LWN: Comments on "Ubuntu 25.10 to drop support for GNOME on Xorg"

Xlibre

Wildfurangelplumes — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:32:33 +0000

I get the push for transparency, but projects like freedesktop.org aren't democracies. They're run by maintainers who have the right to manage their space, and that includes enforcing CoCs without turning it into a public spectacle. IMO open source doesn't mean every decision needs community consensus, behind-closed-doors processes are often the only way to avoid bikeshedding and harassment. As for Xlibre, the fork isn't the problem in itself. It's the fact that it breaks compatibility and the dev has a history of publicly toxic behavior, including anti-DEI rhetoric. You can fork, sure. But people are also allowed to say "no thanks."

Xlibre

cortana — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:29:56 +0000

The SECURITY extension allows certain clients to be marked as "untrusted" which prevents them from being able to spy on input events, take screenshots of other clients and so on.

Unfortunately many clients break completely under such restrictions. For many years, Debian patched OpenSSH to disable the use of the SECURITY extension by deafult. Nowadays I think the situation is a bit better but I've not used X11 forwarding for a long time so haven't verified.

Xlibre

wperkins — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 04:20:20 +0000

Yeah! This is one feature that I have used every day for many years!

I guess it's time?

daenzer — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 13:36:51 +0000

Mutter has an input thread. It currently can’t update the cursor position as directly as Xorg‘s input thread though, largely due to limitations of the current atomic KMS UAPI. Mutter‘s cursor movement is quite snappy anyway though, the difference in terms of input –> output latency is at most a few milliseconds.

AFAIK the situation is similar with other Wayland compositors.

None of this has anything to do with the Wayland or X protocol, how cursor movement is handled is purely between the display server and the kernel. (As a side note, Xorg‘s asynchronous mouse cursor movement was first introduced as „Silken Mouse“ in XFree86 4.0, when X was of similar age as Wayland is now)

Resistance to change

daenzer — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 13:14:50 +0000

The transitions are at different stages though. If the ICE –> BEV car transition was at the same stage as the X –> Wayland one, there would be around the same number of vehicles each in circulation (corresponding to users of X / Wayland desktop environments), and ICE vehicles would be a shrinking minority now or in the near future. However, BEV cars haven’t reached break even in terms of vehicles newly entering circulation, let alone in terms of vehicles in circulation.

Xlibre

paulj — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:50:41 +0000

Great news, thanks for the link!

Xlibre

vasvir — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 08:50:26 +0000

Well there is wprs (xpra for wayland): https://github.com/wayland-transpositor/wprs

I use it as my daily driver and while it has its issues it is workable...

I have filed some bug reports and some of them have been fixed.

Xlibre

jake — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 02:32:17 +0000

Thanks for moving this elsewhere. We appreciate it.

jake

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 02:05:07 +0000

Off-ramp reply: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=64...

Xlibre

raven667 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 01:58:15 +0000

I think in other cases with Wayland the compositors just support RDP or VNC output, VNC being slow but simple and RDP working well over WAN links with various acceleration options available in the protocol (maybe including just encoding as a video stream, same as any modern WebRTC video conferencing and desktop sharing system) if the server takes advantage of them, degrading to something like VNC if not. I think Waypipe is more for the single-app forwarding use case (although I believe RDP protocol is capable of single-app forwarding), and I'd be super happy when it gets integrated directly into Portable OpenSSH or as a Linux-distro maintained extension for the popular platforms.

Xlibre

raven667 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 01:50:57 +0000

> openssh's -X option claims to support interacting with X11 "Security extensions"

I think this refers to running xauth to set an MIT Magic Cookie value in ~/.Xauthority which is like an API token that prevents other users on the same system from just connecting to your forwarded X11 port on localhost and rickrolling (at best) your screen.

How many resources for professional graphics

raven667 — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 01:36:50 +0000

Sure the wire protocol for a SunRay wasn't X11, because it wasn't suitable for remote display even then, but there wouldn't have been applications to run on a SunRay without a local X server that could output to the SunRay protocol, much like how you could run a Wayland compositor which outputs to RDP and runs Xwayland for local apps. The apps didn't natively speak SunRay, so Sun invested in the X11 ecosystem with GNOME and StarOffice to make their product useful. While GNOME and KDE and COSMIC and LibreOffice and Firefox all exist today and are maintained by amazing volunteers, I don't see any vendor with the same kind of urgency putting effort into Wayland and accessibility to dot all the 'i's and cross all the 't's

Xlibre

intelfx — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:13:18 +0000

> Is there a replacement for XPRA?
>
> I still use ssh -X for some very graphically-limited apps - xterm mostly - but for anything using a modern toolkit you really need XPRA to get good performance.

