People who have been programming for a long time often have very good memories of old projects and software in which they had a lot of hope, but which failed at the end.
i feel likt there's likely more programmers who weren't aware of a 20yo (unfortunately) failed project, compared to the amount of programmers who would be aware of this project, if it succeeded
> i feel likt there's likely more programmers who weren't aware of a 20yo (unfortunately) failed project
At that time, what should replace X11 was a heavily discussed topic, so people who were already interested in programming under GNU/Linux at this time typically remember intense discussions on the internet about the pro-s and con-s of lots of proposals to replace X11.