Saturday 27 July 2024

Scary thoughts on the future of the open source desktop
=======================================================

In their blog [1], Chris outlines some future paths for the open
source desktop.

It paints a future where the open source desktop environments like KDE
and Gnome opt for a Wayland-only path. It also states that Wayland is
Linux-specific, leaving other open source operating systems in the
cold.

I don't know much about Wayland, but I can understand the way of
thinking of the blog post.

Of course, we have been using X for decades, first with XFree86, and
later with Xorg, and that worked perfectly fine. The non-Linux
operating systems could continue to use X.

The blog post states that when the major desktop environments choose
to go Wayland-only, bigger applications would follow. The blog
mentions Firefox, but I think this might also apply to important
applications like LibreOffice.

No need of a desktop environment
--------------------------------
Personally, I have no need for a desktop environment. Just
a window manager (like ratpoison) is good enough.

But the danger is not so much in the desktop environments, but in the
applications. The loss of some major applications on our BSD dekstop
machines would be devastating.

LibreOffice, Gimp and others 
-----------------------------
LibreOffice is an important part of the open source desktop eco system,
and so is Gimp, and some other desktop applications.

For many people this will be a definite showstopper, reducing the
already relative small group of users of BSD on the desktop.

Emacs
-----
Emacs is part of the GNU project, and will follow the pathway of it.
GNU is of course aimed at Linux, and with Guix as their operating
system, Emacs will follow where Guix will go. 

Fortunately, Guix does not use systemd, but their own init system.
However I wouldn't be surprised if Guix also goes the Wayland-only
way. The manual already mentions a way to enable it [2].

Emacs is of course also an important part of the open source
desktop eco system. If that would go Wayland-only it would be
a great loss.

BSD
---
Perhaps there is not much reason to worry. I am not in the position
to judge on this.

In their blog post, Chris mentions that FreeBSD is working on a way to
incorporate Wayland API's in order to be able to run applications like
Gnome. 

The domination of Linux in the open source world is scary nonetheless.

Times have changed. Linux is not the only player, and it used to be
just one of the open source operation systems, where each system
was benefiting from the developments in the others.

The balance is gone which results into dangers like this.

[1]: https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/UnixDesktopFutures
[2]: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Desktop-Services.html


Last edited: $Date: 2024/07/27 09:17:39 $