Because of the characteristics of X described in the previous section, there is a notion of a well-behaved application. Some of the recommended behaviors are documented in the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual [Ros91].
It was an explicit design goal of X Version 11 to specify mechanism, not policy. As a result, a client that converses with the server using the protocol defined by the X Window System Protocol, Version 11 may operate correctly in isolation but may not coexist properly with others sharing the same server.One of the primary mechanisms to support the conventions is the use of properties.Being a good citizen in the X Version 11 world involves adhering to conventions that govern inter-client communications in the following areas:
- Selection mechanism
- Cut buffers
- Window manager
- Session manager
- Manipulation of shared resources