That is partly correct. Wayland is not based on X.org. There is nothing rewritten, removed or simplified. It’s an entirely new design, new code with a different license. And X11 isn’t written by a single developer. XFree86 was started by 3 people, got maintained by an incorporated and then became X.org and sponsored by an industry consortium (the X.Org Foundation). Many many people and companies contributed. The rest is correct. It grew too complex and maintenance is a hassle. Wayland simplifies things and is a state of the art approach. Nobody removed features but they started from zero so it took a while to implement all important features. As of today we’re almost there and Wayland is close to replacing X11.
And it will become more as development focuses on Wayland. If you look at X11’s release history, there is (and has been for quite some time) only the most important things going on. That doesn’t necessarily mean things are impossible to do with X11. But it’s just the way things are once something slowly gets replaced by something else.
Hmmh, to me rewriting something means something like writing it again, or revising it.
But it’s entirely new, not based on the predecessor, they didn’t have the old code or architecture in mind and it ended up in a different place with different features. So I don’t see a “re-”, just a “write”. I’d say it’s the same category of software (display servers / -protocols) but entirely different and independent from each other. I’d use the word ‘rewrite’ if they were dependent on each other in some form or if one was meant to replicate the other one.
I think that’s generally the point of a rewrite. To start from scratch with a better architecture. If you weren’t changing the architecture then you can probably just keep incrementally improving it.
That is partly correct. Wayland is not based on X.org. There is nothing rewritten, removed or simplified. It’s an entirely new design, new code with a different license. And X11 isn’t written by a single developer. XFree86 was started by 3 people, got maintained by an incorporated and then became X.org and sponsored by an industry consortium (the X.Org Foundation). Many many people and companies contributed. The rest is correct. It grew too complex and maintenance is a hassle. Wayland simplifies things and is a state of the art approach. Nobody removed features but they started from zero so it took a while to implement all important features. As of today we’re almost there and Wayland is close to replacing X11.
Also, doesn’t Wayland do things x11 can’t, or did badly, like Variable refresh rate ?
Fractional scaling (per-display), input isolation…
And it will become more as development focuses on Wayland. If you look at X11’s release history, there is (and has been for quite some time) only the most important things going on. That doesn’t necessarily mean things are impossible to do with X11. But it’s just the way things are once something slowly gets replaced by something else.
That is the definition of a rewrite, no? They started from scratch. Otherwise it would be a refactor, cleanup or overhaul.
And yes, it was more than one developer but Wayland was largely started by at-the-time X maintainers.
Hmmh, to me rewriting something means something like writing it again, or revising it. But it’s entirely new, not based on the predecessor, they didn’t have the old code or architecture in mind and it ended up in a different place with different features. So I don’t see a “re-”, just a “write”. I’d say it’s the same category of software (display servers / -protocols) but entirely different and independent from each other. I’d use the word ‘rewrite’ if they were dependent on each other in some form or if one was meant to replicate the other one.
I think that’s generally the point of a rewrite. To start from scratch with a better architecture. If you weren’t changing the architecture then you can probably just keep incrementally improving it.
When you do a rewrite you want to create the same product as before just with better code / architecture. That’s not what Wayland tries to do.