KiCad and Wayland Support

Summary

These problems exist because Wayland’s design omits basic functionality that desktop applications for X11, Windows and macOS have relied on for decades—things like being able to position windows or warp the mouse cursor. This functionality was omitted by design, not oversight. The fragmentation doesn’t help either. GNOME interprets protocols one way, KDE another way, and smaller compositors yet another way. As application developers, we can’t depend on a consistent implementation of various Wayland protocols and experimental extensions. Linux is already a small section of the KiCad userbase. Further fragmentation by window manager creates an unsustainable support burden. Most frustrating is that we can’t fix these problems ourselves. The issues live in Wayland protocols, window managers, and compositors. These are not things that we, as application developers, can code around or patch. We are not the only application facing these challenges and we hope that the Wayland ecosystem will mature and develop a more balanced, consistent approach that allows applications to function effectively. But we are not there yet.