Multiple Mouse Cursors in Wayland

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three dominant themes

Wayland screen‑sharing is still a workaround – users stress that true out‑of‑the‑box screen‑share needs extra layers (PipeWire, DBus) and isn’t “just works” yet.

“Yes. Show me how to make zoom screen sharing work without pipewire and prayer.” — dmitrygr
Multi‑seat and multi‑cursor support is hotly discussed – many want independent pointers, keyboards, or touch devices per seat, but the ecosystem is fragmented and often requires custom compositor configuration.

“I have assigned my touchscreen to be in a separate seat.” — MayeulC
Personal desire for collaborative multi‑cursor setups – people imagine gaming, remote‑control or split‑screen workflows that would benefit from several cursors/keyboards sharing a desktop.

“I want two cursors and two keyboards, with two ‘focused window’ panes. If Mouse A clicks Pane 1, keyboard A presses should go into Pane 1. I think this would be so fun for multiplayer games on the same computer….” — OsrsNeedsf2P

🚀 Project Ideas

Adds native multi‑seat support to Wayland compositors, giving each input device its own cursor, keyboard, and focus.
Enables true multi‑user collaboration on a single workstation (pair‑programming, multiplayer games) without extra hardware.
Core value: run two independent users on one PC, each with isolated UI focus.

Key	Value
Target Audience	Linux power users, remote/dev teams, game developers
Core Feature	Runtime seat re‑assignment and per‑seat UI isolation via wlroots plugin
Tech Stack	C + wlroots, libseat, PipeWire, optional Rust bindings
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Revenue-ready: $15/mo per seat

HN commenters repeatedly asked “Why can’t I have two cursors?” – this directly answers dmitrygr’s frustration.
Potential for wide adoption as a standard extension to wlroots, sparking discussion in compositor communities.

Low‑latency screen‑sharing that preserves independent cursors for each participant, enabling true multi‑user remote collaboration.
Works over WebRTC/PipeWire with automatic seat negotiation, requiring no extra client software on the viewer side.
Core value: collaborate in real time on the same screen, each person controlling a distinct cursor and keyboard.

Key	Value
Target Audience	Remote teams, educators, streamers, remote‑work platforms
Core Feature	Multi‑cursor remote sessions with per‑user UI focus and isolation
Tech Stack	Rust backend, WebRTC data channels, PipeWire capture, Electron front‑end
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Revenue-ready: $10/mo basic, $30/mo pro tier

Users like nvme0n1p1 lamented VNC’s deficiencies; this offers a modern alternative with multi‑cursor support.
Addresses the “multiple keyboards” pain point discussed by arh0x71, offering a practical collaborative workflow.

Provides a lightweight cross‑language API for GTK/Qt apps to detect and act on multiple Wayland seats.
Handles cursor/keyboard focus routing automatically, letting developers build collaborative UI with minimal code.
Core value: add multi‑seat awareness to any desktop app in under 50 lines of code.

Key	Value
Target Audience	Desktop app developers, open‑source maintainers
Core Feature	Seat‑aware UI toolkit with automatic focus routing
Tech Stack	C++ wrapper, bindings for Rust & Python, depends on libseat and EGL
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Hobby

Directly solves the “multiple keyboards is trivial but multiple cursors needed” discussion among commenters.
Likely to generate interest on HN for enabling new classes of collaborative software.