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It's debatably even a flaw. Network transparency is pretty cool. This Minesweeper probably runs faster over an internet SSH tunnel to Australia than any pixel-based remote desktop protocol.

You feel it's a flaw because you only ever run applications locally. But more constraints are a side effect of more possibilities, because you have to program the lowest common denominator of all possible scenarios, so your program works in all of them.

That's how APIs work. They all have this tradeoff.



The only flaw is that there is an inefficient way to do it and you just have to know that and choose the correct way instead.


Say, Wayland doesn't and will never support remote displays will it?


Doesn't and never will. It's all based around transferring pixel data. You can write a VNC-like wayland proxy, which has been done (it's called waypipe) but it will never be as performant as something designed for minimal network traffic. Waypipe will never be able to blit sprites locally on the server, because Wayland clients don't do that.




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