Unlike Python 2 not everyone among the Xorg developers want to drop it (e.g. Keith Packard doesn't seem very interested in Wayland). Also Xorg isn't really one thing, it is a bunch of different subprojects with the server being the one that is mostly referred to. Even if everything else stays exactly the same, the X server will still need to be updated since it also works as XWayland.
Finally unlike Python 2 vs 3 the difference between Xorg and Wayland is tremendous, so i can easily see people who will be willing to fork it to continue development.
the X server will still need to be updated since it also works as XWayland.
No, it will not. Xwayland will likely be deprecated and removed in the coming years. The rationale being that nobody uses any Athena or Motif programs anymore and all of the toolkits that matter to modern desktops will have Wayland backends already.
Sure, and Linux will remove support for 32bit applications any time now :-].
Also since it got open sourced (properly), there are more people using Motif applications nowadays than 10 years ago. And there are other toolkits that target X outside of Athena and Motif.
And besides, "removed"? Removed from where? Xorg is just a historical name nowadays, what was called Xorg is a bunch of independent packages and the X server is a package by itself. The only way "removed" would apply here is removing the Wayland backend from the X server. Which isn't impossible, but after all the work that went into it, doesn't make sense.
Comments
Unlike Python 2 not everyone among the Xorg developers want to drop it (e.g. Keith Packard doesn't seem very interested in Wayland). Also Xorg isn't really one thing, it is a bunch of different subprojects with the server being the one that is mostly referred to. Even if everything else stays exactly the same, the X server will still need to be updated since it also works as XWayland.
Finally unlike Python 2 vs 3 the difference between Xorg and Wayland is tremendous, so i can easily see people who will be willing to fork it to continue development.
No, it will not. Xwayland will likely be deprecated and removed in the coming years. The rationale being that nobody uses any Athena or Motif programs anymore and all of the toolkits that matter to modern desktops will have Wayland backends already.
Sure, and Linux will remove support for 32bit applications any time now :-].
Also since it got open sourced (properly), there are more people using Motif applications nowadays than 10 years ago. And there are other toolkits that target X outside of Athena and Motif.
And besides, "removed"? Removed from where? Xorg is just a historical name nowadays, what was called Xorg is a bunch of independent packages and the X server is a package by itself. The only way "removed" would apply here is removing the Wayland backend from the X server. Which isn't impossible, but after all the work that went into it, doesn't make sense.
What about proprietary software?
Proprietary devs will be expected to upgrade to, for example, a new version of Qt that supports Wayland as a back end.
Xwayland may kick around for really old apps but it will not be maintained at all and you will be expected to forward-port your software to Wayland.
I think parent is asking about proprietary software that uses X11 which is no longer maintained or updated.
They can use the last release of Xwayland, whatever and whenever that is.
But more likely, they will need to be run on some ancient OS or distro version and thus containerized or virtualized anyway.