We am still running native x11, only because we run the steam client and only because of that (like …

Sure, X11 was getting long in the tooth and not well fit for the modern desktop. However, the main problem is that the replacement isn't a replacement. If X11 was a pickup truck, Wayland is a bare engine and transmission package. Sure it might be a much better engine with cleaner design and has no trouble passing emissions testing, and the transmission has much better efficiency and smoother gear shifts. But if you need a pickup truck then it's just one, albeit important, piece. By leaving all that extra work up to the individual compositors only reinforces the negative aspects of open source fragmentation.

Huh? You don't need libs to use X11. You can just open a socket and send messages. And thanks to the protocol actually defining most of the message IDs you don't even need as much nonsense. 60% of that "bloat" in X11 is stuff Wayland actually needs, and lacks, making it a failure until it gets them. 75% of the rest isn't harming anyone, besides the trees the extra documentation is printed on. Have you implemented a Wayland compositor by yourself? Without libs? Desktop systems having desktop system calls is not "sabotage" any more than Linux having open and close syscalls is "sabotage". At some point you have to draw lines in the sand, and say which stuff is in scope and which stuff is out of scope. A useful API does things, which means there have to things in scope. You can't leave everything as an optional extension unless you are defining some kind of absolutely generic message transpo…