Wayland starting to work

Posted Feb 3, 2026 22:07 UTC (Tue) by jmalcolm (subscriber, #8876)
In reply to: Wayland starting to work by linuxrocks123
Parent article: Xfwl4: the roadmap for a Xfce Wayland compositor

> I don't think anyone needs to maintain XOrg, because Wayback is intended to prevent needing XOrg

Well, Wayback is just the bare minimum Wayland compositor required to run Xwayland. So Wayback is only useful as long as Xwayland exists. Wayback itself should be very simple to maintain for sure. Xwayland is not that hard to maintain as long as X11 stops evolving which is of course why the Wayland devs do not want X11 to evolve.

The thing is, two-thirds of the Xorg code is shared with Xwayland (almost all the Xwayland code is in Xorg). And this is the provides all the features other than hardware support. So, maintaining Xwayland (eg. security and toolchain compatibility) is effectively maintaining Xorg as well. And the only way to keep Xwayland stable is to keep Xorg stable too (to stop adding features to it)

So, yes, Wayback should provide a way to continue using X11 window managers for a very long time. But it also means almost by definition the complete stagnation of X11.

In contrast, the Xlibre project (not endorsing it) intends to keep evolving the Xorg codebase with the view that X11 remains the future of the Linux desktop. If evolving X11 means breaking things, they will do so. Clearly the Xorg folks and the Xlibre folks have a very different vision for the future. You do not need to invent conspiricy theories to understand why they could not work within the same repository. The missions are incompatible.

Perhaps the most interesting project is Phoenix. It also sees X11 as the future of the Linux desktop but does not see the Xorg codebase as the right way to get there. They are also going to break things but, as much as possible, what they are going to break is compatibility with ancient applications that nobody uses. They have even talked about the possbility of supporting Wayland applications. The project may go nowhere but it seems active at the moment. It is an interesting one to watch.

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Wayland starting to work

Posted Feb 3, 2026 22:41 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> In contrast, the Xlibre project (not endorsing it) intends to keep evolving the Xorg codebase with the view that X11 remains the future of the Linux desktop. If evolving X11 means breaking things, they will do so.

Except for the minor point that not "breaking things" is the entire point of sticking with X11 in the first place.

If Xlibre (or Phoenix) introduces something genuinely "new" then they have to get application, toolkit, driver writers, *and* other Xserver [1] buy-in for it to be of any real use... which is going to be a very tall order these days.

[1] Notably including Xorg, which thanks to XWayland is where most desktop users are (or soon will be) found these days.

Wayland starting to work

Posted Feb 13, 2026 8:40 UTC (Fri) by daenzer (subscriber, #7050) [Link] (1 responses)

> Xwayland is not that hard to maintain as long as X11 stops evolving which is of course why the Wayland devs do not want X11 to evolve.

It might not be your intention, but this can be read as "Wayland devs are trying to prevent X11 from evolving", which isn't true. They're simply not interested in evolving X themselves. Those who are would need to step up and do it.

> And the only way to keep Xwayland stable is to keep Xorg stable too (to stop adding features to it)

That's not true. Features can be added to Xorg without hurting Xwayland (and vice versa).

> So, yes, Wayback should provide a way to continue using X11 window managers for a very long time. But it also means almost by definition the complete stagnation of X11.

I don't agree that's a valid conclusion.

Wayland starting to work

Posted Feb 13, 2026 22:05 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

While the OP may have cause and effect reversed the fact that Xorg/X11 is and has been stagnating, and is unlikely to see a surge of development adding new features in the foreseeable future. There doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for it, people who prefer X11 don't want it to change, people who want change are working with Wayland.