> These seem to be intentional design decisions (marketed as being necessary for security, but really being power-user hostile)
That's an unnecessarily abrasive view: the Wayland protocol designers do not hate power users. But allowing programs to constantly take in arbitrary input & output information in the background, as well as simulate arbitrary input to other programs, is an obvious and glaring security flaw. Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs - but there is no sensible middle ground.
>Wayland is designed with the thought that users download random applications from the interwebz which are not trustworthy and run them.
I appreciate that the average HN poster, and to a lesser extent the average Linux user, does not do this - but many, many Windows users do. In order to actually break into a mass desktop market, there has to be consideration of the ways people who do not currently use Linux behave.
I would even argue that lots of current Linux users are guilty of this - how many Arch users are checking the contents of PKGBUILDs from the AUR? How many Linux users, when searching for the solution to some problem with their desktop, have blindly copy-pasted commands from some support post - or worse still, just downloaded a "fix it" script to run?
Wayland is built on sane assumptions, because it also aims to cater to a not-insignificant part of the desktop market. That the response of an X11 supporter is "simply run the correct programs" show how little they have understood the goals and successes of Wayland as a project. It is not X12, and some of us are grateful for that.
>Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs - but there is no sensible middle ground... In order to actually break into a mass desktop market, there has to be consideration of the ways people who do not currently use Linux behave.
Oddly, the actual mass market desktops have (and have had for a long time) solutions for the 'general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs'.
I know how bad was X11 technically, and sympathize with replacing it - but that by itself does not make Wayland a success. It took Wayland over a decade to almost get basic capabilities, and it's going to take another decade until all the compositor-based protocols are standardized (probably by eventually only having a single compositor implementation). By the time Linux finishes reimplementing its desktop, Windows and MacOS will be in an entirely different place.
Maybe this can't be helped - Open Source desktop development was always extremely underfunded and undersupported.
> by eventually only having a single compositor implementation
I'd just like to note explicity that this would probably be a compositor that tries to cater to only 80% of users (if that), with the rest of us being told to fuck off.
> That's an unnecessarily abrasive view: the Wayland protocol designers do not hate power users. But allowing programs to constantly take in arbitrary input & output information in the background, as well as simulate arbitrary input to other programs, is an obvious and glaring security flaw. Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs - but there is no sensible middle ground.
Of course there's a middle ground: require special permission for programs that wish to do those things. For example, macOS has permission prompts for "[Application] would like to record this computer's screen." and "[Application] would like to control this computer using accessibility features."
> Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs
Without this, you will forever be incalculably behind the proprietary OSes and the original X server. Perhaps you're happy in that corner, great! That puts you and whoever else exists there in the same conceptual space where everyone else with impractical and unreasonable restraints on their software lives.
That's a fine space to be in, but you don't get to say that it's the "correct" choice for the average user. It's the wrong choice, because it puts the Linux ecosystem at a permanent usability disadvantage. Instead of going with this "no you can't have it" approach, it would have been entirely reasonable to go with something permissions-based (perhaps even with a default that says it won't happen). Instead, we're stuck with one part of the community yelling that this is what everyone should want and everyone else trying their hardest to ignore them. It's an unhealthy situation for everyone.
> These seem to be intentional design decisions (marketed as being necessary for security, but really being power-user hostile)
>> That's an unnecessarily abrasive view: the Wayland protocol designers do not hate power users.
For the sake of civility and discourse I just want to point out the quote you're responding to does not talk about hating power users. The OP clearly just says that the "decision [is] power-user hostile." That's an important difference, as one is talking about substance (i.e. the decisions) and the other is veering into personal attacks. It's easy to conflate the two and I've certainly done it, but I just wanted to point it out to try and de-escalate the conversation a bit.
I also think it's reasonable to say that many security decisions in many contexts are "user hostile." Hostile design is an actual thing, where security and order are prioritized above convenience and functionality, and not simply an attack on "bad design"[0]. This is not to say all user hostile decisions are bad, but it's a trade-off. Asking for your password before every single interaction is user hostile (the user will never get in the flow[1]), but could be the right decision in certain contexts.
> Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs - but there is no sensible middle ground.
Unfortunately, this makes it unusable for 98% of the population. Wayland also breaks screen sharing programs, which are essential for most, especially now during COVID.
> I appreciate that the average HN poster, and to a lesser extent the average Linux user, does not do this - but many, many Windows users do. In order to actually break into a mass desktop market, there has to be consideration of the ways people who do not currently use Linux behave.
Restricting Wayland feature makes sense if other permission is also restricted like Android. But it's a Linux Desktop that can easily run/install anything with `sudo`. Wayland should support advanced features.
OK then, if Wayland is meant for closed and user-hostile platforms, why is it being marketed as a X11 replacement? Why is there a constant FUD-included push to dissmis Xorg in favor of Wayland compositors?
When you dismiss any reasoning as "userhostile" and "FUD" it will be difficult to understand any change.
For the life of me I can't understand why so many people are always convinced that people who develop replacements for decades old frameworks do it only to spite users.
But the answer is: X sucks. It's 36 year old software with dozens of extensions. No one wants to write software that uses X, and apparently, per this HN submission, no one wants to maintain X.
OK, X sucks in a way (although your argumentation for that is wrong), but replacing X with Wayland is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. (Also, I don't think Wayland fits in any hole nicely, with it being hostile to even such basic and universally expected features such as taking a screenshot.)
I don't understand where you are going with your first paragraph, except that you are assuming things about others that you should not. Similarly with the second paragraph.
less than a minute. And it is second time in decade I've tried Wayland.
>>> why is it being marketed as a X11 replacement? Why is there a constant FUD-included push to dissmis Xorg in favor of Wayland compositors?
>> "FUD"
> Wayland is intended as a simpler replacement for X, easier to develop and maintain. [1]
"Intended" is not "ready". Could please cite your claims?
> replacing X with Wayland
Would you prefer if X.Org developers just abandoned it? We would have "X.Org is Abandonware" ten years ago.
And it is not zero sum game. These are different projects. People tried to fix X and failed. No one on this thread is going to maintain X.Org. But hope is not lost — another project have risen to maturity in last ten years. It covers some use cases and now you are bashing it because it is not perfect.
All of it while X.Org still works and I use it every day.
It is an X11 replacement. Just like CDs were a replacement for vynil records, and MP3 files were a replacement for CDs. But nobody expects to play records in a CD player.
Considering you're this deep in the discussion with your comment, you've managed to overlook quite a few expected and needed features that Wayland misses (or is even hostile to) compared to X, and which thus make your analogy obviously invalid. In fact I have to wonder if you're just trolling me.
That's an unnecessarily abrasive view: the Wayland protocol designers do not hate power users. But allowing programs to constantly take in arbitrary input & output information in the background, as well as simulate arbitrary input to other programs, is an obvious and glaring security flaw. Unfortunately, that forbids general-purpose screenshotting and key-rebinding programs - but there is no sensible middle ground.
>Wayland is designed with the thought that users download random applications from the interwebz which are not trustworthy and run them.
I appreciate that the average HN poster, and to a lesser extent the average Linux user, does not do this - but many, many Windows users do. In order to actually break into a mass desktop market, there has to be consideration of the ways people who do not currently use Linux behave.
I would even argue that lots of current Linux users are guilty of this - how many Arch users are checking the contents of PKGBUILDs from the AUR? How many Linux users, when searching for the solution to some problem with their desktop, have blindly copy-pasted commands from some support post - or worse still, just downloaded a "fix it" script to run?
Wayland is built on sane assumptions, because it also aims to cater to a not-insignificant part of the desktop market. That the response of an X11 supporter is "simply run the correct programs" show how little they have understood the goals and successes of Wayland as a project. It is not X12, and some of us are grateful for that.