Louvre Is A New C++ Library Helping To Build Wayland Compositors

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Louvre Is A New C++ Library Helping To Build Wayland Compositors

While the KDE Plasma and GNOME Shell desktops are running on Wayland well, there are still many smaller desktops that haven't yet been ported over to Wayland or still in the early stages. There's also no shortage of passionate open-source developers toying around with their own desktops / compositors. Louvre is now the latest library out there like WLROOTS and libweston aiming to help develop Wayland compositors...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Louvre-Wayland-Library

[cassiofb-dev]

Thats actually the beginning of an awesome thing! Cool, hope this project attracts contributors.

[geearf]

Why not improve wl-root instead?

[kpedersen]

Why not improve wl-root instead?

Similar reason why Linus didn't choose to improve Minix I imagine.

[user1]

Similar reason why Linus didn't choose to improve Minix I imagine.

That's not a good analogy. Minix was an OS for educational purposes, so not something for general usage. When it comes to Wayland libraries, I see wlroots as something that at least reduces the fragmentation of the Wayland ecosystem, since there is no reference display server implementation like in the case of X.org. While Gnome and KDE already have their own Wayland display server implementation, I think it's good if everything else will target wlroots in order to reduce fragmentation. And this is an attempt to only make it worse. Because even if they claim to have some performance benefits, it doesn't seem like their main goal of easing the development of Wayland compositors is any different to that of wlroots.

And this is what bothers me about open source in general. On one hand, you have so many complains about developer burnout, lack of resources and lack of compensation, but on the other hand, some developers find resources to fork stuff, or reinvent the wheel only for marginal benefit.

[guglovich]

Maybe at least now Wayland will be ready in 3 years.

[ehansin]

Why not improve wl-root instead?

Well, neither are written in Rust, so there is that problem (relax, relax, just making a funny!)

But for real, I sort of see two somewhat contradictory, yet both valid takes in the whole open source thing:

* Too much duplicated effort across similar projects trying to scratch the same itch.
* People exploring different pathways to solve similar problems can come across new ideas that might not reveal themselves if there was not this duplicated effort.

I don't think there is a singular one right answer to the above, both are valid takes. I suppose it is like a lot of things in life, answer sort of falls somewhere in the middle or can be both at the same time. When does energy and efforts become so dispersed to the point of absurdity, and when are efforts so concentrated that it leads to group-think and tunnel vision?

[user1]

But for real, I sort of see two somewhat contradictory, yet both valid takes in the whole open source thing:

* Too much duplicated effort across similar projects trying to scratch the same itch.
* People exploring different pathways to solve similar problems can come across new ideas that might not reveal themselves if there was not this duplicated effort.

I don't think there is a singular one right answer to the above, both are valid takes. I suppose it is like a lot of things in life, answer sort of falls somewhere in the middle or can be both at the same time. When does energy and efforts become so dispersed to the point of absurdity, and when are efforts so concentrated that it leads to group-think and tunnel vision?

I think the question which of these points is more correct depends on the circumstances. For example, if the duplicate effort is about something completely new that didn't exist before, then the second point might be more correct. However, in this case, when apart from Gnome and KDE, pretty much everything else already targets wlroots, I think it's much better to improve it instead of reinvent the wheel.

[mmstick]

Why not improve wl-root instead?

Probably because they wanted to write a Wayland compositor natively in C++ rather than C. Same as why Smithay exists as a Wayland compositor library for Rust.

[Psyord]

Similar reason why Linus didn't choose to improve Minix I imagine.

That was actually Linus's plan from the start to improve Minix. He didn't get permission to do so because Minix would not remain simple. So he decided to make Linux instead.