Waypipe does not need anything like Xpra to get good performance; you get it by default.

> And the persistence / immunity to transient network issues/moves is a nice bonus in some cases

There is no persistence, however. Earlier versions of Waypipe had rudimentary support for reconnection, but it was since dropped — not sure why, perhaps lack of interest on the sole developer's part.

Xlibre

intelfx — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:11:48 +0000

Of course, OpenSSH (not just ssh, but very specifically OpenSSH) is going to be more widely available than Waypipe, simply by virtue of being an older and more established technology (as well as historical precedent). However, we weren't discussing that:

>> <...> With X11, you get the functionality out of the box. <...>

What we were discussing is that both are structurally *third-party software*. There is nothing conceptually "out-of-the-box" about `ssh -X`, not any more than Waypipe. Whether the latter is significantly more specialized and complex is in the eye of the beholder.

> X11 remoting has worked well for my needs

Nobody was disputing that. We were talking about whether it actually is a "killer feature".

Xlibre

pizza — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:48:32 +0000

> ssh is nowadays a common piece of infrastructure with multiple uses, so it can be assumed to be available. Rather like sh, ls, cat etc. Waypipe is specialised, complex, and has a ton of dependencies.

So... [random X11 application] isn't specialized, complex, with a ton of dependencies? I mean, if you're trying to run an X11 application remotely, you're going to need at minimum full client xlib+whatever else on one side, and an running xserver+whatever else on the other side. In other words, by definition, both sides need to have everything necessary to run said application, and *all of it* is outside the scope of what ssh provides (ie a forwarded TCP connection)

Along that line, nothing prevents [Portable] OpenSSH adding support for wrapping waypipe, eg by adding -W and associated configuration options. There's plenty of precedence, not just with X11 (via -X) and various authentication agents but also things like scp/sftp which work by forking off separate executables (on both sides) and shuffling data between the two.

(I would also point out that openssh's -X option claims to support interacting with X11 "Security extensions" by default; I don't know exactly what that entails under the hood but it's clearly more than just setting up a port forward and setting $DISPLAY on the remote side)

Xlibre

paulj — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:13:34 +0000

Is there a replacement for XPRA?

I still use ssh -X for some very graphically-limited apps - xterm mostly - but for anything using a modern toolkit you really need XPRA to get good performance. And the persistence / immunity to transient network issues/moves is a nice bonus in some cases; and absolutely essential in other cases. E.g., I use xpra to access the same instance of an app between work and home, without having to restart the app and my flow in it.

How many resources for professional graphics

paulj — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:05:05 +0000

Sigh...

> SunRay long predated standardisation on X11 across Unix workstations.

I of course meant: "standardisation of X11 across Unix workstations long predated SunRay.".

Xlibre

eru — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 12:37:30 +0000

ssh is nowadays a common piece of infrastructure with multiple uses, so it can be assumed to be available. Rather like sh, ls, cat etc. Waypipe is specialised, complex, and has a ton of dependencies. X11 remoting has worked well for my needs, obviously I am not running games or video editors through it. Anyway, I'll stop grumbling now.

Xlibre

intelfx — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 11:03:31 +0000

> But this seems to be a complex 3.party program that might not be available in all installations at both the client and server ends. With X11, you get the functionality out of the box.

The thing is, you don't.

`ssh -X` is as much of a third-party program as `waypipe` is.

And in the off-chance if you're **actually** talking about X11's **actual** network transparency, i.e., `DISPLAY=somehost:0`, then that stopped working satisfactorily even longer ago than `ssh -X` (unless you limit yourself to Motif and Tk, I guess).

Xlibre

eru — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:30:41 +0000

Thanks, good to know for the dreaded day I cannot use X11 any more. But this seems to be a complex 3.party program that might not be available in all installations at both the client and server ends. With X11, you get the functionality out of the box.

How many resources for professional graphics

paulj — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:55:19 +0000

> here is no Sun trying to sell SunRay terminals that depend on [X11]

Pretty sure SunRay actually used its own protocol - not X11.

