Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years
Summary
The article presents Wayland as a long-running and controversial shift away from X11, arguing that after 17 years it has not delivered the expected reliability or user experience and has introduced fragmentation due to multiple implementations. It contrasts Wayland with PipeWire in audio and questions whether security, performance, and feature gaps justify the switch, noting issues with OBS, clipboard, and integration with various GPUs. The piece ends with predictions that Wayland may be rolled back, replaced by a new protocol, or see ongoing fragmentation, and it serves as a user-focused postmortem on large greenfield software projects and the need for practical migration paths.