Wayback began recently as [1]an experimental X11 compatibility layer for non-Wayland desktop environments to leverage Wayland components. While still in early form, the project has already taken off from being a personal GitHub project to now being hosted on FreeDesktop.org alongside other projects such as Wayland and the X.Org Server itself plus other prominent software like Mesa and GStreamer and much more.

Open-source developer Ariadne Conill of the Alpine Linux project began hacking on Wayback as an X11 compatibility layer for leveraging Wayland components for desktops not natively supporting Wayland. Wayback is [2]hoping to be production ready by 2026 and in use by at least Alpine Linux out-of-the box.

The latest news on Wayback is that Ariadne Conill has shared that Wayback has already shifted from a personal GitHub account to being hosted by FreeDesktop.org infrastructure. Wayback is now "fully" leveraging FreeDesktop.org in its X11 compatibility layer crusade.

The new home for the project moving forward is [3]wayback/wayback on FreeDesktop.org .

Also today the Wayback project [4]adopted a logo inspired by [5]the dated X.Org logo .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wayback-X11-Wayland

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wayback-2026-Plans

[3] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback

[4] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback/-/issues/40

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/ODYwMw