Comment 65 for bug 150690

Paul Beardsell wrote:
> In my opinion the whole workspace thing is a hack implemented against the
> way X is supposed to work. Each workspace is not traditionally addressable.
> E.g. I cannot choose which workspace/pane my windowed application opens in
...
> fails with an error. In my opinion
>
> xterm -display :0 &
>
> should best open in the first (or, better, current) workspace on the current
> X server
>
> xterm -display :0.0 &
>
> should open in the 1st workspace and
>
> xterm -display :0.1 &
>
> should open in the 2nd etc

I think you have a misunderstanding of how the display parameter works -
from 'man X':
---8<---
DISPLAY NAMES
       From the user's perspective, every X server has a display name of the form:
                                                              hostname:displaynumber.screennumber
...
  screennumber
               Some displays share their input devices among two or more monitors. These may be configured as a single logical screen, which allows windows to move across screens, or as individual screens, each with their own set of windows. If configured such that each monitor has its own set of windows, each screen is assigned a screen number (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is started. If the screen number is not given, screen 0 will be used.
---8<---

In a nutshell, X11 allows you to address a machine, then a server on that machine, then a specific logical screen on that server (for example when running with dual monitors and without Xinerama). Window managers add on top of that the notion of workspaces, but it was never something inherent in X. Granted different window manager implement workspaces in different and conflicting manners, but that is not because of some misuse of X semantics.

Freedesktop.org's window manager spec (EWMH) has this to say about workspaces (http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-latest.html#id2552820):
---8<---
This spec assumes a desktop model that consists of one or more completely independent desktops which may or may not be larger than the screen area. When a desktop is larger than the screen it is left to the Window Manager if it will implement scrolling or paging.
...
Window Managers that require / desire additional functionality beyond what can be achieved using the mechanisms set out in this specification may choose to implement their own pagers, which communicate with the Window Manager using further, window manager specific hints, or some other means.
---8<---

In a nutshell "we don't know what to tell you, go ahead and do what you want". Oh well.