Re: Metacity Compositor

["Daniel Borgmann" <daniel borgmann gmail com>]

On 10/3/06, Rob Adams <readams readams net> wrote:
> Why bother when both the GNOME and KDE projects already have excellent
> window managers?  I don't understand this idea of writing a whole new
> window manager just to add eye candy.  There's nothing about compositing
> that requires a complete rewrite of the window manager.  The effort
> would be far better spend simply extending the existing support for
> compositors in metacity and KWin.

Why would the effort be better spent writing duplicate code? There is
nothing platform specific about the compositing, neither is there
really anything platform specific about general window manager
behaviour. Code from Metacity can be re-used in Compiz plugins and
even now it does almost everything I could ask from it.

> Realistically, compiz is unlikely
> ever to be accepted by either project, because it's a chimera.  So why
> are we dumping so much effort into it?

Why is it a chimera, because the GNOME dependent modules are optional?
That makes no sense to me. I rather see this as Compiz' biggest
strength, since it encourages code sharing and cooperation (as well as
experimentation). Is there really any objective reason why Compiz
shouldn't be at least considered as a potential successor to Metacity?

Daniel