[dev] Is Motif suckless?

From: UDENIX <udenix_AT_firemail.cc>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2026 22:21:00 +0000

Hi,

Do you consider Motif compatible with the suckless philosophy?

I know Motif is considerably larger and more complex than dwm or the
kinds of tools usually associated with suckless, but it also comes from
an era when desktop software tended to have relatively simple, stable,
and predictable architectures.

Compared with modern desktop environments, Motif is based on traditional
X11 technologies, has relatively few abstraction layers, does not depend
on large web frameworks or runtimes, and its UI model is fairly direct.

Would you consider Motif "suckless" in spirit, even if it does not
strictly follow the principles or design criteria associated with
suckless? Or are the Motif toolkit, (e)mwm, and the surrounding
ecosystem already too large and complex to fit that philosophy?

More generally, where would you draw the line between relatively simple
traditional Unix software and software that can genuinely be considered
suckless?

Regards.
Received on Thu Sep 10 2026 - 00:21:00 CEST