Re: Reorganizing FreeBSD Ports Directory Structure for Non-X Window Managers and Wayland Support

NSD <nsd@nantahala.systems> writes:

> Dear All,
>
> FreeBSD could benefit from reorganizing its directory structure to
> accommodate non-X Window managers more effectively. Currently, these
> managers are all placed under the "x11" directories, which may not
> accurately represent their nature.

- Porter's Handbook recommends against[1] adding new physical categories
- Some Wayland compositors are also X11 window managers: plasma5-kwin,
  kwinft, mutter and, probably, enlightment

[1] https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/makefiles/#proposing-categories

> A more intuitive approach could be to introduce a new "display" directory that encompasses various display managers. Here's a proposed reorganization:
>
> display/
>   ├─ x11/
>   │   └─...
>   │
>   ├─ wayland/
>   │   ├─ wayland-wm/
>   │   └─ ...
>   │
>   └─ arcan/
>       └─ arcan-wm/
>           └─ durden/

- Nested physical categories are a POLA violation (going to confuse and break lots of stuff)
- Tagging is more flexible and discoverable and is already done via virtual categories
- Gentoo uses "gui-wm" while PkgSrc uses "wm" for both X11 window managers
  and Wayland compositors; for example, x11* can be renamed to gui*

Anyway, I'm not interested. I already struggle to find the correct
category even for non-Wayland ports.