A barebone version of Weston?

[Mikalai Kisialiou]

There is an article on http://www.phoronix.com that there is a new feature
of sliding desktop support in Weston. I am wondering if it would make sense
to split Weston implemention into 2 distinct ones: a barebone
implementation with minimal features (architecture + driver
compatibility) and a full-featured version?

I am not saying that the sliding desktop is somehow a bad idea (it is a
great idea). I do love this feature and will definitely like to see it
on my desktop. My concern, however, is slightly different:

Some people may look at potential opportunities to implement their own
version of a Wayland-compliant server. These people will likely be from
different areas and seek some kind of a "Hello world" version of a Wayland
compliant server. The applications may range from low-power portable
devices with limited performance to powerful CAD workstations stacking dual
graphics card firepower. Because the requirements and expectations
for the graphics interface on such systems are vastly different, I am
afraid that a W-server that aims to be one-size-fits-all may end
up being one-size-fits-none. As optional features start propagating into
Weston it will grow into something similar to another X-server, and we are
going to be back to square 1.

I understand that there will be some overhead involved for developers to
maintain 2 branches. However, most features will probably not fall into the
barebone version, so the commits for new cool features would still be
limited to 1 branch only. Bug fixes will indeed be harder to commit. Can
the 2nd full-featured branch be a library on top of the barebone
architectural version?

Also, is there some sort of a policy or a decision making process as to
what gets committed into Weston? What do the main developers think about 2
branches? I just thought I'd raise these concerns before a whole list of
optional features gets committed into Weston.

Thanks,
Nick
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