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Wayland on OpenBSD

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Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#2
I know this is just a "hack it together" effort, but I wonder if it even makes sense to emulate/support libevdev and libinput on non-Linux OSes.

While the Wayland protocol does reuse some libinput names/enums/etc., I don't believe there's anything in it that requires those particular implementations or APIs (that is, wl_pointer and wl_keyboard doesn't have to be populated by libinput).

Maybe wlroots should have OpenBSD-specific parts to its backend abstraction that use OpenBSD's usual input handling primitives. Granted, this would mean non-wlroots compositors would also have to implement this if they want OpenBSD support, but I'm not sure I'm convinced it's good for the OS ecosystem in general to standardize the userland interface that's provided to interact with more and more hardware.

Put another way, libinput seems fine to me, but part of the reason to have different OSes in the first place is to allow people to explore different approaches to doing things. Requiring that every OS that wants to have Wayland do things the libinput way seems counterproductive.

Relatedly, it seems silly to me to get seatd running on OpenBSD if OpenBSD doesn't support the concept of multiple seats. Compositors should just have a mode where a single, static seat is defined that owns all input and display devices.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#3
post #2

I know this is just a "hack it together" effort, but I wonder if it even makes sense to emulate/support libevdev and libinput on non-Linux OSes. While the Wayland protocol does reuse some libinput names/enums/etc., I don't believe there's anything in it that requires those particular implementations or APIs (that is, wl_pointer and wl_keyboard doesn't have to be populated by libinput). Maybe wlroots should have OpenB…

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#4
post #2

I know this is just a "hack it together" effort, but I wonder if it even makes sense to emulate/support libevdev and libinput on non-Linux OSes. While the Wayland protocol does reuse some libinput names/enums/etc., I don't believe there's anything in it that requires those particular implementations or APIs (that is, wl_pointer and wl_keyboard doesn't have to be populated by libinput). Maybe wlroots should have OpenB…

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Wayland is a replacement for X11 in the same way that a tricycle is a replacement for a tractor.

They have thrown everything difficult out of the spec and only implemented the most trivial functionality around a security model which you must actively break to get actual work (like screen shots) done.

That Wayland is 10 years old and still barely usable should tell you how far software developers have fallen in the last 30 years.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#5
post #2

I know this is just a "hack it together" effort, but I wonder if it even makes sense to emulate/support libevdev and libinput on non-Linux OSes. While the Wayland protocol does reuse some libinput names/enums/etc., I don't believe there's anything in it that requires those particular implementations or APIs (that is, wl_pointer and wl_keyboard doesn't have to be populated by libinput). Maybe wlroots should have OpenB…

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Not sure what your comment has to do with mine? I'm not debating whether or not X11 will stick around, or whether getting Wayland working on OpenBSD is a good idea or not. I was talking about the specific software dependency choices used for this rough port.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Wayland is a replacement for X11 in the same way that a tricycle is a replacement for a tractor. They have thrown everything difficult out of the spec and only implemented the most trivial functionality around a security model which you must actively break to get actual work (like screen shots) done. That Wayland is 10 years old and still barely usable should tell you how far software developers have fallen in the la…

The software developers who were maintaining X?

Perhaps you could show them how it's done, since apparently you can do a better job. They've certainly been clear that they're happy for anyone who wants to take over Xorg, yet no-one from the peanut gallery ever does.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#7
We've been doing some BSD cross work with Nixpkgs. A hope is that if we can extend that to NixOS too, and then it should be quite easy to checkpoint and share work like this for anyone to reproduce and pick up the baton on.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Wayland is a replacement for X11 in the same way that a tricycle is a replacement for a tractor. They have thrown everything difficult out of the spec and only implemented the most trivial functionality around a security model which you must actively break to get actual work (like screen shots) done. That Wayland is 10 years old and still barely usable should tell you how far software developers have fallen in the la…

> They have thrown everything difficult out of the spec

Not exactly, they have thrown out everything that almost nobody uses - such as networking. They have, however, added things that most people do care about - such as different HiDPI across multiple monitors and an extremely thin (low latency) render path.

> That Wayland is 10 years old and still barely usable

And that has changed in the past 2 years (with exception to whatever Ubuntu does to screw it up, but such is Ubuntu).

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#9
post #2

I know this is just a "hack it together" effort, but I wonder if it even makes sense to emulate/support libevdev and libinput on non-Linux OSes. While the Wayland protocol does reuse some libinput names/enums/etc., I don't believe there's anything in it that requires those particular implementations or APIs (that is, wl_pointer and wl_keyboard doesn't have to be populated by libinput). Maybe wlroots should have OpenB…

I think standardizing on libinput is a big deal, even if it's not required for Wayland use case. Otherwise it would have become a constant reinvention of the wheel.

Same goes for other similar use cases that aren't tied to Wayland protocols, but are critical for Wayland compositors to function and before used to be handled by Xorg in some unified fashion.

Re: Wayland on OpenBSD

#10
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is about preparing for a post X11 future. As Wayland continues to mature, classic X will attract fewer developer resources. I think it will eventually start to suffer benign neglect, and stop keeping up with new hardware.

Wayland is a replacement for X11 in the same way that a tricycle is a replacement for a tractor. They have thrown everything difficult out of the spec and only implemented the most trivial functionality around a security model which you must actively break to get actual work (like screen shots) done. That Wayland is 10 years old and still barely usable should tell you how far software developers have fallen in the la…

The last full release is X11R7.7 from... 2012

If it's a tractor, it's quite an old one. Give me that new tricyle instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8MZuAwNZc

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