NVIDIA EGLStreams Support Merged Into KWin For KDE Plasma 5.16

[zanny]

Excellent news. Now all that's missing a version of Wayland that can actually do what people need it to.

"Wayland" isn't the compositor, Kwin is. And Kwin can extend the Wayland spec all it wants to implement the features people need to actually use it.

The problem is that simultaneously there are at least 4 disparate Wayland display server implementations in development, all with different extensions and features, and all reimplementing the same things over and over between them.

With X there was just one X server and all the window manager clients who did generally end up having to do a substantial portion of what was once X's job but I still think it is a failing of Wayland in general to not have the One True Display Server to make this transition less time consuming.

[bug77]

"Wayland" isn't the compositor, Kwin is. And Kwin can extend the Wayland spec all it wants to implement the features people need to actually use it.

The problem is that simultaneously there are at least 4 disparate Wayland display server implementations in development, all with different extensions and features, and all reimplementing the same things over and over between them.

A sign that the protocol and the reference implementation are lacking maybe?

[dos1]

A sign that the protocol and the reference implementation are lacking maybe?

There are plenty protocol extensions yet-to-be-written and/or standardized, so if that's what you mean, then well, yes, of course.

However, given that it's all still in its infancy and things like xdg-shell just very recently have been declared stable, it's all already in a pretty good shape for its age.

[KellyClowers]

Need a vomit emoji for this one...
Dear Nvidia, please DIAF

Open Source Devs: Stop encouraging them!

[starshipeleven]

A sign that the protocol and the reference implementation are lacking maybe?

A sign that the protocol was designed to be modular so does not come by default with stuff that would be useless cruft for many other usecases.

The issue here is that the Linux Desktop has very low attractiveness so not much are working on Linux Desktop Wayland extensions.

Even if Wayland had this stuff in the core spec there would still not be more people working on these components, so the end result would not change, slow development for Linux Desktop use.

[Terrablit]

The problem is that simultaneously there are at least 4 disparate Wayland display server implementations in development, all with different extensions and features, and all reimplementing the same things over and over between them.

You're talking like this is a new thing with Wayland. Remember how many compositors there were for X? How many window managers there were? Remember xlib and xcb, the two different libraries for talking with X? Remember how you sometimes had to use both? And let's not forget how we had X drivers as well as mesa drivers and kernel drivers. The only reason X seems so smooth by comparison is because Wayland is reimplementing the results of 30 years of organic development without the cruft. And this time around, it's actually being *designed* instead of bolted on in an undocumented fashion. There's also committees and collaboration across compositors and toolkits this time. But at least everyone's aware of the full scope of the project from the beginning.

With X there was just one X server and all the window manager clients who did generally end up having to do a substantial portion of what was once X's job but I still think it is a failing of Wayland in general to not have the One True Display Server to make this transition less time consuming.

What, like Weston? Even if Wayland decided to mandate that as the "one true display server", people would make their own. KDE, Gnome and Enlightenment have very different ideas about code quality, programming languages, visual styles, feature sets, etc. They don't even agree on window decoration strategies. Their users already kvetch massively if they have to load the libraries from another toolkit to display an application. They don't even like having those libraries taking up disk space. That's why both toolkits have had "toolkit-native" implementations of the same programs as opposed to just agreeing to let KDE do one app and Gnome do another.

Let's be real. The problem about people collaborating on one implementation as opposed to multiple competing ones is a community problem, not a Wayland problem. They'll complain until they get an implementation they like with the libraries and languages they like, and only then will they tell other people that there's enough implementations. Not only that, they'll want to combine an unholy, fragile mix of applications that they're used to instead of having low-overhead, configurable defaults. They'll also complain about how you configure things. And no one will agree on which app should be the one true implementation. Regardless of whether it's the first one, the last one, or the most maintained one. Yup, WM/DE user wars are pretty much systemd wars with wobbly windows. Complete with the ignorant trolls.


Wayland stayed away from implementing everything for compositors on purpose. Most of the wayland devs were X devs, and they remember a lot of the bigger issues they dealt with.

X was brittle - hard to extend and hard to maintain. It had a lot of useless stuff baked in that seemed really essential at the time it was made. Wayland was designed to mandate as little as possible, and to add extensions on piece by piece until everything was finished. And there are committees. Lots of them. It's going to take a while, but it's also going to be way better. Good news is that it's already fairly usable. Bad news is that the community is a dumpster fire, as usual. But it's our dumpster fire.

[DanL]

Need a vomit emoji for this one...
Dear Nvidia, please DIAF

Open Source Devs: Stop encouraging them!

This kind of "My way or the highway" thinking got us to where we are today. How about if you just STFU and let mature adults handle these matters?

[KellyClowers]

This kind of "My way or the highway" thinking got us to where we are today. How about if you just STFU and let mature adults handle these matters?

shut your pie hole, nvidia bootlicker

[DanL]

shut your pie hole, nvidia bootlicker

Exactly. That's the perfect attitude to alienate people and preclude any kind of compromise. I hope you're not responsible for anything important in the Linux ecosystem.

[Sethox]

Exactly. That's the perfect attitude to alienate people and preclude any kind of compromise. I hope you're not responsible for anything important in the Linux ecosystem.

A narrow perspective is just that, I wish the same as you brother but sadly not everyone can grasp the bigger picture (physically or literally).