Project "XDG ng"

Purpose of project "XDG-ng"

• Improve the usability of desktop environments for end users
• Allow for features previously lacking in desktop environments
• Remove layers of legacy crust
• Remove reliance on GLib
• Make debugging and development faster, simpler, and more fun

Key realization

freedesktop.org (formerly known as X Desktop Group, hence XDG) standards used to be useful but are technical debt nowadays

• Define how most desktop environments currently work under the hood
• Have specs that address most areas needed to put together desktop environments
• Are decades old and do not make best use of contemporary technology, e.g., extended attributes
• Lack concepts integral to the desktop user experience, e.g., application bundles and global menus
• Make things that should be simple complicated or impossible
• Seem to be retrofitted to explain how Glib works

Approach

• Start from first principles - the objects that the desktop user experience consists of
• Think entirely independently of any particular existing desktop environment
• Propose simpler, more robust, more contemporary solutions for each of the XDG specifications, ideally in less than 10% of the length and complexity of the corresponding XDG specification
• Propose solutions for areas the XDG specifications fail to address