Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The way I see it, it's a matter of who owns the chrome. Historically, we've seen that it is a losing battle to insist everyone uses your toys (e.g.: web input elements). I am not overtly opposed to keeping the protocol lean so long as there's a canonical and easy way to accomplish the basics.

Of course, because this is Wayland, one good idea suffers due to coexisting with other independently good ideas. The minds behind Wayland didn't want the protocol to ossify like X11 did, so they made extensions essential. If a given functionality doesn't need to be core, it's an extension.

Both great ideas in isolation, yet now, as a result, Wayland has trapped its ecosystem in a half-assed state of completeness. The one saving grace is that, unlike X11, things will actually improve over time as the gaps get filled in and older applications age out of the ecosystem.




> If a given functionality doesn't need to be core, it's an extension

In general, I think that is a good design.

The problem is the desktop compositors really struggle to agree on useful extensions. Which results in interoperability problems.


Which is the problem most protocols solve by putting the essential things in core.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: