We Need to Talk About EXWM

I’ve been getting requests for merch for a while, that day has finally arrived!

Check out the set of items I’ve put together with the System Crafters logo:

https://store.systemcrafters.net

These are all high quality print-on-demand items so shipping can take up to 2 weeks but it’s usually faster than the estimate you get when you buy something.

Please let me know your feedback on everything: items, pricing, shipping costs, etc. I want the community to be proud to wear them!

This is just the first step; I plan to add new designs every 3 months or so, it will only get better from here!

As I’ve mentioned before a few times, EXWM the maintainer ch11ng has been missing for over a year.

• Last commits to EXWM and XELB were in July 2020
• People are concerned: https://github.com/ch11ng/exwm/issues/845
• Many lingering issues that people face daily, I’ve been burned frequently
• I even tried StumpWM again!
• Nothing beats EXWM, though.

What can be done about it?

• The project is in definite need of help to address pain points
• It seems medranocalvo might be an admin on the repo
• All it would really take is for an individual or small group to learn the code and try fixing things
• FSF copyright assignment approval is a big challenge (can that be abandoned?)
• Many people would be happy and relieved for EXWM to be maintained again

• A hard fork with no intention to merge upstream can avoid FSF assignment issues
• Could be an opportunity to rethink some things, redesign the code
• Aside from learning the code, the challenge would be making it enticing (and smooth) to migrate
• This could be the fastest route to a bright new future

If we’re considering a fork, why not think bigger?

• Can we fix some core issues with EXWM while planning for the future?
• Minimal window manager core not written in Emacs Lisp but driven by it via RPC
• Write it either in C or an embedded Scheme (Chibi, perhaps)
• Create an abstract internal model; focus on X Window System and Wayland later
• Make it possible to have a more traditional tiling window manager that is still Emacs-driven
• OMG GAPS

Could be a huge undertaking, but possibly more future-proof!

Solving this problem is important to me! I can’t live without my Emacs Desktop Environment.

• I’m going to start investigating all possibilities in my (limited) free time
• Great opportunity to stream the work on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/SystemCrafters
• Start building a knowledgebase of how window management works with Xorg
• Investigate various technical options, live coding regularly
• As soon as a good direction is determined, get community involvement

For stream schedule: Mondays or Wednesdays? Tentatively 8am-10am Pacific Time.

• EmacsConf CFP
• Vieb browser
• Luakit browser
• Fennel language
• One Sword game
• Installing Emacs on Windows 10
• helpful.el
• emacs-sidecar-locals - or dir-locals-set-directory-class, etc
• Debugging JavaScript in Emacs with Indium
• Taking a look at GNU Hurd
• Even Further Refinements of Org Roam Usage
• systemE
• Prot system failure (Paypal)

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