Wayland is actually much, much simpler than X11. Most desktop users actually don't care about network transparency -- they want a fast, smooth local display. Network transparency is not needed. Better to take it out, and provide an extension module for those who want it -- based on something like RDP which is much more efficient than X11.
Remember that the object for comparison here is a Mac, which presents a perfect tear-free composited display running at 60fps. Compared to that, the old clunky X desktop is difficult to go back to.
Can't we all just accept the idea that Mac OS X curbstomping every other desktop Unix in terms of market- and mind-share might mean Apple got right what everyone else got wrong? Command-X, Command-C, Command-V. They're always there, they always do the right thing. Oh, and the presence of a dedicated "Command" key is another Apple-ism we should have adopted; modern Linux, following the lead of Windows, uses Ctrl. Which is just wrong and silly because you frequently do want to send Ctrl-C to a console program -- so terminal emulators remap the clipboard commands to Ctrl-Shift-X, etc.... Whatever.
Desktop Unix, except for Mac OS X, is a mess. Doing anything but throwing it all out and starting from scratch, emulating the cleaner, superior model of Mac OS X is falling prey to the sunk-cost fallacy.
See? That's what I mean by the Not Invented Here syndrome - no concern for existing use-cases, but it's important to reinvent everything anyway. "Most desktop users" don't have an any opinion on unix/linux/X at all, as thye use windows or OSX. So why is this group the only set of requirements worth of considering?
> Apple got right what everyone else got wrong?
LOL. Not even going to touch that nonsense.
> Oh, and the presence of a dedicated "Command" key is another Apple-ism we should have adopted.
Sorry, META is not the same thing as Control, and both are necessary. Control has an advantage (if you remap it to where it's supposed to be by swapping it with CapsLock) that you don't have to leave the home row.
> Command-X, Command-C, Command-V
I think you've mean C-k, C-y, M-y, as supported by a very large amount of unix/X software. Of course, you can change that to your M-x/M-c/M-v with ~/.inputrc of course.
> Desktop Unix, except for Mac OS X, is a mess.
Desktop unix works just fine. GNOME and KDE are a mess, of course, and the source of a lot the bloat and slowdowns that are seen.
(Take note of the x remoting content).
The thing is, we don't really "use" X these days, it's more just a wrapper. Toolkits and direct rendering do most of the work, that used to be reserved for X. So Wayland was designed to cut out all the cruft, and make everything nicer.
I must admit, two clipboards can be nice, but a single clipboard is probably sufficient. Maybe we can copy-paste without requiring the original program to stay open.
Probably no, we will not be able to copy and paste without requiring the original program to stay open. If you think of plain text, yes, that can work. But what about images? In which format should they be stored? Who should take care of converting these images from the internal storage model (the one used in Gimp is quite strange, for example) into plain bitmaps? And what about rich text? How can I copy and paste a bold, red, Helvetica 16pt text? In which format will it be stored in the clipboard?
Copy and paste, in its modern form, requires some form of MIME type negotiation that, in turn, requires applications to be around to negotiate.
Seen it, and seen the talk[1].
> we don't really "use" X these days
GTK+ and QT do not use a lot of X, as they render all their widgets with (e.g.) libcairo.so and libpango-1.0.so that only treat X as a framebuffer. Unfortunately, projecting your own usage habits onto others is an easy trap to fall into.
For example, one minor data point, from my desktop system - I use the built-in font server:
$ rdb -q | grep 'URxvt.*font'
URxvt*font: -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1
/// that said ///
As I mention briefly, I was warming up to the idea of wayland. GTK+ and QT are certainly popular, and some things DO need to be fixed. The linked phoronix article (or talk) does bring up some good points. The massive amount of (serialized) round-trips to the x-server (even locally) that are mandated by the protocol is paticularly outrageous. If backwards compatibility and remoting can be maintained through some sort of extension (or whatever), then it could even be a nearly-seamless drop in.
The clipboard and selection, on the other hand, have nothing to do with any of that. They aren't a performance problem, and there is no reason to remove it. In fact, given this is a big change in general, and an opportunity to fix some of the core protocols, why not /expand/ the idea to include a full kill-ring or similar? Call it a fix for CUT_BUFFER[0-7] that were never really used?
Changing protocols and the display pipeline ("things programmers have to worry about") is one thing. Cutting UI features that have been in place for a long time ("things users care about strongly") is a different world entirely.
> but a single clipboard is probably sufficient
When you've used both for decades, a single buffer is NOT sufficient. They end up serving completely different purposes, and are often needed simultaneously.
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44 [2]: http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/index.h...
I was almost warming up to the mess that is Wayland (though I still think "fixing X {server,extensions,whatever}" is a better idea). A decent case had been made that some areas (pixmap handling? already-client-side font stuff?), were in need of replacement.
Getting rid of "selection". though? WHY?! Compared everything else X does, it's not some performance concern. It is not even that complicated of a feature.
This, along with the bizarre "nobody uses X11 remotely" nonsense that is usually said when wayland is discussed is starting to smell like a microsoft-style "Not Invented Here" syndrome.
sigh
Selection-copy was the most important "required feature" for me, next to network transparency. If they are also messing with virtual desktops or few other minor window manager features, I guess I'll be staying with the version of x.org I am currently running. to go alongside my already-very-old windowmanager (E16).