First, the disclaimers. These are my views, and you’re welcome to agree or disagree. Am I right about all of this? Maybe. Maybe not. These are just the thoughts I’ve gathered through experience.

This article was prompted by several things, one of them being this post titled “It’s True We Don’t Care About Accessibility on Linux”. Articles like this shouldn’t have to exist. Not because they’re wrong, but because the people they describe—those who dedicate time and effort to accessibility—deserve better. These folks are the unsung heroes of our community. They rarely ask for recognition, but they damn well deserve it. Much of the accessibility work done in Linux goes unnoticed, and that’s a sign it’s working. “It works, I got done what I needed to”—that’s the goal, right? But the moment something breaks, even something small, the complaints roll in like thunder.

What should you do when something breaks? File a bug. Give clear reproduction steps. Nine times out of ten, it gets fixed. In my experience, good developers care about accessibility. If a project is well-crafted and thoughtfully maintained, accessibility usually follows. If it’s a mess of duct tape and spaghetti code, your chances drop—but never to zero. Developers who don’t care about their own project rarely care about accessibility either. At that point, you might be better off using something else anyway.

Back to that article, though. Even the best developers can only take so much. If the only feedback they get from the accessibility community is anger and accusations—“you don’t care about us,” “this is garbage because one button is unlabeled”—what incentive is there to keep listening? Most developers working on accessibility don’t even use it themselves. So here’s the honest reaction a lot of people will have to that kind of behavior: “Why should I do anything for you? You’re being a complete pain in the ass.” And just like that, you’re ignored.

I admire those who stick with it anyway. You’re far more patient and kind than I’ll ever be.

That article taught me a lot. This line stuck with me:

“Regular GNOME contributors like myself don’t always feel comfortable defending ourselves because dismissing GNOME developers just for being GNOME developers is apparently a trend.”

That’s shameful. I don’t personally use GNOME—I’m more of a minimalist window manager guy, with i3 being my go-to—but I absolutely respect GNOME developers. If accessibility comes up, I always point out GNOME as a solid, accessible desktop choice. Let’s not forget, GNOME is the reason Orca exists in the first place.

So let me say this publicly:

To anyone who has improved accessibility in any way—whether it was one line of code or ten thousand, whether you did it to help yourself or because you knew it mattered even if you didn’t need it—thank you.

I’m not just talking about screen readers (which I personally use), but everything: keyboard navigation, color contrast, all of it. You’ve made life better for people, and there’s no higher achievement than that.

Of course, backlash against accessibility projects is nothing new. Back in the early 2000s when NVDA was just starting out on Windows, people were mad. “We already have a screen reader! We don’t need another!” Some said they hoped it would fail. Some told the developers to quit. Honestly, if people like that vanished tomorrow, I’m not sure the world would be worse off. But of course, they’re still here—and probably using NVDA today, whether they admit it or not.

Xorg Under Fire

Now, on to the main event.

Xorg has been under attack for years, and I don’t get it. One of the core strengths of Linux is choice. Use what you want, how you want. So why is the graphical stack suddenly the exception? I don’t hate Wayland. If it works for you, great. Use it.

But for me? It’s a hard no.

Until it fits into my workflow, I won’t touch it. I’d switch operating systems first, because if I can’t use my computer on my terms, it’s no longer my computer. I’m willing to put in effort to make things work—hell, I ripped out PulseAudio for years because it didn’t meet my needs. Eventually, it got better. When it did, I switched to it, no problem. Now I use PipeWire. Its transition was smooth, in part because of all the groundwork laid by PulseAudio. I didn’t bash the Pulse devs while I waited. I respected the work and kept checking in to see when it would be ready for me.

Now the controversy is Xorg vs. Wayland, and it’s loud. “Xorg is deprecated! Switch now before it’s too late!” It feels like a Wayland vigilante is going to show up at my door if I don’t switch soon. Fortunately, thanks to hours of playing Doom, I know how to deal with that eventuality, that’s right, I got my BFG 9000 right here!

Thankfully, Xlibre exists. It’s a fork of Xorg with the goal of keeping it alive and usable. My project, Stormux, has adopted Xlibre and will continue to support it for as long as it works.

Why Xlibre Matters

For those who might not be familiar, Xlibre is a community-driven fork of Xorg, launched in response to the increasingly aggressive push toward Wayland and the declaration of Xorg as “feature complete.”

Why is that a big deal?

Because “feature complete” is often shorthand for “we’re done caring.” Bugs won’t be prioritized. Critical fixes have slowed. Support from major distros has started to drop—and with that, your workflow might crumble if you rely on Xorg.

Xlibre exists to say, no, we’re not done. It’s the effort of people who believe that a stable, flexible, well-understood display server is still worth maintaining—not as nostalgia, but as practicality.

For accessibility users, Xorg isn’t just “legacy software”—it’s the foundation of tools that work today. Things like:

  • Programmatic control of the mouse and keyboard (which Wayland restricts heavily)
  • Compatibility with screen readers like Orca in lightweight WMs
  • XInput and accessibility frameworks that don’t have full parity on Wayland

Sure, Wayland is improving—and that is a good thing. It’s a great choice for many people, but should it be the only choice? Of course not!

That’s why Stormux has adopted Xlibre, and I intend to stick with it for as long as it remains viable. It gives Stormux users freedom. It gives us control. And it keeps Linux true to one of its most important principles: choice. It also allows several Stormux related projects to work in the way they were intended with access to both the GUI and CLI without false restrictions in place on either.

If you’re a distro maintainer, a developer, or even just an end user who values what Xorg offers, I encourage you to follow Xlibre’s progress. Contribute if you can. Test. Report issues. Show that this effort matters.

This should be the end of the story, open and shut case, but some idiots want to drag politics into the mix. Apparently the creator of the fork doesn’t really want in on all the posturing and political crap, and just wants to do work and get things done. But, as usual, some people have to bring up things completely unrelated to the project at hand. I personally do not know the political beliefs or views of the Xlibre project leader, nor do I care. I care about the continuation of Xorg, end of story. If you put politics above project development, go away—you are not wanted or needed. Real people are doing real work here and don’t have time for your drivel.

Is that inclusive? Probably not. Get over it.

Thanks again to the Xlibre maintainer and contributors. You’ve given us a way forward—not backward—and you’re proving that the tools we built our systems on don’t have to die just because someone declared them done.

Some post article notes. I probably won’t update this very often, because it’s a done deal now, but this does bare mentioning.

  • Because of the article linked to in the beginning, and some other factors, I decided to try Gnome. I don’t see what the complaints are about, it works fine. In fact, if you want a modern, full featured, accessible desktop I highly recommend Gnome.
  • One of my biggest gripes with wayland is no longer an issue. I was able to copy text between the console and the graphical session. I will be sticking with X for the foreseeable future, but with this single fix, wayland lost a lot of the vehement hard no it had from me before.