Mir Is Still Overwhelmingly A Canonical-Only Affair

[mrugiero]

Only one problem with your statement-- Ubuntu is the most widely used Linux distro. Therefore many people care.

Yes. And I think it was implicit, and that it was obvious that it was, that he meant nobody outside of Ubuntu, and specifically out of the main flavor.
So, yeah, with that implied, nobody cares.

[prodigy_]

Ubuntu is still one of the most used distro out there.

And how is this relevant? Ubuntu isn't a geek distro and your average Joe User probably doesn't even know what a display server is. The community boycotts Mir because a) it has no advantage over Wayland and b) people don't trust Canonical anymore.

[hrkristian]

And how is this relevant? Ubuntu isn't a geek distro and your average Joe User probably doesn't even know what a display server is. The community boycotts Mir because a) it has no advantage over Wayland and b) people don't trust Canonical anymore.

What's more, I doubt that statement is a truth with major modifications.
I started out with Ubuntu, as have everyone else I know who tried or uses Linux. Like myself though, others have simply grown tired of Ubuntu.
I'm using Arch now, have for a long time, and I look at Ubuntu thinking "Why? Why would I ever?", but then I remember they used Gnome2 back then, and their distro was cleaner on the whole; more in sync with the rest of the community.
Nowadays, everything just seems to break. Prime examples are Pulse and URL resolving, but of course, nothing is safe from the error-fest that is Ubuntu and its derivatives. Oh and fixing it? Yeah, no, not with all that bloat. Horrible.

[bayan.r]

And here we can see another example of the Trademark Canonical Persecution Complex. See, I used to wonder why all Ubuntu-fans act like this, but after reading what kind of posts Marky-Mark McSpaceshuttle writes, it's really no wonder. Mark behaves like a spoiled brat - he makes these grand plans, he sees himself as a "visionary", a new messiah taking Linux to the next level - but when things don't go his way, he throws tantrums, blames everyone except his own actions. Everyone else is jealous of Canonical! Everyone else is an elitist who wants Linux to be hard! Sounds familiar? That's the kind of text McShuttles writes everytime one of his crazy schemes falls apart, and the loyal followers pick up their cues from the glorious leader, so... that explains that.

Reality check: If you look at mainstream media, the only Linux you see is Android and ChromeOS. And recently, Sailfish, but that's only because the phone was just released and that brought some publicity to it. If you go to gamer news, then SteamOS - even that isn't still quite mainstream, even though it's fairly big in gamer circles apparently. You actually have to do quite a bit of digging before anyone even mentions Ubuntu. Even in techy news sites, at least ones that are not specifically aimed at linux users, whenever Ubuntu is mentioned, it almost always comes with an explanation of what Ubuntu is, because they do not assume that everyone knows Ubuntu - unlike they do with, say, Android.

Of the desktop Linux distros, Ubuntu might be the most well known among laymen, but that just makes it a large fish in a very small pond. Desktop linux distros are not in mainstream news, because there are no corporate sponsors paying for the attention, there's no one paying for advertising - because that's pretty much how mainstream media works these days, it's 99% paid advertising by various commercial or political entities. Canonical doesn't have enough resources to truly bring Ubuntu to the mainstream. When I open up a TV, I get commercials of Microsoft products (teh new windowz, computers with teh new windowz, windowz phones) or Android phablets. Not Ubuntu.

But I digress. Do you want to know why people are harsh on Canonical? It's not because of some conspiracy or jealousy. It's not Redhat and Intel thinking "oh, that Canonical is getting too big and succesful, we better thwart their attempts...!!!" Hell no. Redhat makes over a billion a year selling subscriptions to RHEL. They target an entirely different market than Canonical. Canonical is not even a blip on their radar. As for Intel? They could afford to buy Canonical ten times over. They don't care what Canonical does. Canonical is simply not in their league.

What the reason actually is, is the way Canonical deliberately goes out of their way to isolate themselves from the rest of desktop Linux. Canonical is doing a whole lot of things to make Ubuntu incompatible from other Linux distros. Think of the things they've done in the past couple of years. They patch the hell out of packages, making so many downstream changes that you need special packages for Ubuntu, and then they have this ppa system which could be useful for many distros, it could be a nice way to distribute software, if Canonical would collaborate with others - but the ppa's only work on Ubuntu and its derivatives, because they only offer Ubuntu-patched packages that don't work on other distros. And now they made Mir, and that's going to fragment the desktop Linux into two pieces: Ubuntu, and everything else. They're making Ubuntu incompatible, instead of collaborating with others. And ultimately, that's going to be the downfall of Ubuntu and Canonical, because they're shunning the greatest asset of open source and Linux. The sharing of code and resources. And now they're doing even more microsoftian things: they're bullying derivative distros, attempting to restrict competition by underhanded ways.

If this would only affect Ubuntu and Canonical, then yeah, there'd be no point to complain. But Ubuntu doesn't exist in a vacuum, and their actions affect others indirectly.

And another reason is... even if I don't personally use Ubuntu, I still wouldn't like to see Ubuntu failing. Ubuntu is like the black sheep of the Linux family - sure, it does lots of shitty and hurtful things, but after all is said and done, it's still family, and still has a place in our hearts. We may hate the things a family member does, but that doesn't mean we hate the family member, and it doesn't mean we wouldn't be sad if they died.

McShuttles? Marky-Mark McSpaceshuttle? Isn't that cute he thinks he's smart.

Last I checked Ubuntu was free software. Nowhere in the 4 requirements of free software does it say Ubuntu is required to maintain compatibility, nor does it say they are required to dedicate resources for upstream development, or that they are required to collaborate with anyone, or listen to people who regressed into 5 year olds.

It will slow Wayland's adoption which is irresponsible, but they have the right to do whatever they want. If they wanted to replace GNU userspace with BSD, they can. If they wanted to replace the Linux kernel with their own, they can. They're not required to care what others think.

I moved to Arch because Ubuntu doesn't work for me not because OH MY GAWD CANONICAL BETRAYED ME. Grow up.

[Hamish Wilson]

I moved to Arch because Ubuntu doesn't work for me not because OH MY GAWD CANONICAL BETRAYED ME. Grow up.

Read the post again - he never claimed that they did. What he did say was that Ubuntu has done their best to isolate and generally piss all over everyone else they used to associate with. Now, true, Ubuntu was under no obligation to play nice, but just as everyone has the right to say what they want under free speech, we all have full right to be offended and criticize them to death over it.