From my perspective X just got to the point where it just works for me few years ago and Wayland is just introducing more issues than it solves (to be clear it solves no current issue for me, only one that I think might be better for me is handling different refresh rate displays and maybe fractional scaling... and that could probably be done within X11)
Like, why simple "copy the screen" got suddenly so complicated? Why every WM suddenly needs a bunch of features that before were just handled by display server, where they belong ? Why some(most) WMs handle title bars but GNOME doesn't ? Why someone decided title bar management is optional to window manager ?
X11 might need to go but Wayland have learned no lessons from it. It's just knee-jerk "if X11 done it this way, let's do it differently"
Whatever the issues with X11, it was properly designed. Wayland is the kind of software that adds features with nobody looking at the consequences. Who knows what they will break next version.
From all the criticisms leveled at Wayland, this is definitely the strangest I've ever heard.
I really cannot thing of any existing functionality ever broken by a new release of wayland-protocols, neither by a plain bug nor by a bad interaction. No doubt someone else will be able to recall an example, but it's really not a common thing.
This is partially because the governance model and community mindset is the opposite of what you describe. Inclusion of new protocols in the stable release requires existing, proven implementations and consensus across multiple implementors, making it a high bar. New proposals run a gauntlet where pretty much everyone is looking at the consequences in detail.
In fact a more common criticism of Wayland is that the focus on high quality and the consensus requirement are too strict and have slowed down filling in feature gaps users need filled faster. This argument I think can be successfully defended against - mainly, that it helps avoid the mess X11 became over time -, but at least has some basic merit in reality and is an avatar for genuine user pain.
As for X11, as someone who had to implement a lot of X11 specs over the years, I can tell you that their provenance between X11 itself as well as ICCCM and EMWH had plenty of super dumb ideas and cruft and inconsistencies from lack of foresight and eventually datedness. You don't want to see the towering stack of hacks and heuristics we used to have to ship to make X11 behave somewhat consistently and sane :)
In short, with all due respect, but I think you really don't know what you're talking about. We really should resist this type of narrative reality distortion field on an engineering forum.
> making it a high bar
That high bar is GNOME having an uppity whenever a Wayland protocol is suggested they don't like, that even if is accepted, if Mutter doesn't implement it then its dead in the water given its the de facto default compositor on unfortunately what people consider "Linux", aka Ubuntu.
e.g. DRM leases that only got changed because Valve has the bigger underwear. Expecting games to implement DBUS (incl. when running under Wine) to access VR headsets just for GNOME is nuts.
The government model needs a change that stakeholders who ship devices to the end users that rely on them have more of a say, whether that's Google, Valve etc. Valve is now backing and pushing KDE into average joe end users is a telling.
Wayland design choices are heavily influenced by automotive and TV where it has been industry standard way before it became mostly usable as a desktop. And that has lead to design compromises that look odd on desktop.
But hey, you can probably run automotive UIs with your desktop compositor.
And Gnome devs are just being silly at this point.
This car runs KDE Plasma's KWin, along with many other Mercedes-Benz models currently launching:
https://youtu.be/wo5As8et1G8
https://youtu.be/pqJ-9SUPFwY
Notably this deployment doesn't use any of the old-gen automotive Wayland cruft like ivi-shell though. It's pretty much the desktop stack now.
I miss the 1990s Benz 190E I used to drive: the only electronics in sight were the tape deck/radio. Even the door locks ran off a vacuum system.
I will never buy a car that runs an X-windows server.
It's a Wayland compositor, not an X-windows server!
and even if it wasn't Wayland, it would be an X Window server.
> Why someone decided title bar management is optional to window manager?
Are you implying title bars should be mandatory in all WMs? I'm using DWM on X and I love that I have no title bars. If a program tries to force one on me I disable it or use something else if that's not possible.
It should be mandatory wherein the title bar is expected/desired by the user and not inherently the responsibility of each individual app by default. The wm should have the capability of drawing a titlebar for each app and do so by default unless the app opts to draw its own OR the user configures the system to not do so.
Yes, and that's how it's handled by the desktop environments I've used. Many programs have the option to use the system, program or no title bar. But should it be mandatory for every DE/WM or can the user choose one that satisfies whatever preferences the user has?
This way people like me still have the option to use window managers that don't have title bars. Title bars are useless for power users that know what program they're in and don't need them. To me they're in the way.