this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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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.