He wanted X11 to thrive. Freedesktop however has a goal for Wayland ultimately to replace X11, right? X11 should die. This is not hyperbole. It’s a stated goal.
So I think there’s more to the story than the simplified ABI aspect often mentioned here on HN.
Also Gnome killing X11 support is real.
So is KDE backing down on BSD-support.
These are facts, not opinions.
The number one goal for the Xwayland / Xorg devs is stability. Breaking ABI compatibility is a pretty big problem if stability is your goal.
But of course that would destroy the narrative.