SunRay long predated standardisation on X11 across Unix workstations. Talking more the Sun SparcStation days when X11 became standard.

Useful shorthand for the Nazis in power

Wol — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:43:58 +0000

"Unconscious bias" aka "like likes like".

(To some extent) I can't help but know things like your race. So that's the "if you wear it on your sleeve I will do my best to ignore it". My neighbours are dark skinned and wear turbans. I can't help but be aware of their race/religion, but they're nice people and we get on well. "You're you and I'm me".

If either of us started pushing our views, the friendly relationship would probably break down, but imho that is (a) disrespectful, and (b) as a fundamentalist-inclined Christian, it's also unChristian! "By their works shall ye know them", not by shouting your views from the housetop!

Cheers,
Wol

Useful shorthand for the Nazis in power

farnz — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 08:47:14 +0000

Coming from a German Jewish family, can we please stop conflating the Germans with the Nazis. Politics is horribly complicated, and lumping unrelated groups together in the same bucket does not help. Hitler wasn't even German!

I use "Third Reich" when referring to the period when Germany was governed by the Nazis; it's still clear what's meant, but doesn't trigger this sort of response.

I don't want to know your political/religious/sexual beliefs. If I don't know, I can't discriminate based on them. If you wear them on your sleeve, I will do my best to ignore them. If you shove them in my face I certainly will discriminate. Other people will take a different attitude ...

This is what unconscious bias is all about, and there's training that's all about ensuring that you consciously adjust for your own biases. It's unlawful to discriminate on certain characteristics, even if you do so unconsciously, after all.

Xlibre

Subsentient — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 07:53:27 +0000

Blernchlboogeržensqüizûløid

Xlibre

Subsentient — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 07:49:55 +0000

Uhhhh. Huh. Yeah. This guy is definitely a fan of the Führer.

On a linux mailing list.

Yeah.
I see the problem.

Xlibre

Wol — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 07:44:47 +0000

> > We're talking about a guy who openly and publicly sympathises with and advocates for nazism, that is, effectively, murdering other people for no other reason than their religion or skin colour.

> Defending Germany in WW2 is certainly troubling, but he also puts this text on his fork:

Coming from a German Jewish family, can we please stop conflating the Germans with the Nazis. Politics is horribly complicated, and lumping unrelated groups together in the same bucket does not help. Hitler wasn't even German!

> Crime is something you do, not something you believe, or something you say. If someone starts _doing_ things that hurt people, rather than _saying_ things that hurt people's _feelings_, _then_ they can be thrown in jail. We can't throw them in jail just because they believe or advocate for horrible things. That's a violation of human rights.

We do throw people in jail for just saying things. It's called "incitement to violence", where you get other people to do your dirty work for you.

At the end of the day, you always have to draw a line, and it's *never* a clean line. Call it the Heisenberg principle, call it the second law of thermodynamics, call it the "pick two, any two" rule. If you want tolerance you *have* to shut down calls for intolerance. Where I draw the line will almost certainly differ from you.

I don't want to know your political/religious/sexual beliefs. If I don't know, I can't discriminate based on them. If you wear them on your sleeve, I will do my best to ignore them. If you shove them in my face I certainly will discriminate. Other people will take a different attitude ...

Cheers,
Wol

Xlibre

lunaryorn — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:54:30 +0000

I'm not sure where you're from, but presuming it is the U.S. that's a tad arrogant a comment, considering the historic and current situation of minorities in the US, or, well, your current government.

We could have a discussion about the different interpretation of human and civil rights in the legal philosophy and the constitution in the US and Germany or the EU, or about the degree of practical political freedom in either country, but not this way. I'm sorry but I feel like this is not going anywhere.

Xlibre

donald.buczek — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:31:46 +0000

> Here in Germany, the views above under German alw require me to report this guy to the police, and have him arrested.

I know that the discussion here is supposed to be closed. I hope it is still permissible to comment on facts without passing judgment?

In Germany, there is no general obligation to report crimes. There is an obligation to report knowledge of certain particularly serious _imminent_ crimes whose execution can still be prevented. The list of these crimes is exhaustively enumerated in [§138 StGB], and crimes of expression are not included.

However, there may be additional legal obligations to report crimes based on special laws for certain professions. Civil servants may be obliged to report crimes committed in the course of their duties. Social workers and doctors may be obliged to report imminent threats to the welfare of children.

