I think you are operating under the false assumption that Waylands should be or wants to be compatible with X.
This is neither the case nor was it ever promised feature wise.
Quite to the contrary, Wayland started out as a project to provide an alternative to X that does not succumb to the same problems X is slowly suffocating under. For this obvious reason, Wayland took different approaches to achieve something similar to X with fundamentally different concepts. Arguing that these concepts prevent it from offering feature parity is just unreasonable.
Looking at your list of complaints, it’s also pretty clear that your beef is not with Wayland but with the compositors, eg. KWin for KDE or mutter for Gnome. Claiming that their support for Wayland is lacking in comparison to X is clearly not something the Wayland devs can address for you. Feel free to file bugs on their issue tracker. Claiming that it’s the Waylands job to provide compatibility for desktop environments is clearly wrong, it’s the other way round. No one would ever complain that the Linux kernel does not provide compatibility for Windows or Mac applications because a) they never said they would and b) why would they ever do so?
Look, I’m fully familiar with the “scratch an itch” approach to software development in FOSS… I’m not demanding anything from Wayland, I’m just saying it needs to work with the larger software ecosystem. You can’t use a graphical server by itself.
If it’s not working with desktop environments, not working with Nvidia, not working with keyboard/mouse configuration, not working with the clipboard, having issues with common software like browsers etc… what am I supposed to do about it?
There is no such thing as a graphical server in Wayland, at least not in the sense that X provides a graphical server.
The Wayland design focuses on standardized protocols and operations. The display server is supposed to be shipped with the desktop environment, eg. KWin is a display server, mutter is a display server and so forth.
Now if your favorite DE does not support what you want it to do input wise, clipboard wise, etc. that means that either they have not come around to implement it yet and your distro has decided to switch too soon (in your opinion) or they may even decide never to implement it. Then its time I guess to look for a new DE.
The Nvidia problem on the other hand is rather clear: most display servers for Wayland require “modern” Kernel features like KMS which Nvidia chose not to support. Honestly, I would have made the same choices. You cannot make you own decisions depend on the internal politics of a single vendor if you want to get anything done.
My advice: don’t by Nvidia or live with the fact that they are not a good FOSS citizen. “Fuck you Nvidia!” by Linus Torvalds comes to mind.
I have to ask, you do understand that people aren’t likely to ditch their entire DE setup and go buy another graphics card, which both work perfectly well with everything except Wayland… just for the privilege of using Wayland?
It would have to offer some outstanding feature to compel people to do this. But it offers nothing and is proud of it. I don’t get it.
I’m a FOSS contributor myself and I know what it means to volunteer time and resources for the community. But the software needs to meet users in the middle.
The FOSS and Linux software scene is a meritocracy. Software rises to the top if it’s truly useful and “Don’t use it” in my experience is code-speak for “this software is a solution looking for a problem”.
The Nvidia hurdle in particular is insurmountable. They haven’t wavered in their stance on closed drivers in the last 20 years, they have no incentive to care about the Linux desktop, and yet they have 80% of this niche according to Steam. If Wayland intends to die on this hill it can order a headstone right now and save time.
But the software needs to meet users in the middle.
No, it doesn’t. No FOSS volunteer owes the users of their software anything.
“THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”” after all.
Your kind of views is exactly why the burn-out rate among FOSS developers has sky rocketed over the past years.
Wayland and really any free software is powered by volunteers and unless you compensate them in a reasonable way, you have no stakes and zero say in the matter. The fact that they listen to users and a community which largely doesn’t contribute is a gift, not an obligation.
If Wayland wants to be a hobby piece of software that scratches an itch for a couple of people, you’re perfectly correct.
If it wants to displace Xorg, one of the most widely used pieces of software in the community, it’s going to have to cater to the users’ needs. And I do mean needs; a working DE is not a whim.
They can’t act like the former and claim the latter. It just doesn’t work that way. What good is Wayland if it won’t work for the majority of people and will eventually languish in obscurity?
I think you are operating under the false assumption that Waylands should be or wants to be compatible with X. This is neither the case nor was it ever promised feature wise.
