I wholeheartedly agree with the following article
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I fall more on the skeptical side of the X11Libre fork; such as Libre Arts - Weekly recap — 8 June 2025
It doesnt fill me with much confidence; happy for others to run the gauntlet of X11Libre but if UM goes down that path I'll switch to a Wayland desktop-based distribution.
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I'm hoping that all the issues related to Wayland "falling short" with respect to X11 scope of functionality at both local and remote Desktop, will have been resolved before Ubuntu commits to switching for Wayland as core integrated engine.
That way, we would all have the best of both worlds! 
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If anyone's interested in KDE's stance on X11 support. Nate published a blog post about it today.
I admire their approach to the transition; but especially:
Our plan is to handle everything on that page such that even the most hardcore X11 user doesn’t notice anything missing when they move to Wayland.
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Today, I decided to switch my work (KDE) laptop from Wayland back to X11. Not bad for 2 months.
It was the little bugs like:
- Dragging files between apps to open them, did nothing.
- After unlocking and the monitor was asleep, Electron apps are blurry until resized.
- When sharing the screen in Firefox, it doesn't integrate that well any more. Firefox lets me share the "Use operating system" window, which opens a portal window to actually select the screen/window. Too many clicks.
- CTRL+SHIFT dragging didn't create the symlink as it should, it copied files.
- Menu rolling (click & hold over menus) didn't work in GTK apps, unless I used
GDK_BACKEND=x11. - My Git GUI client crashed with autocompletion pops up (Qt bug?), so ironically,
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcbto use X11 backend. Sometimes the window misplaced itself, depending where I started the app.
I'm happy to trade these nibbles for one bigger X11 (AMD?) bug affecting that machine: When locked, there is a chance the fans spin up because the compositor goes haywire with CPU. The workaround is to restart or stop the compositor - sounds good to me!
Granted, some/most of these are compositor (KWin) bugs. I'm sure they'll get fixed with time.
I haven't tried Wayland on other desktops (well, maybe briefly on Ubuntu/GNOME, but not serious work) so I am curious how things will pan out when MATE gains support. Rather then X11 being the thing everyone has in common, it's now largely the compositor's role to take care of this stuff.
Also: a link back to the original topic and a new x11-wayland tag to track this stuff!
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A page you have already mentioned above has link listing more incompatibilities
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Yep, I was just sharing my experiences with Wayland (KWin).
On second thoughts, my experience will still only ever be specific to KDE, like that wiki page. That's why I'm curious when MATE gets support whether we'd have to catch up to reach the same feature parity.
That said, if the larger desktop environments (and users) from GNOME/KDE already report & fix the issues, that could be useful to learn from. Maybe by then, any remaining limitations became part of the Wayland spec. 
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I'm keen to hear about anyone's experience with Wayland and, say, Wayfire or other compositors. Eventually I'll start testing them out but probably not for six months or so.
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Ahh! I just connected the dots - good to know. MATE's Wayland session is based on Wayfire:
Apparently Wayfire's quite similar to Compiz. I wonder how the 3D-ness performance will be for anyone on older graphic chipsets.
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Wayfire seems like an odd choice. I'm not sure how Miriway compares. Then there's all the problems with theming.
Here's a brief example of Miriway running different desktops including MATE.
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I'm a simple man. X11 still runs better so I use it. The only appreciable difference I have in Wayland is support for Variable Refresh Rates (I have one 60hz monitor and one 144hz)... but honestly, I can't tell the difference.
On the flip side, in X11, I don't have any global hotkey issues, window positions are more predictable, I understand the configuration better, drag and drop works, and I can screenshare with my girlfriend with sound and no weirdness.
All that said, I don't mind using Wayland either as those concessions are not horrible.
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For those looking at other developments; there's also the possibility that this helps replace an ageing Xorg tech stack - but provides support for X11-based apps (or desktops): GitHub - kaniini/wayback: experimental X11 compatibility layer
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Here is another twist being curious enough
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I really don't understand all the issues myself, but it seems every attempted improvement in Linux ends up causing more fragmentation. Systemd vs Init is another example. People are dedicated their preferece, but I suspect somewhat stubborn too.
I just hope the best one wins out.
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Back in the 80s we had the MIT Athena project, which led to development of the X Window System (X11), Kerberos, and Zephyr ... still used today.
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Haven't been able to visit the thread for some time 
I agree that X11 is very far from dead. It's just a matter of people wanting to move over to a modern approach, which aims to reconstruct something from the ground up to address its architectural flaws.
From my experience, I don't have much trouble with X11 or Wayland. That's something I'm thankful for. In a span of two years that I've been daily driving my Latitude 5300 with Linux, everything just seems alright. I'm currently typing this on Kubuntu Noble, on a Wayland session. I've been using it for about a month and a half.
That does not mean however that I don't have any complaints about Wayland. I share some of Deidomeido's opinions on this matter. The protocol is older than me for about a month, it's been sixteen years already. It doesn't seem to me that Wayland is a consumer-grade software.
