Wayland talk at FOSDEM

[Philipp Kerling]

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about submitting a Wayland-themed talk to the FOSDEM
graphics devroom [1] and wanted to check with the community if anyone
else has considered this or another Wayland topic and whether you think
it would be a good idea™.

What I would want to talk about is a beginner's introduction to Wayland
from the client perspective. I think that resources on this (and on
Wayland in general to be honest) are quite scarce and that I could pass
on some of the knowledge I have gained by implementing native Wayland
support in Kodi this way.

This would include stuff such as:
 * Wayland architecture
    * Comparison with X
    * Security architecture
    * Limitations: What is not possible with Wayland (currently)
    * Difference between core and extension protocols
    * Global registry
    * Relevant documentation and resources
 * Why you should not be writing a Wayland client yourself (aka use
   toolkits if possible)
 * Relevant compositors to test on and how to use nested mode
 * Basic client programming
    * Protocols needed to get a surface on screen (wl_compositor,
      wl_surface, wl_shm, wl_shm_pool, wl_shell, wl_shell_surface)
    * Seats and input
       * Keyboard: wl_keyboard and libxkbcommon
       * Mouse: wl_pointer and libwayland-cursor for cursor handling
    * xdg_wm_base
    * Window decorations
    * EGL

Possible extensions/replacement topics:
 * Bindings (just mention: C++, D, Java, Rust)
 * Vulkan (I think EGL is more relevant at the moment)
 * Some more extension protocols such as pointer-constraints and
   relative-pointer (relevant e.g. for games)
 * Subcompositing
 * ...

I would not include:
 * Details of libwayland API (e.g. proxy wrappers)
 * Every extension protocol or even core protocol object just for
   completeness
 * Historical baggage such as xdg_shell v5
 * EGL/Mesa internals

I'd love to hear any comments/suggestions you might have and generally
what kind of topics people would be interested in.

[1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2017-November/035880.html

Regards,
Philipp