Quite to the contrary, Wayland started out as a project to provide an alternative to X that does not succumb to the same problems X is slowly suffocating under. For this obvious reason, Wayland took different approaches to achieve something similar to X with fundamentally different concepts. Arguing that these concepts prevent it from offering feature parity is just unreasonable.
Looking at your list of complaints, it’s also pretty clear that your beef is not with Wayland but with the compositors, eg. KWin for KDE or mutter for Gnome. Claiming that their support for Wayland is lacking in comparison to X is clearly not something the Wayland devs can address for you. Feel free to file bugs on their issue tracker. Claiming that it’s the Waylands job to provide compatibility for desktop environments is clearly wrong, it’s the other way round. No one would ever complain that the Linux kernel does not provide compatibility for Windows or Mac applications because a) they never said they would and b) why would they ever do so?
You are barking up the wrong tree here.
Look, I’m fully familiar with the “scratch an itch” approach to software development in FOSS… I’m not demanding anything from Wayland, I’m just saying it needs to work with the larger software ecosystem. You can’t use a graphical server by itself.
If it’s not working with desktop environments, not working with Nvidia, not working with keyboard/mouse configuration, not working with the clipboard, having issues with common software like browsers etc… what am I supposed to do about it?
There is no such thing as a graphical server in Wayland, at least not in the sense that X provides a graphical server. The Wayland design focuses on standardized protocols and operations. The display server is supposed to be shipped with the desktop environment, eg. KWin is a display server, mutter is a display server and so forth.
Now if your favorite DE does not support what you want it to do input wise, clipboard wise, etc. that means that either they have not come around to implement it yet and your distro has decided to switch too soon (in your opinion) or they may even decide never to implement it. Then its time I guess to look for a new DE.
The Nvidia problem on the other hand is rather clear: most display servers for Wayland require “modern” Kernel features like KMS which Nvidia chose not to support. Honestly, I would have made the same choices. You cannot make you own decisions depend on the internal politics of a single vendor if you want to get anything done. My advice: don’t by Nvidia or live with the fact that they are not a good FOSS citizen. “Fuck you Nvidia!” by Linus Torvalds comes to mind.
I have to ask, you do understand that people aren’t likely to ditch their entire DE setup and go buy another graphics card, which both work perfectly well with everything except Wayland… just for the privilege of using Wayland?
It would have to offer some outstanding feature to compel people to do this. But it offers nothing and is proud of it. I don’t get it.
Then don’t switch. No one is forcing you to.
You seem to expect that people invest their time and energy, mostly unpaid, to validate your personal life choices. Frankly, I find that unreasonable.
I’m a FOSS contributor myself and I know what it means to volunteer time and resources for the community. But the software needs to meet users in the middle.
The FOSS and Linux software scene is a meritocracy. Software rises to the top if it’s truly useful and “Don’t use it” in my experience is code-speak for “this software is a solution looking for a problem”.
The Nvidia hurdle in particular is insurmountable. They haven’t wavered in their stance on closed drivers in the last 20 years, they have no incentive to care about the Linux desktop, and yet they have 80% of this niche according to Steam. If Wayland intends to die on this hill it can order a headstone right now and save time.
No, it doesn’t. No FOSS volunteer owes the users of their software anything. “THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”” after all. Your kind of views is exactly why the burn-out rate among FOSS developers has sky rocketed over the past years. Wayland and really any free software is powered by volunteers and unless you compensate them in a reasonable way, you have no stakes and zero say in the matter. The fact that they listen to users and a community which largely doesn’t contribute is a gift, not an obligation.
If Wayland wants to be a hobby piece of software that scratches an itch for a couple of people, you’re perfectly correct.
If it wants to displace Xorg, one of the most widely used pieces of software in the community, it’s going to have to cater to the users’ needs. And I do mean needs; a working DE is not a whim.
They can’t act like the former and claim the latter. It just doesn’t work that way. What good is Wayland if it won’t work for the majority of people and will eventually languish in obscurity?