Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Ames Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Artix Linux and Xlibre Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2025 14:14:47 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 83 Message-ID: <20250807141447.000028d3@gmail.com> References: <1063lgp$jmj$2@reader1.panix.com> <1064ag9$1kvkq$1@dont-email.me> <1064m75$1lvr1$1@dont-email.me> <10667je$35rkf$2@dont-email.me> <106bdkb$2s14s$1@dont-email.me> <106bjgj$2t9mq$5@dont-email.me> <106cld0$33q3n$2@dont-email.me> <106l5kp$133ed$3@dont-email.me> <106ohbv$1q0ne$1@dont-email.me> <106s6ae$2irb0$6@dont-email.me> <106thun$2tl20$1@dont-email.me> <20250805120229.00002255@gmail.com> <106ulcf$35j8e$3@dont-email.me> <20250806090124.00005af4@gmail.com> <10716ac$3ok85$4@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2025 21:14:52 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="0490a4cb91035f688bb39682abf3b577"; logging-data="246617"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19kGwh9s1SinD/bydNCrhJ1hx5/K/dRNbg=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:sNGB5/a0vvsRTmNAn48yZGGbIeM= X-Newsreader: Claws Mail 4.3.0 (GTK 3.24.42; x86_64-w64-mingw32) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:70576 On Thu, 7 Aug 2025 03:25:00 -0000 (UTC) Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > >> It doesn=E2=80=99t happen in the FOSS world. =20 > >=20 > > We've just been discussing it in the context of Wayland devs and > > their imperious You Don't Need That attitude towards things that > > have been standard window-manager functionality in *every other > > extant GUI environment* since approximately the Mesozoic era ... =20 >=20 > Actually, GUI environments tend to be very different from each other, > in completely idiosyncratic ways Yes and no, but none of what you cite has anything to do with the point at issue, which is that every current GUI framework* _except_ Wayland provides the means for applications to do very basic things like size and position their windows according to saved user preferences or find out basic properties of the screen(s) for responsive layout purposes; meanwhile, Wayland (until just recently) has refused to implement such functionality, claiming that this is By Design and that Can't Be Done without compromising security... * (Whether you draw a distinction at the division of display server vs. window manager/toolkit into distinct components or not, the comparison is still apples-to-apples wrt. the relevant layers of the respective systems.) ...and yet, when it became clear that they were getting real pushback on this and stood a chance of failing in their bid to replace X11 because of it, *they blinked.* They backed down, sputtering, and began looking for ways to provide the very functionality they'd insisted all along Couldn't Be Done and Wasn't Needed Anyway - which goes to show that their rationale was nonsense all along. They could've done this *at any time,* but chose to be obstinate and autocratic instead, because it was more gratifying to them to make everyone else dance to their tune, up 'til the point where it looked like their own project might suffer repercussions from it. The only difference between that and, say, Microsoft's attitude wrt. the endless enshittification of the Windows GUI that nobody asked for but they keep pushing on people anyway is that, in *nix-land, people had the choice to tell Wayland where to stick it, and so the Wayland devs were forced to reckon with the consequences of alienating a sufficient chunk of their desired userbase - but the *attitude* on display is very much the same. > Wayland, like X11 before it, conforms to the *nix-philosophy > principle of =E2=80=9Cmechanism, not policy=E2=80=9D. It leaves it to upp= er layers to > implement particular policies, as dictated by particular GUi design > paradigms. Wayland is quite literally a case of developers deliberately hampering Mechanism in subservience to Policy. > Nothing =E2=80=9Cdemented=E2=80=9D about that. There have been real-world= examples of > apps trying to pretend to present login screens, or grabbing > confidential bank- account data from other windows, that kind of > thing. >=20 > X11 was born into a much more trusting environment. Security requires > a whole rethink of the display server architecture, and that=E2=80=99s wh= at > Wayland does. X11 is full of holes, yes - I am perfectly happy to acknowledge that. It was also never particularly good to begin with, and is long overdue for replacement with something less janky. *However,* that does not make Wayland's rationale for hampering window- management functionality not patent nonsense. Providing applications with basic information about screen layout and allowing them to size and position windows automatically does *not* implicitly require allowing them to scrape the contents of *other* applications' windows, snoop global keyboard input, or anything of that nature. The proof of that is, again, in the Wayland devs' own actions - they *backed down,* ultimately. If it were really impossible to implement such capabilities securely, they would've stuck to their guns; the fact that they didn't is the clearest possible evidence that their argument never made any sense to begin with.