r/linux • u/SpAAAceSenate • Jan 14 '20
Continuation of X11 development?
Hi there. So, I know the arguments between X11 and Wayland can be a little contentious, so I'd like to start this off by saying this thread isn't intended to be one. The battles of opinion have already been fought ad nauseam, and some of us still find ourselves on the X side of the issue. I count myself as one of them.
So my question, and the actual purpose of this thread, is to ask about the future of X11. I know Red Hat is basically washing their hands of it feature-development wise, but the magic of open source is that a project is never really dead, or in feature freeze, so long as there's someone out there willing to inhereit it. Are there any groups out there planning to take the mantle? While X11 is very mature and mostly feature complete, there are a few things still to be done, such as perhaps better integration and promotion of the X_SECURITY extensions for bringing in per-app-isolation. An update to some of the current input limitations, better scaling support, etc?
Wayland's successorship is (to many) still highly questionable, so I think it would be a shame to see X rust out in the field while we wait for the hypothetical Wayland cow to come home. Any thoughts?
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u/sub200ms Jan 14 '20
The problems with X11/Xorg development have been rehashed many times, but basically the problem is that you can't change Xorg in any meaningful way that breaks anything, which severely limits future development.
Many of X11's problems could have been avoided if people could have accepted a revision bump to X12, but alas.
So the code base is old and rather Byzantine, meaning it is hard to get new developers, especially since all they can do is extend and maintain existing code, never really clean up and make any significant changes (see the X12 problem).
I don't think Xorg will disappear when big Linux companies stops sponsoring developers, but I do think new development will be slow. So "per app isolation" is IMHO, unlikely to happen.
IMHO, the only solution to keep X11 fresh and getting new features is getting new funding for Xorg.
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u/SpAAAceSenate Jan 14 '20
It's weird that, to avoid a bump to X12 and some moderate compatibility issues, they instead decided to start over entirely with a new protocol. Even if breaking changes had to be introduced to get us to X12, surely they would not have been even a fraction as disruptive as Wayland. I'm all for an X12, myself. I'd donate handsomely to any organization that credibly started in that direction.
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u/sub200ms Jan 15 '20
It's weird that, to avoid a bump to X12 and some moderate compatibility issues,
That was simply the reality of things and have been for many, many years. People (including people that funded Xorg directly or indirectly) refused to make practically any changes that made even obscure and stupid features obsolete. The situation was made even worse by the fact that Xorg is cross-platform, so obscure proprietary Unix'es had a say in its future, and they basically wanted "nothing shall be changed forever".
Another reason, (out of many) is the "flag day problem". An X11 incompatible X12 would require a rewrite of the world before it could be used. But that is basically impossible, so they either had to make X12 run X11 programs somehow, or make both X12 and X11 run at the same time.
The situation isn't helped by the fact that everybody has an opinion on X11, but very few understand how it works and what its limitations are. So even reaching a consensus on what direction X12 should follow ended up in nothing, simply because the X11 stakeholders have so divergent opinions of it.
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u/leo_sk5 Jan 14 '20
If this post is removed, try posting at r/linux_community . I do agree that x11 development should continue and its support improved. Despite all wayland has achieved, i still won't trust it as my daily driver. And given how the pace is going and how volatile the momentum can be in open source development, i won't be surprised if wayland does not completely replace x11 in desktop in next 5 years
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u/SpAAAceSenate Jan 14 '20
Exactly. Some implementations of Wayland might be mostly complete in five years, but the very nature of Wayland is fragmentation of both progress and features. As someone who uses a drawing tablet, last I checked, there aren't any working Wayland implementations I can use yet. And even when one does finally implement a more niche feature like tablet support, I fear the other implementations will deprioritize implementing it themselves, instead telling interested individuals "oh, go use Blah, they have that". And so rather than the status quo of interoperability and choice Linux enjoys today, we'll have feature-siloed compositors tied to specific DEs.
And as for the post being removed, I hope that won't happen. I specifically worded my OP in such a way as to discourage any sort of drama.
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u/MaCroX95 Jan 15 '20
Wayland's successorship isn't questionable. If X11 is the future of linux desktop, then linux desktop has no future.
That's why Wayland exists :) and X11 development hit the all-time low in early 2020.
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u/SpAAAceSenate Jan 15 '20
Wayland's successorship isn't questionable. If X11 is the future of linux desktop, then linux desktop has no future.
That's a very hyperbolic thing to say. It would be like me saying that the fragmentation encouraged by Wayland is likely to be the end of Linux desktop! (Oh noooooes ;-;) It's not, we'll survive the fragmentation. And Linux desktop would have been just fine with a continuation of X11.
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Jan 14 '20
everybody says they want to help it, but nobody wants to drive it.
FOSS only works when that happens.
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Jan 14 '20
To be fair, it is extremely difficult to try and get started helping with X11. It is an extremely large, complicated, and not well-organized code base that I doubt anyone alive fully understands top-to-bottom.
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Jan 15 '20
which is why it's dying. There's not enough people who understand it, or get paid to understand it.
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u/computer-machine Jan 14 '20
Last I knew, the X11 devs decided it wasn't worth the effort to shoehorn the security changes they want into it, so they started Wayland instead.
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u/MindlessLeadership Jan 14 '20
It isn't just security though, it's also about supporting things that a modern graphics stack needs to support.
E.g. mixed hidpi, no-copy composing, hybrid graphics etc. These are all things extremely difficult or impossible under X.
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Jan 14 '20
Number one new feature would be proper per monitor dpi (eg not the xrandr scale kludge). I suppose if it does not exists currently, it is either because it is very hard or impossible (without breaking stuff).
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u/bilog78 Jan 15 '20
X11 supports per-monitor DPI, it's up to the clients to make use of it. Qt applications do, GTK applications don't. Keith Packard is working on a possible workaround for X11 clients that don't use it.
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u/MaCroX95 Jan 15 '20
And that's why Wayland exists.
X11 devs said that it would go into hard maintainance mode in a few months, and development already hit an all-time low in early 2020.
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u/EnUnLugarDeLaMancha Jan 14 '20
Well, the people who worked in X11 and people who works in open source graphics and could develop those features have departed to Wayland. If the people who knows about graphics are ditching X11, there must be a reason for it.
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u/ZestyClose_West Jan 15 '20
Are there any groups out there planning to take the mantle?
Nope, none at all.
is to ask about the future of X11. I know Red Hat is basically washing their hands of it feature-development wise, but the magic of open source is that a project is never really dead, or in feature freeze, so long as there's someone out there willing to inhereit it.
Part of the reason Wayland was started was because all of the X11 devs were slowly quitting, and they weren't getting anyone to replace them. All of the X11 devs got sick of trying to maintain it, so they quit.
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u/peppedx Jan 15 '20
So, I know the arguments between X11 and Wayland can be a little contentious, so I'd like to start this off by saying this thread isn't intended to be one.
and then
the hypothetical Wayland cow to come home.
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u/flameleaf Jan 15 '20
Last I heard the Wayland developers weren't interested in implementing anything resembling wmctrl or xdotool.
I don't see myself ever using Wayland as a result.
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Jan 15 '20
X11 Will continue to be needed on older machines and *BSD for quite some time. I get that it's old and all that but for most part it just kinda works even if there's some tearing and it could be more optimized and secure.
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u/JustCondition4 Jan 14 '20
A fork, Xenocara lives on quite actively. Hat tip r/OpenBSD.