LCA: The ways of Wayland

True. I never really thought of it like that, but libX11 is indeed a library implementation of the client side of the X protocol. I think the key is that it does nothing else (well, actually it does, too much else, that's why XCB is slowly taking off).

I guess what I'm really hoping is that something like XCB turns up to permit toolkits to do exactly what XCB/Xlib currently permit, i.e. remoting without exchanging vast heaps of compressed bitmaps. The downside is that now the toolkits -- or someone -- have to write the server side as well, and that requires coordination between toolkits, which historically they have been bloody awful at (mostly due to Gtk's flaming NIH syndrome, as I understand it).

I suppose you could use X-on-Wayland and XCB/Xlib for that, but in that case I'm afraid I don't really see much benefit to Wayland at all, other than I suppose a really disruptive way to get code cleanliness (and it's not like you can ditch the X server if you're still running X-on-Wayland for a lot of your work). Perhaps that's because a lot of the important X apps I run, I run remotely, excepting konsoles and the occasional game, which as DRI2 users are talking directly to the graphics card *already* without any need for Wayland...