Unless, you know, they enjoy doing that

The big downside is that, for backwards compatibility, the default must still be unsafe code. Ideally this could be toggled with a compiler flag, rather than having to wrap most code in "safe" blocks (like rust, but backwards).

One potential upside that people don't seem to be discussing is that the safe subset could also be the place to finally start cutting down the bloat of C++. We could encourage most developers to write exclusively in the safe subset, and aim to make that the "much smaller and cleaner language" trying to get out of C++.

Its all about how an application goes from "I would like to display X on a screen" to how X actually gets displayed. Wayland is effectively a language (technically a protocol) that graphical applications can speak to describe how they would like to be drawn. It's then up to a different program more deeply embedded in your OS to listen to and act on those instructions (this program is called a Wayland compositor). There's a lot more to it (handling keyboard input monitor settings, etc), but that's the general idea.

Wayland is a (relatively) new way of thinking about this process, that tries to take into account the wide variety of input and output devices that exist today, and also tries to mitigate some of the security risks that were inherent to previous approaches (before Wayland, it was very easy for one application to "look at" what was being displayed in a completely different app, or even to listen to what keys were being typed even when the app isn't focussed).

Thing is, change is hard, doubly so in the consensus driven world of Linux/FOSS. So, until the last couple of years or so, adoption of Wayland was quite slow. Now we're at the point where most things work at least as well in Wayland, but there's still odd bits of software that either haven't been ported, or that still rely on some features that don't exist in Wayland, often because of the aforementioned security risks.

I always thought that people using searx etc over duckduckgo were just gluttons for punishment. Having gone an entire morning without search, maybe now is the time to dive down that rabbit hole...

Whilst I've heard lots of talk that lunduke is getting increasingly politica, and I disagree quite strongly with his politics, I'll have to agree with him here. IA did something unnecessarily risky (redistributing unauthorised copies of print books), which has more jeopardised their mission of archiving the internet.

I also agree with everyone here saying that current copyright laws are ridiculous (and not just because they are "outdated", the Victorians had better copyright laws than we do). However, I think only the most radical overhaul of copyright law would condone what IA did, and that isn't coming any time soon (If ever).

There's a common thread between a lot of the missteps listed here and Embeacer group's recent troubles. The idea that you could fund 230 Spiderman 2's for the same price as buying 1 Activision-Blizzard-King really drove the point home to me.

The problem (in my obviously uneducated opinion) is that when you spend so much money in acquisition, especially of established companies, you're neither funding nor rewarding innovation. You spend $70B on ABK and some randos in suits get a huge payout that they invest in oil or crypto or whatever. Spend $70B on talent and early career devs and you could unleash a tidal wave of creativity and experimentation.

By default, XWayland apps are now allowed to listen for non-alphanumeric keypresses, and shortcuts using modifier keys. This lets any global shortcut features they may have work with no user intervention required, while still not allowing arbitrary listening for alphanumeric keypresses which could potentially be used maliciously

This is... very smart actually. Any reason this is limited to Xwayland? (Is that XDG portal a thing yet?)

At the end there's a little jab towards Wayland:

Today, the Wayland enthusiasts like to talk about how they are modernizing the Linux graphics stack. But Linux is a Unix, and in Unix, everything is meant to be a file. So any Wayland evangelists out there, tell us: where in the file system can I find the files describing a window on the screen under the Wayland protocol? What file holds the coordinates of the window, its place in the Z-order, its colour depth, its contents?

As far as I'm aware nobody has even considered extending the file metaphor to the graphics stack, and it sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

It also reminds me of this talk that suggests maybe trying to express everything as a file might not be the best idea...

I do wonder what percentage of Linux users reject the survey compared to Windows users. Not that it's changed much, but every little helps right?

It's a bit repetitive, but it's not too bad.

Eventually valve will probably push a SteamOS update out with plasma 6. But it'll be up to then when to do it.

If its the courtyard I'm thinking of, a well placed fireball can also be the most satisfying spell of the game.

My favourite spell for Shadowheart was always spirit guardians. Partly just because it was funny to watch her dashing around the map, mopping up weaklings.