<ajax> X really doesn't have much to do with cut/paste, directly.
<ajax> X only has things called selections, and atoms.
<ajax> atoms are just strings of data, that are given integer handles (like file descriptors)
<ajax> some of those atoms, by convention, are used to implement copy and paste; the value of the CLIPBOARD atom is the clipboard contents.
<ajax> you can assert ownership of an atom by treating it as a selection.
<ajax> (i think i'm getting this right)
<ajax> the point is, it's all a client convention.  there may be additional requests X could offer, to allow you to do things more performantly, or to guarantee more atomic semantics
<ajax> but X doesn't have any particular knowledge about what a given selection _means_
<ajax> and there are selections used for things other than the clipboard
<aganice> that makes sense
<ajax> so you can't just change how selections work
<ajax> in particular, that the server doesn't store clipboard contents greedily (whenever you select them) is a real performance win
<ajax> "copying" a url to a jpg out of firefox might mean copying the url, or might mean copying the image contents; depending on where you paste.
<alanc> if X.Org still maintained the ICCCM, it might be a place to work out improvements, but I think freedesktop has pretty much taken that over now with EMWH, etc.
<ajax> so not uploading the whole image is worthwhile if it never gets evaluated as an image by a client.