The biggest drawback of not providing any SSDs even as a fallback is obviously… what if the app just doesn’t draw CSDs? ~~There are many new Linux users who try to get something like DaVinci Resolve running and then can’t maximize it because it doesn’t have CSDs. For these users it just makes using Linux feel broken for basically no reason.~~¹
This is also a burden for application developers. Maybe the DaVinci Resolve devs should just fix their app (from what I heard it’s a massive PITA in all aspects imaginable), but is it really reasonable to also expect e.g game devs to add dependencies on libdecor or whatever solely to unbreak window mode on GNOME Wayland?
¹ Edit: I have since learned that Resolve actually does draw CSDs, it just doesn’t draw the window buttons. That’s certainly a choice… I think the overall point isn’t too affected but this specific app isn’t a good example since it would still be broken if GNOME had fallback SSDs.
The biggest drawback of not providing any SSDs even as a fallback is obviously… what if the app just doesn’t draw CSDs?
Wayland requires apps to be able to draw CSDs, so that’s just a broken app. SSDs are optional extension. So the app should either use X11 (and rely on Xwayland to provide the decorations), or implement Wayland properly.
technically, yes. but at the end of the day, in the real world, that app would work fine on ~all but ~1 desktop compositor
wayland doesn’t require SSDs, because it’s not just meant for desktop computing. in the context of desktop computing, it’s been a standard for decades now to have a title bar on a window, so it does make sense that apps would assume they can get one without having their own drawing code or relying on a third-party library!
That’s true from a technical perspective. But in reality devs (especially ones who aren’t making “Linux apps” but are doing things like porting a previously Windows-only game to Linux) will occasionally ship a broken Wayland client. The compositor could then still give that a basic titlebar with window buttons like KDE and Cosmic do, or alternatively it can refuse to do it and make the novice user annoyed at the system as a whole.
I’m not really convinced that requiring all Wayland clients to draw their own decorations was the correct decision in the first place, but even if we accept it, I think there’s still a convincing case for fallback SSDs.
The biggest drawback of not providing any SSDs even as a fallback is obviously… what if the app just doesn’t draw CSDs? ~~There are many new Linux users who try to get something like DaVinci Resolve running and then can’t maximize it because it doesn’t have CSDs. For these users it just makes using Linux feel broken for basically no reason.~~¹
This is also a burden for application developers. Maybe the DaVinci Resolve devs should just fix their app (from what I heard it’s a massive PITA in all aspects imaginable), but is it really reasonable to also expect e.g game devs to add dependencies on libdecor or whatever solely to unbreak window mode on GNOME Wayland?
¹ Edit: I have since learned that Resolve actually does draw CSDs, it just doesn’t draw the window buttons. That’s certainly a choice… I think the overall point isn’t too affected but this specific app isn’t a good example since it would still be broken if GNOME had fallback SSDs.
Wayland requires apps to be able to draw CSDs, so that’s just a broken app. SSDs are optional extension. So the app should either use X11 (and rely on Xwayland to provide the decorations), or implement Wayland properly.
technically, yes. but at the end of the day, in the real world, that app would work fine on ~all but ~1 desktop compositor
wayland doesn’t require SSDs, because it’s not just meant for desktop computing. in the context of desktop computing, it’s been a standard for decades now to have a title bar on a window, so it does make sense that apps would assume they can get one without having their own drawing code or relying on a third-party library!
That’s true from a technical perspective. But in reality devs (especially ones who aren’t making “Linux apps” but are doing things like porting a previously Windows-only game to Linux) will occasionally ship a broken Wayland client. The compositor could then still give that a basic titlebar with window buttons like KDE and Cosmic do, or alternatively it can refuse to do it and make the novice user annoyed at the system as a whole.
I’m not really convinced that requiring all Wayland clients to draw their own decorations was the correct decision in the first place, but even if we accept it, I think there’s still a convincing case for fallback SSDs.