[somat]

It is a weird argument because X11 is also just a protocol. Sure at this point there is only really one server left in the wild(xorg). But historically there have been more.

And on that topic a question I have, seeing as wayland is "just a protocol" why can't the client application talk to the compositor server over a network socket instead of a unix domain socket? Update: reading the spec I found my answer, Wayland buffers are shared memory surfaces... So really wayland is not "just a protocol"

[account42]

There is only one relevant X11 server left because the design leaves policy and even compositing decisions extensible by window managers. This separation does not exist in the design of Wayland which leaves people who ant different behavior to also re-implement all the other parts, often badly.