More Mir Talking Points Come Out Of Canonical

[dee.]

I don't know if any of the above has had any weight on the decision to develop mir, but one thing is true. Wayland is intel's project, and canonical is seeking to support a miriad of ARM SoCs, so it makes sense that they do not adopt a DS controlled by competitors. By developing it in house they can have a common ground. What do you guys think?

Total and utter bullshit. Wayland is not "intel's project" in any way.

[Hamish Wilson]

Total and utter bullshit. Wayland is not "intel's project" in any way.

Yeah, this is the same logic that gets people to say GNOME is a Red Hat project. Yes, Red Hat sponsors GNOME and has paid developers working on it (they also have some working on KDE) but in the end no one vendor has complete control over it. This is also true of Wayland with regards to Intel. Hell, using the same logic it could be said that the free Radeon drivers are an Intel project, simply because of the large amount of contributions from Intel in the Linux free graphics stack.

[Hamish Wilson]

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Ubuntu generally "just works", and the other distros, even the "stable" distros generally look, feel, and act like somebody's hobby rather than a polished product? I'm sure Canonical has a lot more cred in making usable Linux distros than you do.

But not more than many other distros. Ubuntu's big difference is mostly just marketing.

I just retried Debian "stable" this morning, and it would hang on shutdown, take forever to boot up, and was in no way more stable or compelling than the much more bleeding-edge Ubuntu 12.04.

I think you misunderstand Debian's audience here.

Then there's the Arch-tards who suggest that Arch LInux somehow should be the dominant Linux distro, even though it's just a toy that is likely to fail to install, and even if it does install, it will pretty much break on every update. I still don't understand the alleged appeal of Arch, but I'm sure some knowledgeable Arch-tard can properly explain that the "I fixed it myself elitism" of Arch trumps Ubuntu's "just works for everybody".

I have not heard anyone say Arch should be the universal default, but when it comes to actually knowing your system, systems like Arch and Gentoo are great for this. You do not see the appeal because you honestly seem to have no interest in having a in-depth understanding of the structure of your system or almost complete control over how it works. Just because it does met your use case does not invalidate it's purpose, or make it any less compelling.

[johnc]

But not more than many other distros. Ubuntu's big difference is mostly just marketing.

Well we're certainly open to suggestions.

[Figueiredo]

Yeah, this is the same logic that gets people to say GNOME is a Red Hat project. Yes, Red Hat sponsors GNOME and has paid developers working on it (they also have some working on KDE) but in the end no one vendor has complete control over it. This is also true of Wayland with regards to Intel. Hell, using the same logic it could be said that the free Radeon drivers are an Intel project, simply because of the large amount of contributions from Intel in the Linux free graphics stack.

Well, as far as I know, KH is the one reviewing patches to be merged, and he is employed by intel specifically to work on wayland isn't he?

There is no public evidence that I know of that ARM patches have been rejected, I'm just considering that intel might use the control it has over wayland development and the better open driver to better position itself against ARM vendors. Obviously if such patches were to be indeed rejected, canonical would still be able to fork wayland. But that would put us right where we are today.

I also don't know very well the licenses of wayland and mir, maybe someone can enlighten me. However, it is possible that mir is license wise more friendly toward blobs (which are much more common) than wayland.

The fact is that any distro is pretty much well supported on intel machines, if ubuntu is to take the next step (no pun intended) it must be very well positioned to support the myriad of GPUs used between mobile phones, htpcs, consoles, tablets, notebooks and desktops, and most, if not all, require blobs to deliver all their features.

Is intel friendly towards OSS, not doubt! But if they were really willing to listen to the community and help support other hardware vendors, they would have switched to gallium a long time ago wouldn't they?

[nightmarex]

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Ubuntu generally "just works", and the other distros, even the "stable" distros generally look, feel, and act like somebody's hobby rather than a polished product? I'm sure Canonical has a lot more cred in making usable Linux distros than you do.

I just retried Debian "stable" this morning, and it would hang on shutdown, take forever to boot up, and was in no way more stable or compelling than the much more bleeding-edge Ubuntu 12.04. Then there's the Arch-tards who suggest that Arch LInux somehow should be the dominant Linux distro, even though it's just a toy that is likely to fail to install, and even if it does install, it will pretty much break on every update. I still don't understand the alleged appeal of Arch, but I'm sure some knowledgeable Arch-tard can properly explain that the "I fixed it myself elitism" of Arch trumps Ubuntu's "just works for everybody".

Stop, Arch is surprisingly stable. You sound like a Windows user. Who wants to use Linux? Just so you can say you're leet? Pfft! Same argument, same fail. I suppose not everyone has to use the CLI if they don't want. However did you ever notice even Windows has one? Shocker I know. I like the freedom to do what I want with my machine, Linux affords me this. I think Arch also lends itself very well to those who want more than a DAD (default and dealing) distro. So I choose it because I like the control I have and prefer pacman to synaptic(gui) or apt(cli).

Side note: The bashing of Cononical for it's actions (which we learn maybe slightly distorted) is perhaps justifiable. Tearing down distros because they seem too advanced or hard for you is childish. Spreading FUD that it's impossible to install or crashes all the time is also very ignorant. Please if you're going to act this way, do the Linux world a favor and go back to Windows.

[Hamish Wilson]

Well we're certainly open to suggestions.

OpenSUSE, Mageia, and even Fedora do actually have a lot of polish (at least on their main versions). And of course there are all the people on Mint, which you can say is due to Ubuntu, but on the polishing front it is mostly all of their own (there is even talk of abandoning Ubuntu as a base, but I do not know the details on that).

[Hamish Wilson]

Well, as far as I know, KH is the one reviewing patches to be merged, and he is employed by intel specifically to work on wayland isn't he? There is no public evidence that I know of that ARM patches have been rejected, I'm just considering that intel might use the control it has over wayland development and the better open driver to better position itself against ARM vendors. Obviously if such patches were to be indeed rejected, canonical would still be able to fork wayland. But that would put us right where we are today.

This is all a pretty big stretch without any evidence. I seriously doubt Intel has all that much power over all of Wayland's contributors.

I also don't know very well the licenses of wayland and mir, maybe someone can enlighten me. However, it is possible that mir is license wise more friendly toward blobs (which are much more common) than wayland.

I would actually say Wayland is friendlier than Mir (MIT versus CLA'd GPL).

Is intel friendly towards OSS, not doubt! But if they were really willing to listen to the community and help support other hardware vendors, they would have switched to gallium a long time ago wouldn't they?

That is more of a technical argument than a political one.

[Hamish Wilson]

Stop, Arch is surprisingly stable. You sound like a Windows user. Who wants to use Linux? Just so you can say you're leet? Pfft! Same argument, same fail. I suppose not everyone has to use the CLI if they don't want. However did you ever notice even Windows has one? Shocker I know. I like the freedom to do what I want with my machine, Linux affords me this. I think Arch also lends itself very well to those who want more than a DAD (default and dealing) distro. So I choose it because I like the control I have and prefer pacman to synaptic(gui) or apt(cli).

Side note: The bashing of Cononical for it's actions (which we learn maybe slightly distorted) is perhaps justifiable. Tearing down distros because they seem too advanced or hard for you is childish. Spreading FUD that it's impossible to install or crashes all the time is also very ignorant. Please if you're going to act this way, do the Linux world a favor and go back to Windows.

A little more florid than I would have put it, but indeed.