For the most part, it should be really fine. I mean, hey... it's Linux innit? I could just treat it as if it's a teenager. If it wouldn't have been for some bunch to force it upon us. Hi. GNOME. Here are some notable problems I've got wind of about Wayland:
- Application compatibility (okay, XWayland and Wayback)
- Screen capture and sharing (pretty sure this is at least going alright)
- Remote desktop troubles
- Lack of standardization
- Accessibility
Out of those, I consider the latter three most substantial. In X11, I could just setup tigervnc and I'll be ready to go in a bit. I haven't yet figured it out for Wayland. As for the standardization, I'd say the core protocol is rather lacking, of course, with X11 as a point of comparison. You may refer to the link I've shared above and see how Wayland compositors comply with the state of current things.
And I think, as per our community, the most alarming of these five is the state of Wayland accessibility. It's as if Wayland put us back to square one. There's relatively very little work that comes out to address those matters. Even for GNOME, which have only recently picked this up and work on Newton.
If Wayland is gonna be our way to go forward, and not just some another protocol in the playing field, I think we should work on addressing these things. Not merely push a 'standard,' for the sake of architectural righteousness or whatnot.
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That is the good thing about Linux. It's all about choice isn't it ? 
To be honest, I don't think that UM wants to go down that path and I don't think they should either. They are working hard to change from the X11-protocol to the Wayland protocol. And ofcourse I also want to have a chance to run MATE on Wayfire or some other wl-roots based compositor 
.
But it is always good to have an alternative if things go sideways.
The linux ecosystem is not designed, it's evolved.
Now look at nature: The diversity keeps the evolution going. A monoculture would have died aeons ago.
So X11 and Wayland is good. Systemd and SysV init and rcinit is good.
Every distro and application programmer can decide what to support or whatever floats their boat. Time will tell what survives and every tool has its purpose. Horses for courses
Don't let anyone fool you that "fragmentation" is bad. Fragmentation can be inconvenient sometimes in certain cases but is needed to keep the evolution going.
Without it, Linux would have died long ago.
By the way: Did these conflicting parts of the same El Reg article also made you smile ? 
(Network transparency) Yes, this was possible, but not essential. The Reg FOSS desk has been installing and supporting Unix boxes since 1988 and has never once needed or used X11 over a network connection.
against:
The very important principle of Chesterton's Fence applies here. Just because you don't use something and don't need it does not mean that nobody needs it.
I wonder if they noticed it themselves 
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The Register is now just a shill for the interests of the big IT corporations, that why they now tie themselves up in knots and make contradictory statements in articles just to claw back some credibility with their readers. It's not really working as people like yourself are pointing out the contradictions in real time.
"Fragmentation" is a word that big corporates in Australia like to use to complain that they don't make enough money in their market sector or don't exercise enough control over their market. It's never potrayed in a positive light by them for a good reason, as it means more choice for consumers and less pricing power for them. They use it frequently here for the car market as you actually have some real choice in the car market in Oz compared to other market sectors/industries which are basically oligopolies, especially the markets that you need just to survive, ie food/supermarkets, utilities, insurance, telecommunications, etc. Once you hear the word used in its proper context, which is exactly how the big corporates use it here, you're wary of anyone using that word in any other context unless they know the full background to how that word arose.
The oligopoly market players hate "fragmentation" as it cuts into their profit margins and control and they will always "fight against market fragmentation to the bitter end" as a National Sales Manager for a big tobacco company told us at a company conference many years ago. And now the tobacco market in Oz is completely "fragmented" as the government just raised excise to the hilt to basically drive the big tobacco companies out of the Australian market. And the smaller cheaper players, mainly from Asia, and illegal tobacco just stepped in to fill the void. So the Australian government prefers "market fragmentation" in the tobacco market to big tobacco oligopoly control, you can knock me out with a feather! Bill, the NSM, made that statement 20 years ago and he sure looks stupid now! He's probably retired by now, so has no skin in the game anymore. So yeah, another important life lesson, never fall for the corporate PR spin or their buzzwords.
"Fragmentation" means more choices for the consumer. In the FOSS context, more choices doesn't neccesarily translate to more better quality choices/apps/projects similar to any other marketplace.
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I am not so negative about El Reg. Ofcourse they are corporate oriented but things like what I quoted below show some insight. They are not as horrible as ZDnet (with Ed Bott, the monomanic MS-Windows shill/junkie)
Wayland gains ground; xorg-server witnesses purges of code and contributors, but also new versions, and new offshoots; and that new fork wins legions of supporters, if not as many contributors. It's all go. Change and evolution are good things. History is good, too. Long-lived, often-ported code is code that has won many of the battles of natural selection. Long live X11!
EDIT: I found some interesting news on ElReg:
Xfce 4.20 was released over the weekend, bang on the schedule we mentioned in October. Along with a wide range of improvements, small features, and refinements, you can now run Xfce using either the Wayfire or Labwc Wayland compositors to manage its windows
These are exactly the compositors that I wish to use on MATE-Wayland too
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Oh my, I couldn't agree more! ZD Net was the worst of the worst corporate shills from the beginning. Any product or app that Microsoft made was the best thing since sliced bread.
That's why I've been getting my tech news for the last 10 years on Youtube & Reddit. If they reference an article or blog posts, I only check it out if it's interesting. Saves a lot of time in the long run. Most tech videos on Youtube are click bait anyway, so you have to be selective of what channels you follow to not waste your time with click bait. Really like Savvy Nik, Distrotube & Joe Collins channels on Youtube. Very informative.
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