Wayland's Fragmentation: A Cross-Desktop Compatibility Nightmare

Wayland's design omits basic functionality enjoyed by X11, Windows, and macOS applications for decades—like window positioning and mouse cursor control. This wasn't an oversight; it was intentional. Further compounding the issue is fragmentation: GNOME, KDE, and other compositors interpret Wayland protocols differently. Application developers can't rely on consistent implementations, leading to unsustainable support burdens, especially for niche applications on already-fragmented Linux. Worse, these problems reside in Wayland protocols, window managers, and compositors—beyond the reach of application developers. We hope the Wayland ecosystem matures, but we aren't there yet.