wlroots

Wlroots is a wayland compositor, a software that drives multiple displays and handles window arrangements, input focus, and user interaction. It is designed to be a flexible, modular, and extensible platform for building custom Wayland user interfaces.

First released in 2020, wlroots has gained popularity in the free and open-source software community as a viable alternative to other compositors. It supports most Wayland features, including XWayland, DRM, EGL, and lots of display and output options.

One of the main design principles of wlroots is to use plugins and extension points to make the codebase more flexible and modular. This allows developers to easily customize the appearance and behavior of the compositor. The library is also designed to be hardware-specific, which makes it a good choice for systems with limited resources.

Wlroots has been used in various desktop environments, such as Sway, a tiling window manager for Wayland, and is also used in I3 and i3-gaps. The compositor has a small and active community of developers and contributors, which contributes to its rapid development and growth.

In terms of its licensing, wlroots is licensed under the MIT license, which allows for free use and modifications of the codebase. This makes it suitable for use in a wide range of applications, from general-purpose desktop environments to specialized and embedded systems. As with most open-source software, the community maintains and develops wlroots through public repositories, bug trackers, and mailing lists.