doing an
> "emerge -pv" for both wayland and weston (and also GTK+3 with wayland
> enabled) does not show any requirements that I do not already have or
> could easily accommodate, and I may install everything now just to see
> what's what.
>
> I don't expect any definitive answer and I realize that I will have to
> do my own research, but would doing this simple emerge process with
> wayland/weston/gtk+3 provide, right now, a representative version of the
> final wayland/weston product? Or is the current Gentoo implementation
> just an incomplete step toward the final wayland?

As someone who is quite interested in wayland but has not yet bothered to
try it myself...

AFAIK, wayland as a protocol is maturing nicely, and weston as a
reference implementation compositing manager is developing as well.
However, applications using them are and by definition must be a step
behind, in ordered to avoid the chicken and the egg problem -- the
libraries must be available and stable first, before apps can build on
them.

AFAIK THAT is at present the weak bit -- the protocol is reasonably
mature and the compositing manager is fast getting there, so you should
have a fairly stable DEVELOPER/LIBRARY level representation. But at the
APP level, a lot of what's there is still stub or incomplete
implementation/port, at various stages of functionality and completeness
depending on the individual app you are trying at that moment.

So if your interest is say 40% or more developer level interest, it's
probably worth doing today. OTOH, if it's more than say 60% end user
application level interest, unless you really do have the motivation to
try it and the time to kill, you may not find much particularly
interesting to play with at this point.

Meanwhile, while the intended audience is more the binary distro type
than the gentooer type, for a quick spin, try the (kubuntu based) Rebecca
Black LiveCD distro, as it ships as a pre-built image so there's no
building to worry about, and has apps like (IIRC) chromium, etc, already
ported/built/configured and runnable on wayland.

I'd suggest that as a good first step. If you find it mature and
interesting enough to bother further investigation, THEN go for the
gentoo wayland build. OTOH, if there's nothing interesting there to play
with, you haven't wasted too much time building it just to find that out.
=:^)

A quick google on rebecca black wayland...

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22rebecca+black%22+wayland

Of course there's youtube videos listed there too, if you want an even
more introductory first step. =:^) Just be sure you're looking at
something current, as one of the first videos in the results here is from
the kubuntu 12.10 era and that's obviously going to be quite dated
compared to current wayland/rbos. But I see another from July, 2013,
which isn't /too/ long ago -- that should hopefully do quite nicely in
terms of pre-burn evaluation, even if it's not the /absolute/ latest.

--
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

I am also concerned by these developments with the likes of udev/systemd
etc, but in the case of xorg isn't the situation a little different? Are
the existing developers of xorg developing weyland, or is it a different
group? If this is the case, then hopefully the development of xorg will
continue allowing those of us who wish, to continue to use it into the
future. I hope this is the case, as this, in my opinion, encourages
excellence in the code. Having no pressure from an alternative leads to
the types of problems you experience with fontconfig.

On 20/10/13 01:15, Barry Schwartz wrote:
> Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net> skribis:
>> However, what does concern me is that the "Gnome approach" will also
>> be the approach taken by Wayland/Weston, and indeed by anything that
>> is associated with the freedesktop project.
>
> There is a slow tendency to spread out and try to make everything one
> big Gnome, from the kernel up, whether we like it or not.
>
> I have a special problem with freedesktop in general because years and
> years ago I figured out that fontconfig’s pattern matcher is a huge
> mistake, in its very design, and needed to be purged ASAP; I pointed
> out the problem, even wrote a less dysfunctional variant that I use to
> this day, but was faulted for pointing out the problem but not also
> volunteering to take responsibility to fix it. And I was told how
> could it be so bad if everyone uses it? I realize today what happened:
> we are being driven in the free software world largely by peer
> pressure, same as in the Microsoft/Apple world. The computer
> programming culture is badly infected with a be-like-your-peers virus
> (which may also help explain the harassment of women that is becoming
> a big problem in ‘tech’).
>
> I’m worried about Wayland and such because of all this. I want
> quality, and projects that could let fontconfig remain horribly broken
> (unable to find or correctly distinguish different fonts) for years
> and years are very unlikely to provide it. For that reason, for now at
> least, I’d rather resist than try to go with the flow. It is almost
> the kind of ‘dignity’ problem that FSF writing attributes to the use
> of proprietary software; ironic, given that Gnome is still nominally
> (if not in spirit) a GNU project.
>
> Linus, of course, doesn’t get too caught up in that; he’ll tell you it
> sucks, and who is going to win that battle? Linus wins by default. :)
> (I do wish we had a _working_ GNU/Hurd as alternative, but that never
> will happen.)
>
>

Paul Jewell <paul@teulu.org> skribis:
> I am also concerned by these developments with the likes of udev/systemd
> etc, but in the case of xorg isn't the situation a little different? Are
> the existing developers of xorg developing weyland, or is it a different
> group? If this is the case, then hopefully the development of xorg will
> continue allowing those of us who wish, to continue to use it into the
> future. I hope this is the case, as this, in my opinion, encourages
> excellence in the code. Having no pressure from an alternative leads to
> the types of problems you experience with fontconfig.

I view freedesktop stuff as if it were one package, because
effectively it works out that way; the individual parts come as a
group. In this case it is even less practical to just write an
alternative, since all the graphical applications use the fontconfig
API, and it is _that_ which is broken. I am not about to go modify
every graphical application and every part of freedesktop, donate the
code, and then go my own way, expecting the fixes to be
adopted. Nothing short of a fork of the entire repertoire is likely to
achieve the desired result.

The FAQ portions given here are not encouraging to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_%28display_server_protocol%29
They make good points, but make them in the wrong way; notice the tone
of mockery towards X. I’d be happier with a project that spoke
respectfully of what it was trying to bring up to date.

(My variant fontconfig has an ebuild at
https://bitbucket.org/chemoelectric/chemoelectric-overlay/src/b6bdf9375e61a38241ff1eb2fc98ed9ce6fcd406/media-libs/fontconfig?at=master
It’s based on an old snapshot of fontconfig. The main thing it does is
turn off broken functionality for grouping fonts. BTW
pkg-config.freedesktop.org is even more fundamental but also seems to
have serious problems, at least on Gentoo, though in this case the
problems are just bugs, and dev-util/pkgconfig-openbsd is a working
alternative. The latter will barf on some .pc files, but whenever I’ve
encountered this it was the .pc file that was broken.)

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 11:09 PM, Barry Schwartz
<chemoelectric@chemoelectric.org> wrote:
>
> The FAQ portions given here are not encouraging to me:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_%28display_server_protocol%29
> They make good points, but make them in the wrong way; notice the tone
> of mockery towards X. I’d be happier with a project that spoke
> respectfully of what it was trying to bring up to date.

The thing that drives me nuts is the general trend towards client-side
everything. That's great if the client is running on the same machine
as your display server, and horrible if not. Chrome does this even
under X11, which means that if I'm running under NX it takes several
seconds every time I hit page-down to transmit JPEGs of the entire
browser window.

This is really just a symptom of a larger problem though - useful
stuff that has already been done gets looked down upon compared with
useful stuff that hasn't been done yet. Nobody wants to help maintain
somebody else's idea.

The other problem is that the drive to make X11 more desktop-friendly
so that it can be monetized is leading towards a casual-user mindset.
Features that are useful to 95% of those using X11 today are probably
not useful to 95% of the people who the maintainers want to use X11.
Those who use Linux they way the do today may very well end up being a
small minority, having the kind of market share on Linux that Linux
has in the desktop OS world today.

Even if a bunch of devs fork X11 they're probably going to find things
moving backwards when the video card vendors drop support.

Rich