I do not know what it means either. I am just gonna think out loud a bit, because I do care about this stuff. But, am also not currently impacted much. Nice place to be for me at least!
In a general sense, Wayland is not Unix like, in the same way systemd isn't. X11 is, as were various init systems. And fact is, at the time those things were done, multi user computing was a thing, and it was all done with those ideas in mind too.
At the time, micros were on the rise, and apart from a few exceptions, were single user, and started out single tasking.
Two different roots of thought, now well grown into trees that share intermixed and intertwined branches.
I know that is an issue. Whether it needs to be addressed is an ongoing matter. A matter I am happy to discuss, but not currently one that impacts me too much right now.
My focus is pretty far away from a lot of that. Doing lower level stuff, and often with no OS, embedded. So, write it, include it, port it if need be, then compile and deploy it.
Minimum requirement is gcc, command line, terminal. In all other areas, Win 10 is fine. I really could give two shits what OS it is otherwise. Machines are all fast enough, big enough, etc... good times (for me) actually.
Again, not dismissive, just not a focus at the moment. That could change and I might care a lot too. This kind of thing happens to people. Sometimes often.
When I use X, I tend to make good use of the network capability. It is the primary reason to use it, along with ways, means, tools that have worked forever. I value stuff like that very highly because I much prefer learning and using new things to me, not always remapping stuff I know cold.
For example, in the past, I have enjoyed weaving a single desktop environment from a pile of machines and software. Did that to support, sysadmin, train and develop for advanced engineering software users of all types. I had the industry on my desktop and could run or do almost anything on a variety of platforms from that desktop and the time savings on that as well as my general potency 2as off the charts good. Beat a lot of other people who did not really grok X too.
Log in and just do stuff, and depending on what gets done, a few machines, or just one gets the job done, served up to me nicely, consistently.
For a long while after IRIX was done, I used a machine as my head end. Just worked great for that kind of work. Pretty much nothing was as good since, and apps have become far less flexible too. A pile of VM's are required for that kind of thing today and it is a lot more work.
But, it is also a lot more lean hardware wise too. That is significant right now, though I do not know how significant given how cheap stuff can be.
Anyway, back to the UNIX part. Small programs, smart data, pipes, all that stuff is UNIX. X11 allows all that to travel where it needs to and it is a very nice way to work.
If one wants, everything can be distributed too:
Fonts from one box, X Server from another, application on yet another, running on shared files from yet another, window manager on yet another, etc... An Indy used to serve up its nice window manager for my Linux for quite a while, just for shits and giggles.
And that is the UNIX way.
Sometimes it is powerful. I see people struggle with managed data, engineering software, etc. for example.
under X, I just made a beefy box, one copy of the app, one database on local disk, one backup system, and on IRIX that could be done live while people are working with just a few set and forget scripts too.
Then, serve 20 to 30 users. They do not have to know anything other than how to use the app. And they can't really break it either.
Admin on that thing was mostly cake and the users could run whatever they wanted as long as it had a respectable X server, they were good to go. Few of them would even notice or care, and it worked great over 100-T networks too. Kind of crazy to think about today.
The nice thing was those users could not touch the data except through the app. This saved so. Damn. Much. Pain. Worth the whole setup right there.
So that is one case. That case made me a ton of money too. Edit: That case still happens online, but alsonsuggers from being online. Outages, updates, fails on the part of the provider, data being leveraged in distasteful ways, sometimes expensive ways.
Done local, with X? Total control. It is nice.
Application servers. Loved them. And with super expensive 5 figure software? Making that available and performant to the people who need it without all the installation hassles is golden. Really do miss that.
All very UNIXEY.
Other cases include multi head machines. Beefy machine shared by two people. Was pretty easy with X. Not sure what the state of things is today. Probably not good. Probably not needed either. We got crazy amount of capable cheap hardware these days.
Basically, X is multi user graphical computing and all that can mean.
Current display systems are not.
We have moved quite far away from multi user systems, frankly. The basics exist and work, but we have no display systems that work in the same way. And very large numbers of people do not even know how they could work too.
Honestly, that is probably the core issue in play, boiled down!
"No reason to tie it to a window system"
Well, given a multi user graphical display system, "particular" kind of becomes moot. Run the window manager you want, etc...
In any case, here is what I think will happen:
X11 has always had this basic problem. People who did not use it, or who cut their computing teeth on single user dominant computing think very differently from those who did.
And it is not just about displays. The same thing is true for the command line too. Watching people come from DOS/Windows onto a proper multi user environment showed these differences in thought to be just as stark as those same differences remain stark today in the display context.
Most people know what multi tasking is and expect it. That is the dominant mode today.
Far fewer know what multi user computing is, and again I am speaking from the perspective of someone who took full advantage of multi user computing, and in the graphical as well as the general sense.
And that is the clash, in my view. A secondary one is breakage of a lot of little time tested, production proven ways and means of doing things.
Focus follows mouse + middle button paste is amazing when working across various windows that may overlap, or exist across multiple virtual desktops, for example. I can tell you, that is a super hard one to get away from. I did, and have, but it hurt.
There is a ton of this "noise" and given the state of discussion, appears to add right the fuck up. Still.
But I am rambling:
What will happen is we will either prove out the idea of multi user graphical computing is not useful, or we won't.
If not useful, all this stuff will eventually go away and we will bring up the next set of users on whatever that paradigm looks like in the end and that is that. The rest will be history.
Sort of like how we see mobile dominant users and desktop dominant users today. And that is far from settled. Mobile is nowhere close to displacing desktop. I use both hard too. No way.
But, if what gets made really is not so superior? Like those "precious use cases" really do hold significant value? Or, even if they could, but die off for a while?
Then we will do all this over again, reinventing X11 just like people tend to reinvent UNIX.
And look at the current trend to serve it all up via browser! Seems to me a lot of great 70's era ideas had real legs.
And this will happen because tech never, ever really dies. Someone, somewhere will see it and build on it to complete and it is game on. Or, they will think that way again because the line of thought has merit.
I plan on watching it all with great interest.
Personally, I believe in multi user graphical computing and have seen, applied, and profited nicely from the value it has.
Everything should go over the wire, just like everything is a file. So I have something I want to run on my phone? Just ask for it on the display I am using and go. That's X11. I think that kind of thinking is compelling and I think that because I got to do that and it was sweet compared to the usual, find it, install it, configure it, move / copy data to it mess.
Cloud computing does that with a browser nicely. But, it also means a few people get to rule the world too.
Whatever one may think of that, if we were to build multi user graphical computing in from ground zero, I believe it will endure for a long time, just like UNIX itself has. And it will because the core ideas are strong, very generally useful, etc.
We have seen this kind of thing before too. Really great ideas tend to stick around.
And this is not about the people doing Weyland not having great ideas at all. They are trying hard to bring some new ideas into play, much like the X11 people did.
Cool!
It is more about trying to convince everyone that the great ideas behind X11; namely, multi user graphical computing, aren't great, or can be replaced with something that fundamentally is not multi user graphical computing.
Given all that, Weyland NOT replacing X11 may well have set different, and maybe less conflict laden expectations.
But that would also have begged the question: what value does multi user graphical computing have? We may be in a better place had it been asked and answered.
I think it has a lot. And I think, like UNIX, it is most important that it can all be done, not so much that everyone needs to, or will benefit from doing it, or being forced to do it.
We shall see!