1)No need for that, ALSA works fine now. Windows sound system is not better than ALSA in latency terms and it works just right, they(MS) even removed some hardware acceleration for sound as they considered it was not worth the complexity pain.
2) This will come naturally if Linux becomes an option for gamers and 3D professionals(like architects and engineers). It is not that FOSS are breaking the drivers, but that Windows graphic drivers budget are tens or hundreds of times bigger than Linux.(e.g. nouveau drivers are made with less than 2 full time workers who have to reverse engineer everything, and Nvidia creates drivers with just their special customers[big studio animators] in mind).
3)This is basically dependent on 2. It is way easier to code a display server when your drivers work. They could only use open source drivers for this through, as companies like Nvidia had not collaborated with the Wayland people.
Do you write code that uses ALSA? I do. It is not "fine". It is maddening. By comparison, Core Audio is a dream. Windows is a bit of a zoo but all the pieces are there.
Replacing X isn't so dependent on drivers as you might think. A big part of what makes X so horrible is unrelated to how X interacts with the graphics card -- most of the nasty bits actually sit between the X server and the client application. The protocol was invented in 1987 and was designed around assumptions that just simply aren't true any more. These days, you want to shuffle pixmaps around or get a GL/DirectX context, and you want to do it locally. X is optimized for sending pixel operations over a network.
Let me make an analogy for X: imagine designing a protocol for making phone calls over an email system. That's what doing anything modern on X feels like, most of the time.
Agree on the ALSA comment. I wouldn't wish ALSA development tasks on my worst enemy. Developers these days should target PulseAudio, and tell users without it to get lost. The Pulse API is a poorly thought-out mess, but it at least behaves fairly consistently. ALSA's behavior is a complete crapshoot.
Strongly disagree on the ALSA comment. PulseAudio is the primary cause for most latency in Linux audio. I've written sound playback and recording code in ALSA and achieved low latency without difficulty. I wouldn't wish PulseAudio on my worst enemy.
I'm going to have to agree with this. I was the one complaining about ALSA to begin with, but PulseAudio is just another layer of indirection around ALSA. In other words, ALSA sucks, but it's more widespread than OSS, and it at least gives you some control.
2) This will come naturally if Linux becomes an option for gamers and 3D professionals(like architects and engineers). It is not that FOSS are breaking the drivers, but that Windows graphic drivers budget are tens or hundreds of times bigger than Linux.(e.g. nouveau drivers are made with less than 2 full time workers who have to reverse engineer everything, and Nvidia creates drivers with just their special customers[big studio animators] in mind).
3)This is basically dependent on 2. It is way easier to code a display server when your drivers work. They could only use open source drivers for this through, as companies like Nvidia had not collaborated with the Wayland people.