Wayland on FreeBSD

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2020 11:42:55 -0400
Robert Huff <roberthuff at rcn.com> wrote:

> 
> Steve O'Hara-Smith writes:
> 
> >  > 	Am I not understanding. or does that sound slow and full of
> >  > possible failure modes?
> >  
> >  	It does to me, but I know little to nothing of the innermost
> >  details. I've looked into Wayland a few times in fair detail and
> >  have yet to see a benefit. I know X is decried as a security horror
> >  story, yet active exploits seem curiously rare and it has always
> >  worked well for me.
> 
> 	I generally hear three main criticisms:
> 	1) Full of known/possible exploits and security holes

	Which never seem to actually cause problems, usually because
they're a bit like the cluttered desk and safe with post-it that would be a
security problem were they not inside an access controlled area with tight
security.

> 	2) Based on 1980s concepts and hardware (which affects what code
> 		is written and how)

	Hmm unix is based on 1970s concepts and 1960s hardware, it seems to
have aged well. Like X it has accumulated some (nearly) obsolete layers
like the incredible range of dumb terminal (mis)designs that curses can cope
with and the enormous termcap/terminfo database of capabilities and quirks
that drives it.

	I've seen complaints about the baggage of 1980s style graphics
primitives (stippled polygon fills etc.) and fonts which are valid I
suppose but it doesn't seem to have got in the way of adding GPU supported
acceleration or anti-aliased outline fonts.

> 	3) "It just grew."  (Which contributes to (1).)

	That I'd have to disagree with, the gap betweem X11Rn and X11Rn+1
was always long and seemed to involve considerable care and there has never
been an X12 (despite getting to X11 between 1984 and 1987).

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
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