Finally, there is a general duty to protect others in [§13 StGB], which applies to persons in positions of responsibility (e.g., parents). In some circumstances, the prevention of imminent crimes is legally possible only by reporting them and not by other means of self-help.

All of this obviously serves to prevent particularly serious crimes from happening.

I would like to add that law enforcement authorities, on the other hand, are obliged to prosecute crimes (above a certain level of severity). This “principle of legality” serves to prevent arbitrariness [1].

[§138 StGB] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__138.html
[§13 StGB] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__13.html
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalit%C3%A4tsprinzip_(Strafrecht)

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:47:20 +0000

Gotcha. I made an off-ramp: https://soylentnews.org/~linuxrocks123/journal/19416

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:41:44 +0000

> Under German law, we can, and we do. See §130 StGB, Volksverhetzung.

Yup, that's how Europe violates people's human rights!

> And, as a German, I'm mighty happy that we do, because I believe that there's no human right to deny human rights to others, nor that anyone should be free to publicly incite genocide or downplay the Shoa.

AfD just gained 69 seats in your legislature and is the second-largest party now, so how's that political oppression working out for ya?

> Crime can also something you say, for words do have power.

See, that's how Europe doesn't understand what free speech means. Making "something you say" a crime because you don't like what is being said is a direct violation of free speech, and you guys just don't get that.

You'll figure it out eventually, though. You're helping AfD and its friends gain power because they can appeal to both moderate right-wingers and Nazis. The moderate right-wingers like what AfD is saying, and the Nazis know AfD can't say what it really means. You'll eventually figure that out and change your tune.

Or you won't, the firewall will break, and AfD will become part of a governing coalition. Then, they'll turn that nice government oppression cannon you've built right back atcha, and you'll _REALLY_ figure out what free speech means :) Serves you right if you're dense enough to let things get that far, I guess...

Xlibre

jzb — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 20:18:15 +0000

At this point, this conversation has gotten well off course from the article and is straying from "polite, respectful, and informative". This goes for this comment as well as several up-thread.

Let's end this here, elsewhere, in this article, and in future comment threads and articles. Comments like "typical $country-name arrogance" and "I didn't know your society had fallen so far" are never appropriate for LWN under any comment thread.

Xlibre

lunaryorn — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 20:00:52 +0000

Under German law, we can, and we do. See §130 StGB, Volksverhetzung.

And, as a German, I'm mighty happy that we do, because I believe that there's no human right to deny human rights to others, nor that anyone should be free to publicly incite genocide or downplay the Shoa.

For history taught us that we should really not wait until someone starts _doing_ this.

Crime can also something you say, for words do have power. Which is why we care so much about freedom of speech, after all.

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 19:59:10 +0000

> Is someone throwing him in jail? I don't see anyone (in the US) claiming that. A German mentioned having to report him at least, but the laws there around such views are quite different.

Yeah, some guy said he "had" to report him which is almost certainly not true. I didn't realize he was German when I read what he wrote; it looks a lot less kooky now since of course if you're German you're going to care about British war crimes against your country (and I'm sure there probably were some). Anyway, he didn't actually deny the Holocaust happened, whether he thinks that or not, so he's going to be fine legally even if he gets reported.

> Isn't Masterpiece Cakeshop exactly the opposite: you can choose to not economically interact with someone based on your religious convictions? But political beliefs are not so blessed? I suppose political beliefs are not (generally) a protected class in the US, so maybe it *is* OK in that sense…but then it cuts both ways and deciding to not interact based on politics is fine?

All Masterpiece Cakeshop says stands for is that you can't be forced to use your creative talents to express something you don't believe. The gay couple in Masterpiece Cakeshop was free to buy any cake in the baker's store. They just weren't free to force the baker to make a custom cake containing a message the baker did not want to say.

> Expressing disapproval of the product/company/processes?

I'm not talking about an environmental group running ads saying people shouldn't buy from a company because it doesn't use dolphin-safe tuna. I'm talking about mobs creating giant shitstorms to coerce companies to fire individuals the mob has decided should be unpersons. I'm talking, specifically, about Brendan Eich and James Damore. Eich donated to a political cause the mob didn't like, and he ended up cast out of the project he'd been a part of since 1995. Damore wrote an essay containing political views the mob didn't like, and he ended up fired from his job even though he was probably good at it.

