[bitwize]

Indeed; and if you read that article it says that current Wayland compositors depend heavily on Linux infrastructure, and have not yet accepted patches to support NetBSD. Everything Wayland on the BSDs is in the "one guy faffing about to see if he can get it working" stage. Unless/until the Wayland project starts mainlining BSD support, or the BSD projects have robust parallel maintenance of the core Wayland packages and compositors, BSD as a desktop system is dead in the water.

[asveikau]

People not having the same priorities as you does not equate to death. You are being rude and overly dramatic.

[llm_trw]

Ah, what a delightful opportunity to delve into the nuances of the English language and its wonderfully intricate idioms! Let's embark on an enlightening exploration of why the phrase "dead in the water" is certainly not the same as simply being "dead." For anyone less familiar with the idiomatic expressions and metaphors of English, this can be a fascinating journey.

To begin with, when we hear the word "dead," one's mind might instinctively leap to its most literal and unfortunate meaning—devoid of life. In biology, this means the cessation of all vital functions: no heartbeat, no brain activity, no breath. The ultimate and irreversible state that all living things, sadly, will eventually meet. It's quite final, isn't it? The end of the line. Kaput. There's no ambiguity here; dead means dead.

However, the wonders of language allow us to use words in metaphorical or idiomatic expressions to convey more complex or nuanced situations or states. And that's where "dead in the water" swims into the scene. This phrase, you see, has nothing to do with the literal cessation of life. Oh, no. It's far more colorful and applicable in a variety of non-lethal scenarios.

Originally, this idiom comes from the nautical world—a domain rich with metaphorical language, given the myriad challenges and adventures faced at sea. Imagine a ship, if you will, its sails billowing as it cuts through the waves. Now, picture it suddenly unable to move; the wind has died down to nothing, the sails slump, and the ship is merely adrift, going nowhere. It is, quite poetically, "dead in the water." The ship isn't literally dead, of course—it's just temporarily incapacitated, unable to proceed along its intended course until the wind decides to grace it with its presence once again.

Transposed into everyday usage beyond the high seas, "dead in the water" is a vivid metaphor for projects, plans, or initiatives that have come to a halt—stymied, unable to progress, much like that becalmed ship. It's used to describe something that has little hope of success or revival in its current state. For instance, if a business venture runs out of funding or a new policy is halted by regulatory issues, they might be described as "dead in the water." Not literally deceased, but stuck, with no forward momentum.

In essence, while "dead" is the cessation of life, "dead in the water" is about cessation of progress or movement—figuratively speaking, of course. The latter suggests a temporary state, a problem potentially fixable, perhaps with effort, change in strategy, or a shift in external conditions, unlike the permanence and finality of being literally dead.

Isn't it simply marvelous how language lets us draw such specific shades of meaning with just a tweak of phraseology? Through this exploration, we can appreciate not only the richness of English idioms but also the joy of explaining something so deceptively simple yet profoundly different. Here we stand—or float, if you will—at the junction of literal and metaphorical, grasping the beauty of expression. And isn't that what language is all about?

[beepbooptheory]

Language is great and rich and all that but you forget too quickly that it's a two way street. Nothing gp said implied that they didn't know the idiom. Indeed, it seems obvious to me they were just being concise, which is perhaps a virtue of prose you could benefit from.

[KAMSPioneer]

As an outside observer, it seems reasonable to assume asveikau missed the figurative language. The original phrase used was "dead in the water," which as noted does not imply death; however the response alleged that death was (rudely?) what the original commenter was talking about.

Seems blown out of proportion, at least partially because of missing figurative language. The above wall of text seems a long-winded, somewhat tongue-in-cheek way to say "yeah I didn't say that."

[hasmanean]

Not everybody understands English 100%.

The guy in the old west who drew his gun and said “them’s fightin’ words?” He probably didn’t enough English to understand the whole sentence but picked out a few words which meant to him “fight.”

[KAMSPioneer]

Of course not everyone understands English perfectly. Even among native speakers it's easy to misunderstand (especially on a web forum). I wasn't making a judgement.

Anyway, it was pointed out that the same user that said "dead in the water" did indeed comment upthread that BSDs will "end up dying," so goes to show that I wasn't paying attention.

[asveikau]

I am a native English speaker raised in Washington DC.

I am literally pointing out that Wayland enthusiasts love to gang on X11 as "dead" as a put-down and anybody who still uses it is evil or something. It's a toxic attitude that I've seen a lot here. It should ... pardon the metaphor .... die.

[necovek]

I think one should allow others to look at the entirety of the thread started by bitwize, where they claim:

> ...the BSDs will really end up dying,...

That wasn't very figurative, even if "dead in the water" was. For all it's worth, bitwize might have been using that figure of speech inappropriately when they really meant "dead".

All this to say that even as an outside observer, one can read exactly the same things differently, so perhaps we should all get off our high horses and start riding ponies or bicycles (what? :)) — I mean, back to the discussion at hand.

[asveikau]

> As an outside observer, it seems reasonable to assume asveikau missed the figurative language.

No, I didn't miss it at all, and this is a weird take.

However, its appropriateness as a metaphor does have to do with the literal meaning. Even a less maintained software project with a longer-term deprecation roadmap that still has millions relying on it is not "dead". This very article is talking about how the *BSDs are putting more maintenance into that tree than upstream, and those are actually signs it isn't a total dead-end; they've done that maintenance over the years because it's valuable to them. But bitwize was calling it dead in an attempt to put it down. I've found this particular brand of negativity is very common in Wayland enthusiasts. It is like ad hominem in software maintenance discussion. The source is available for anyone to hack on and use, or not, as they please. There's no sense in ad hominem attacks, exactly as bitwize engages in above, for that.

To be honest, the attacks like this remind me of the XZ backdoor. The sock puppets in those mailing list threads complaining, I would say whining, about "dead", "unmaintained" libzma were channeling the exact same energy. Cool it down. It's not necessary.

[dgfitz]

I had to go through your post history to see if you were some kind of gpt bot. That was quite impressive.

[exe34]

Thank you Sheldon!

[golem14]

... It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an X11-parrot ...

[doublerabbit]

And that's what Wayland wants.

"We will only develop for Linux if you want it do it yourself" is the vibe I get from the Wayland team.

Why should FreeBSD be the ones who have to develop? The stubbornness of Linux users.

[asveikau]

I think it's more the detail they lost (or do not agree with) is that working successfully in multiple environments can valide the strength of the design. Some people will look at a slightly different structure underneath and see it as noise and hassle instead, where you or I may see their action as taking unnecessary or questionable dependencies.

[bandrami]

The short version is that the Linux ecosystem has for whatever reason spent a decade or so resolving the already-solved problem of "who is logged in to this TTY?" and came up with a new way to solve that that the BSDs don't in general implement and Wayland relies on.

[vundercind]

Red Hat wants it to be really hard to remain compatible with Mainstream Linux (whatever Red Hat does) while also differentiating your distro from theirs in meaningful ways, and wants some good old “fire and motion” against competitor distros.

At least, I think everything they’ve been up to and these projects they heavily influence have been doing makes a ton more sense if that’s the plan. It’s that or a lot of weirdly-hostile and disorganized stuff has been happening by chance in a way that achieves that effect by accident.

The BSDs are just collateral damage, I reckon.

[llm_trw]

Jokes on them, the BSDs are more usable than Linux now if you care about productivity.