Has the Development of Window Managers Slowed?

al3x asks: "When I first got into Linux nearly five years ago, the new releases of competing window managers (like Blackbox, Enlightenment, Sawfish, etc.) were a constant thrill, and great strides were made with every release. I can't count the number of nights spent trying to get that sexy new E build to work, and what fun it was! But these days, window manager development seems to be stagnating. The last stable release of Enlightenment is from last year. Sawfish hasn't done much of anything in months, nor has Blackbox. WindowMaker had a recent update, but not with any exciting new features (it is rock solid, however). Now, verging from the paths of window manager favoritism or "they haven't been updated because they just work," why has development in this arena slowed to a crawl, and what's on the horizon?"

Comments

GO KDE!

[ekrout]

I think that this is primarily because desktop environments have taken over. The KDE folks must be hooked-up to caffeine IVs based on how fast they release updates and totally new applications. Ximian GNOME is also quite nice, and has a large following. Basically, "window managers" as we know them have been replaced by these more full-featured environments that are helping to bring Linux to the desktop.

Re:GO KDE!

[Nelson]

That's correct. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the the very concept of window managers has been a hurdle slowing down the progress of the GNOME.

For a while there was a debate about "the GNOME window manager" and then there was the whole E thing when people were getting frustrated and quitting their jobs. Sawfish came out to fill a void and that's what it has done and now it doesn't seem as important that it get's all the newest wiz-bang gadgetry.

Newer versions of E are sounding more and more like they are trying to build a desktop or new environment than simply a window manager, that's great, more power to them.

But the essential truth is that for the majority of Linux users the window manager concept has come and gone and that desktops are where it is all happening now.

e17

[technomancerX]

Seems like following the progress of e17 is interesting enough in and of itself... something about a multi-threaded open gl accelerated window manager what also includes a file manager and full widget library strikes me as 'making progress'. Not to mention the coolness of the underlying libraries...

.technomancer

Re:Couple possabilities

[Glytch]

Windowmaker is pretty much in the "add little features, fix little bugs" category from what I've seen in the changelogs. 0.70 was just released a few days ago, and (just speaking anecdotally) it works flawlessly. I never even have to touch the config files by hand anymore, the WPrefs tool works fine. And coming from a die-hard Slackware control-freak like me, that's saying something.

I think the development team should just declare it to be version 1.0. Windowmaker is stable and full-featured enough for it. :)

Re:Couple possabilities

[Brainchild]

I never even have to touch the config files by hand anymore, the WPrefs tool works fine. And coming from a die-hard Slackware control-freak like me, that's saying something.

And if you're even more of a control freak than that (like i sometimes am), you can use the wdwrite utility to store selected preferences, and then use the WPrefs tool and whatnot to handle the rest.

I think the development team should just declare it to be version 1.0. Windowmaker is stable and full-featured enough for it. :)

Close, but not quite. Alfredo's working on support for the _NET_WM spec (or whatever the devil that Grand Unified Post-ICCCCCM Extension is called nowadays), to support next-generation KDE and GNOME and whatnot. Once that's there, together with up-to-date documentation, then i would agree with the v1.0 thing.