When this happens, it's not the government itself doing the dirty work, but letting mobs economically ruin people for expressive conduct or political advocacy still diminishes their de facto ability to exercise their right to free speech. That's why California's political discrimination law would be a good idea for other jurisdictions to implement.

Xlibre

mathstuf — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 19:14:08 +0000

> We can't throw them in jail just because they believe or advocate for horrible things. That's a violation of human rights.

Is someone throwing him in jail? I don't see anyone (in the US) claiming that. A German mentioned having to report him at least, but the laws there around such views are quite different.

> Someone who is forced to interact with other people in a professional setting may, over time, change his discriminatory beliefs.

Isn't Masterpiece Cakeshop exactly the opposite: you can choose to not economically interact with someone based on your religious convictions? But political beliefs are not so blessed? I suppose political beliefs are not (generally) a protected class in the US, so maybe it *is* OK in that sense…but then it cuts both ways and deciding to not interact based on politics is fine?

> …what purpose do you think is served by conducting economic warfare against them by attacking their ability to earn a living?

Expressing disapproval of the product/company/processes? Am I obligated to buy something from anyone hawking some widget if I can't find a reason to need or want their widget because that would "[harm] their ability to earn a living"? If I find their widget as actively harmful to the well-being of my community (let's say they sell asbestos/leaded gasoline for vehicles/leaded paint in the gap between knowing it is harmful and the laws enforcing it come into force; perhaps PFAS chemicals would be the modern equivalent), do I have to stay silent because saying something might cause such harm? What if those harms come in the process of the *production* of their widget (e.g., child/slave labor) even if the widget itself is benign (e.g., shoes)? What if I really just don't want to funnel more attention/money/power to an entity I just personally find distateful (Soros, Gates, Musk, Nestlé, take your pick; there's a "villain" for any political view in business today).

Any of those things, on their own, are personal decisions. Stating my decisions publicly is a First Amendment right. It also mentions the right to "assembly" to build a group of like-minded individuals to discuss it. While the First Amendment says the right to "petition the government" (say, get laws passed to ban child labor), why would espousing such views to fellow citizens as such a group (through, say, advertising or social media) not also be protected under the general "speech" category as well?

> Philosophically extending that principle, I believe it's also wrong to use economic warfare to punish things that aren't crimes.

Will you speak out about using threatening lawsuits over the exercise of First Amendment rights (e.g., X suing ad agencies for refusing to buy adspace on X)? Is that not "economic warfare to punish things that aren't crimes" as well?

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 17:58:54 +0000

> Here in Germany, the views above under German alw require me to report this guy to the police, and have him arrested.

Oh my God, German law requires citizens to inform on each other like that? I didn't know your society had fallen so far. Again.

And, in fact, I still don't know that. Can you point me to this "anyone who doesn't report a crime is guilty of a crime" statute? I'm going to have a hard time believing such a ridiculous law exists without proof.

Oh, also, since your Nazi stand-in party just came in second in the 2025 federal elections, it doesn't seem like all your political repression is working very well, now does it? But you're just gonna keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result, aren't you? I wonder how that's going to work out for you guys. Guess we'll find out!

Xlibre

linuxrocks123 — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 17:47:00 +0000

> We're talking about a guy who openly and publicly sympathises with and advocates for nazism, that is, effectively, murdering other people for no other reason than their religion or skin colour.

Defending Germany in WW2 is certainly troubling, but he also puts this text on his fork:

> It doesn't matter which country you're coming from, your political views, your race, your sex, your age, your food menu, whether you wear boots or heels, whether you're furry or fairy, Conan or McKay, comic character, a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, or just an boring average person. Anybody who's interested in bringing X forward is welcome.

If those are the principles by which he actually runs his project, I see no problem.

> Man, you've got to have a limit to your tolerance at this point at least. If you haven't, how can we ever hope to make society a safe place for everyone to live in?

Crime is something you do, not something you believe, or something you say. If someone starts _doing_ things that hurt people, rather than _saying_ things that hurt people's _feelings_, _then_ they can be thrown in jail. We can't throw them in jail just because they believe or advocate for horrible things. That's a violation of human rights.

Philosophically extending that principle, I believe it's also wrong to use economic warfare to punish things that aren't crimes. That's just the majority putting on a "mob" mask to hide its "government" face and doing the exact thing government isn't supposed to do.

