The Linux desktop experience is a bit like watching an alcoholic. You try to explain that drinking is making them sick and they should stop, but they just get violent and drink even more.
I think the success of Windows should be proof enough that you can keep compatibility for very old APIs and that it's required for an OS that is to be a platform for other people to build software on, as opposed to a walled garden (Apple) where you sometimes let people build part of it.
Regardless of "Year of the Linux Desktop" what these maintainers are trying to do in general is minimize their time involvement while making the desktop have the features and support (like for 4K monitors) that people want. Secondly, "the Linux Desktop" isn't a single organization like a commercial entity is. Its a bunch of different groups that all have their own priorities and schedules and use cases and so on. Expecting that process to produce output that is functionally identical to a single commercial entity, is unrealistic.
> ...what these maintainers are trying to do in general is ... making the desktop have the features and support (like for 4K monitors) that people want.
Was there something about X that was incompatible with 4k monitors?
The window scaling situation in X is shitty, and basically unsolvable in the framework of X. Wayland solves this problem.
By that, do you mean it makes DPI assumptions that you'd want to break with a higher-resolution display?
I believe it's possible with the older X multihead method, Zaphod mode, to have fully separate X11 screens, which could have different DPIs on each screen. The problem is there's no way to move windows from one screen to the next, and my understanding is that is an architectural limitation of X.
FTFY. There are people who want to keep using X and the only solution to that is to maintain it as code wont be maintained by itself. The entire point of open source/free software is that if anyone wants to fix/implement something they're free to do so, so for as long as someone wants to keep using X and has the necessary know-how (or the time and will to learn), X will be around.
I don't think that Linux (kernel + DE) has half of that manpower.
Old and functional does not mean deprecated. In most distros and for most users X is not deprecated.
It sounds like you've been living on the bleeding edge for a long time and have lost touch with the reality of linux for most users. The GUI toolkits like Gtk and Qt fully support X. They do not fully support Wayland. When this changes you can call X deprecated.
If a supermarket doesn't stock goods in the long tail, its customers shop elsewhere.
Dismiss the "long tail" and we wouldn't have champagne in the supermarket, or classical music on the radio.
The idea that somehow the ever-changing nature of Linux is going to stablise into something that satisfies _everyone_ seems misguided. Open source code means diverse groups can, and will decide themselves what's deprecated, and take on maintenance of the things they want to exist.
I understand the idea that it would be better if the replacement were 100% ready when that notice was given, but I'm not surprised that wasn't the case with X, it's big shoes to fill.
I can't speak for normal users, but I have seen some reporting, that they have been on a Wayland for a while now without knowing it.
Hmm, I guess you should let Fedora know that GTK+ and Qt don't support Wayland given they ship with Wayland by default and these... just work.
That's not the impression I get watching #gtk on GIMPNet and the bug trackers. There's a lot left to do even if Wayland is enabled now.