Android Support Removed From Wayland's Weston

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Android Support Removed From Wayland's Weston

The Android back-end for Wayland's Weston compositor is being dropped thereby losing support for Google's mobile operating system on Wayland...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI4Mjk

[mark45]

Kill it with fire.

[uid313]

Difference?

What is the difference of Wayland and the Android display server?

Why were Wayland developed instead of re-use the Android display server on the Linux desktop?

[Ancurio]

What is the difference of Wayland and the Android display server?

Why were Wayland developed instead of re-use the Android display server on the Linux desktop?

I don't really think it makes much sense to use a phone compositor on a desktop...

[uid313]

I don't really think it makes much sense to use a phone compositor on a desktop...

Why not?

It is not just used on smartphones, it is used on tablets too. Also on Android devices that people plug into their TV to turn it into some media center.

[mark45]

What is the difference of Wayland and the Android display server?

Why were Wayland developed instead of re-use the Android display server on the Linux desktop?

Android's solutions are ad-hock good enough hacks for smartphones. By analogy, Android's solutions are like Chinese crap - it's cheap, good enough, anyone uses it and as time passes it gets mild upgrades to be competitive quality/price wise. But there's better stuff if you have the money and knowledge - e.g. the USA military uses a different type of chips etc. which are more robust and cost a lot more.

Wayland is trying to be not just a cheap mildly good solution for the masses but a really good one, flexible with a well thought design. Android doesn't plan to use Wayland because there's little value for end customers just like you don't need a chip (CPU) which can withstand solar flares. But since the desktop is much more sophisticated and powerful than a smartphone, going after Wayland makes sense for us, desktop users.

[zanny]

Why not?

It is not just used on smartphones, it is used on tablets too. Also on Android devices that people plug into their TV to turn it into some media center.

The Android backend is Surfaceflinger, which doesn't support windowing, cascading, or a bunch of other critical display server features. They have tacked on windowing support to it, but it is finnicky at best. It also has no networking support, and a while back it was redrawing the entire screen every update.

It makes much more sense to have a comprehensive well thought out display server like Wayland / Weston anyway, because Surfaceflinger was kind of just hacked together.

[snadrus]

I had hopes for this

It's unfortunate that Android isn't a community project, because this is something that would help:
- Make a better Android
- Improve Linux Desktop <---> Android app mobility. (Blur the lines)
- Reduce Duplication of work in this very tricky area. (Faster improvements, more use)

[F i L]

Focus on making Wayland great and a joy to use... Android will eventually come around.

[Awesomeness]

What is the difference of Wayland and the Android display server?

Why were Wayland developed instead of re-use the Android display server on the Linux desktop?

Because Wayland reuses existing GNU/Linux technologies (esp. Mesa/DRM drivers,?) and Android does not, hence Wayland is less work.
Everybody reading Phoronix longer than a week knows that.