On a more practical level, while people who believe horrible things are not in jail, because they haven't done anything wrong, what purpose do you think is served by conducting economic warfare against them by attacking their ability to earn a living? Someone who is forced to interact with other people in a professional setting may, over time, change his discriminatory beliefs. Interaction with "the Other" is actually one of the only things that has the potential to change beliefs like that. Also, people with money and a stable existence are less likely to see acting on their terrible beliefs and going out in a blaze of glory as an attractive option. People who have nothing to lose, not so much.

In before someone says "but u boycott companies who fire people so u hippocrit": no, I'm not. Governments throw people in jail who commit kidnapping and false imprisonment, and that's not hypocritical. I'm just fighting arson with fire.

How many resources for professional graphics

farnz — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:47:58 +0000

The other really important thing is that hardware's changed.

When X11 was stabilizing, graphics output hardware consisted of a framebuffer feeding data to a RAMDAC that fed a CRT. If you were lucky, the output hardware had a simple overlay for the pointer, where it would switch the RAMDAC to getting data from a different palette and data source for a small rectangle (often in a different format, too - e.g. 4 bit with palette for the pointer, 8 bit with a different palette for the main framebuffer), with one data value reserved for "display the underlying framebuffer, not the pointer".

In this world, you could do things like colour correction by changing the RAMDAC setup slightly; change how it mapped framebuffer bits to voltages, and you got different pictures on the CRT.

Today's graphics output hardware isn't like that. We have a variety of display technologies, and we transfer the picture over a digital link. The graphics output hardware generates the image it sends over that digital link by compositing different framebuffers together, each with their own colourspace conversion, so that you can have a link that's 10 bpc RGB, being fed from an 8 bpc YUV framebuffer and three 8 bpc ARGB framebuffers each with their own conversions to 10 bpc RGB, and with those conversions happening on-the-fly. Further, the graphics output hardware may even be able to alpha-composite framebuffers together; if it can do this, it can sometimes do it before conversion to the link format, sometimes after, and sometimes even in an intermediate format (some hardware can composite in 12 bpc RGB, converting for output).

On top of that, the conversions have become more complicated; in the days when X11 stabilised, your conversion hardware was (at the most sophisticated end) a palette to RGB lookup, followed by a 1D LUT to turn each of R, G and B into voltages. In the modern world, you have 1D LUTs to convert digital values to digital values, 3D LUTs that convert 3 input values as a trio to three output values (so you can do things like have strong green reduce blue a little bit), and even conversion matrices, where you treat the input values as a vector, and multiply by a matrix to get an output vector. And, just to make things even more exciting, the graphics output hardware can directly read some compressed framebuffer formats; instead of having the framebuffer as a literal 1:1 mapping of pixel to output, you can have framebuffers that include shortcuts for things like "the next N pixels are all this fixed value"; this doesn't map nicely to X11's view that it can directly access pixels from the CPU.

X11, in as far as it handled modern hardware capabilities, did so by treating them as acceleration layers; you had the "main" framebuffer, the output link was configured to match the main framebuffer (possibly via a conversion layer for colour correction), and then any compositing was treated as layers for use by things like the Xv extension. For multiple monitor support, the graphics hardware was configured to have a single "virtual" framebuffer, with the output hardware scanning out its own chunk of the virtual framebuffer.

All of this means that the X11 model of hardware is hopelessly out of date, and to actually make full use of the silicon you're paying for (saving power, reducing output latency, reducing DRAM bandwidth used by iGPUs, having multiple colour-corrected windows, handling mixed HDR and SDR content etc), you need something that doesn't look like X11 any more.

Xlibre

Wol — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:46:15 +0000

As I see it, Free Speech is one of three things that are subject to the "pick any two" law of nature.

And personally, it's also the one I value LEAST!

The other two are the right to have a functional society that cares for each other, and the right to seek/be wealthy.

(I'd like to value all three roughly equal, but that means compromises in all directions - something a lot of people seem unable to handle.)

So the American obsession with Free Speech and Wealth is basically driving the destruction of society, as more and more people even in the first world fall into deeper and deeper poverty.

Cheers,
Wol

Xlibre

farnz — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:45:43 +0000

Of course, that comes with the thing that the people who actually do the firing are themselves expressing a particular belief. Effectively, you're punishing the people who chose to express their beliefs by refusing to work with someone for daring to have "bad" beliefs…

Xlibre

pizza — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:40:51 +0000

> Being fired by a company for something you've said is not a violation of the Constitution.

XKCD #1357 comes to mind.