Weston SDK

[Eoff, Ullysses A]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wayland-devel-
>bounces+ullysses.a.eoff=intel.com at lists.freedesktop.org [mailto:wayland-
>devel-bounces+ullysses.a.eoff=intel.com at lists.freedesktop.org] On Behalf
>Of Kristian Høgsberg
>Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 9:04 AM
>To: Casey Dahlin
>Cc: wayland
>Subject: Re: Weston SDK
>
>On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Casey Dahlin <cdahlin at redhat.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:27:22AM -0500, Kristian Høgsberg wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I made a little experiment last night:
>>>
>>>   http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~krh/overlay-plugin
>>>
>>> It's an out-of-tree weston plugin.  It's just a silly little overlay
>>> that you can pop up with mod-space, but the interesting part here is
>>> that it's building outside weston [1].  Current, that works by copying
>>> the header files that defines the weston <-> plugins API, but I'd like
>>> to start thinking about how to formalize this process.  I don't think
>>> it should be a big problem, it more or less boils down to:
>>>
>>>  - Interface version in headers and at runtime
>>>
>>>  - Header files installed in /usr/include/weston
>>>
>>>  - pkg-config file
>>
>> This is all begging the question: what is the purpose of Weston. Graphics
>> developers I talk to who I don't see on this list still refer to it as an
>> "example compositor." They aren't awaiting a plugin API, they're awaiting a
>> toolkit library so they can write their own compositors.
>>
>> Has this been miscommunicated? Because it increasingly seems like Weston
>is
>> being prepared for actual use.
>
>A lot of the Wayland coverage and discussion is focused on the
>desktop, which means gnome-shell or kwin etc becoming Wayland
>compositors.  Meanwhile, if you're building an embedded product, say a
>set-top box, a car ui or even mobile use cases, weston does provide
>most of what you need to build a custom UI (ie, not pulling all the
>legacy of a traditional Linux desktop environment).    In the past, a
>lot of solutions have been built by taking a naked X server and
>putting a custom UI on top.  Weston presents a modern, minimal
>alternative to X in these cases and as such we're treating it as a
>product in its own right.
>
>Kristian

Even if Weston is only considered just an "example compositor",
it is a great vehicle for early functional integration testing of various
Wayland toolkit implementations that use the Wayland client-side API.
Exporting a Weston SDK will go a long way in allowing more effective and
aggressive [automated] testing techniques.  For instance, defining a
Wayland test protocol that has a Weston implementation would allow
tests to validate client<->server state/events at the toolkit level and/or
allow exposure of other information that is otherwise unavailable when trying
to automate and cover certain test case scenarios.  And, it is likely that a
test extension would only be specific to the test scenarios/project one is trying
to cover, hence it would not make sense to include such an implementation
inside Weston itself.  Therefore, an exported Weston SDK would allow
this type of testing architecture to be achieved.

U. Artie Eoff

>_______________________________________________
>wayland-devel mailing list
>wayland-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
>http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/wayland-devel