A set of merge requests were opened that would effectively drop X.Org (X11) session support for the GNOME desktop and once that code is removed making it a Wayland-only desktop environment.
Going along with Fedora 40 looking to disable the GNOME X11 session support (and also making KDE Plasma 6 Wayland-only for Fedora), upstream GNOME is evaluating the prospect of disabling and then removing their X11 session support.
Some concerns were raised already how this could impact downstream desktops like Budgie and Pantheon that haven’t yet fully transitioned over to Wayland. In any event we’ll see where the discussions lead but it’s sure looking like 2024 will be the year that GNOME goes Wayland-only.
I agree that volunteers shouldn’t have to maintain legacy just because a private company doesn’t have their shit together. But the reality is that a lot of people have Nvidia hardware. If GNOME and KDE will not work on the most popular gaming GPU brand, we’re going to push away a lot of people who are trying to start with Linux but encounter a broken mess.
The solution is: stop making yourself dependent on proprietary companies. You always loose if you wait for someone else rather than taking action. If GNOME wants to improve then it’s pointless for them to wait for Nvidia. Even if that means loosing some Nvidia fans
That sounds very idealistic, but not very practical. I use my computer for deep learning projects. Since AMD and Intel are way behind, I almost have to use Nvidia. How would I stop making myself dependent on Nvidia? Give up my hobby/interest in deep learning? Stop playing the games I like? Help with programming a CUDA replacement myself in the very limited free time coding that I have time and energy for? We don’t live in some utopia, it’s often not possible to ditch these companies even if they act like absolute cunts.
Okay, you have a specific case which makes it much harder to abandon Nvidia (although I believe there are always better solutions if one keeps looking).
I made the case that generally speaking, GNOME can’t wait for Nvidia. Most people being negatively affected by this should should just switch away from Nvidia, but we can’t let them slow us down.
Sounds like you don’t agree that
you think they should, to avoid pushing people away.
I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter whether we agree or not. If the choice is made to drop X support and Nvidia doesn’t fix Wayland, a lot of people will end up in a mess when trying Linux for the first time and might turn back to Windows/Mac. I agree that no volunteer should do anything they don’t want to do. But in the world we live in that does mean we have a problem