Mir's GPLv3 License Is Now Raising Concerns

[chrisb]

and, since there's no other companies in that space, you can be the only one selling hardware enablement packages to OEMs.

But OEMs still can't avoid the GPLv3. Why would they care specifically about subverting the license of the display server and not, say, bash or coreutils? Either way they have to give users access to modify the software. Or do you think Canonical will attempt to ship a non GPLv3 version of Ubuntu Touch? It seems like a lot of effort to go to just so OEMs can lock down devices.

I'm also struggling to see why this is a problem in light of Wayland. Surely any company that wants to sell a non GPLv3 display server to OEMs can just sell Wayland? Given that Mir and Wayland should run the same apps, what is the problem?

[chrisb]

The VPN solution would work but you might stand out - I would guess there are only a few people in a million who always use an encrypted VPN for all cell phone traffic.

And then we find out... "Using online anonymity services such as Tor or sending encrypted e-mail and instant messages are grounds for US-based communications to be retained by the National Security Agency even when they're collected inadvertently, according to a secret government document published Thursday." http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...eps-your-data/

[dee.]

Yeah that doesn't make sense. They are talking about a platform of convergence, and specifically mentioned avoiding the problems that android has in regards to device fragmentation. So there is no way they are going to offer to make something like the display server proprietary. It would be a maintenance nightmare and go against their goals. Also how is adding a link to amazon adding adware?

The application launcher, which is pretty much the only way to launch applications in Unity, by default showers you with ads from Canonical's "business partners". To do this, everything you type in your launcher gets sent to a remote server, which is problematic in itself. Most people consider it annoying to have most webpages filled with annoying ads, now people have to get ads shoved in their face on the OS level. The Unity dash is adware, plain and simple.

As far as their "proprietary" server code, surely you can understand why a company wouldn't want to share their secret to bringing relevant search results to their userbase... I mean it would be the equivalent of complaining that google doesn't share their search algorithms with everyone, the reason should be obvious. That is not the same as developing proprietary applications for their userbase and comparing it to that is strange at best. And on top of that you can choose not to send your search terms to them anyway, so if it bothers you so much you can just disable it. It doesn't get much more user friendly than that...

Ah, rationalizations, rationalizations. You're good at making excuses for them. Can't you see the irony? The entire "we can't open our code because then others might compete with us" -line of reasoning is exactly the one that proprietary software vendors use to excuse why they don't do open source. Even when it has been proven that open source works as a business model. Ubuntu has open source to thank for its success, it's built upon open source software written by others, such as the Linux kernel and Debian. And now they say that they can't open certain parts of their code because they're afraid of competition. That's bullshit - I don't believe for one second that the code they have on their servers is so great that it offers them some kind of unbelievable advantage against others that needs to be hidden away. The whole reasoning is flawed - they should compete by the quality of their service. If they offer the best service, and the best overall package, it doesn't matter if someone can copy their code.

Opt-out isn't good enough, any privacy-invasive technology should be disabled by default, or at the very least the OS should ask the user on first boot if they want to enable the feature. This behaviour of just shoving it to users shows that Canonical no longer prioritizes the needs of the user.

Calling them immoral for wanting to do things their own way instead of contributing to the community is what reflects poorly on the Linux community, not stating that you don't like the direction they're taking. Most of what you've posted here is misleading, and bordering on trolling. Do you feel the need to exaggerate to make your case against Canonical? I think there are legitimate reasons to criticize their actions, like for example not communicating with the community about Mir early on, but I really don't get the responses of most people. So what if they are making Mir, they aren't forcing anyone to support them. I don't see how what they are doing is harmful or stupid. Even if you dislike them they at least are spreading the word about Linux and that exposure leads to people learning about your favorite distribution too.

BS. Canonical is doing nothing for Linux, because they're distancing themselves from the Linux community, building walls around them, making themselves separate and incompatible from all the other Linux distros.

What damage is that exactly? Is that the same kind of damage that Lxde or Xfce4 are doing? They are choosing to write their own software rather than develop KDE or Gnome.

It's not comparable. It's fine to have competition on parts like desktop environments, because you can still run exactly the same apps on Lxde as you can run on Xfce or KDE or Gnome. There's competition, but there's also compatibility. Firefox works just the same, no matter what DE it's ran on.

It becomes entirely different when we're talking about a crucial part of the graphics stack such as the display server. Canonical could and should have went with Wayland like they promised earlier. There is absolutely no technical reason whatsoever why they couldn't have used Wayland, why they couldn't have written their own Wayland compositor for Unity. All the reasons they gave for not doing so have been proven to be lies. If they had gone with Wayland, we'd have a great situation where all the distros, both on mobile and desktop, could have converged around a single, good, efficient display server standard. Instead, they're now breaking the ecosystem in two, where developers have to choose if they want to support Ubuntu or the rest of the Linux ecosystem. Basically, developers (at least the ones who don't want to or can't for some reason use toolkits, such as game developers) have 3 choices:

- support Mir, and run on Ubuntu only
- support Wayland, and run on the rest of Linux
- or stay with X, which can run on both Mir and Wayland

Therefore, Canonical's decision to develop Mir is directly harming the adoption of Wayland and migration away from X, since it makes it so that staying with X is the best way to maintain compatibility accross the board.

It's a power grab by Canonical. They want to build a wall between Ubuntu and other Linuxes, trying to force developers to develop Ubuntu-specific software. It's a dirty strategy straight from the book of Microsoft.

[dee.]

Given that Mir and Wayland should run the same apps, what is the problem?

Where do you get that idea?

[chrisb]

Where do you get that idea?

Which apps are not going to run on Mir or Wayland?

As far as I know, the various toolkits (GTK QT etc) will have back ends for Mir and Wayland. Apps written for those toolkits should work on either. OpenGL apps should work on either. Firefox and OpenOffice will need their respective toolkits porting as well.

If this is incorrect I would like to know, but as I understand it right now, regular apps should run on either display server. Everything sits on top of opengl with these new display servers, so as long as there is an opengl layer at the bottom of the app stack (whether from the app itself or a GUI toolkit library) it should work.

[V10lator]

But OEMs still can't avoid the GPLv3. Why would they care specifically about subverting the license of the display server and not, say, bash or coreutils?

Cause bash and coreutils are not needed in a embedded environment (locked down mobile phone, for example). There's Busybox for that.

[TheBlackCat]

Which apps are not going to run on Mir or Wayland?

As far as I know, the various toolkits (GTK QT etc) will have back ends for Mir and Wayland. Apps written for those toolkits should work on either. OpenGL apps should work on either. Firefox and OpenOffice will need their respective toolkits porting as well.

It is likely that canonical will at the very least write a Qt backend, since they are planning on using Qt for many apps. Whether this is accepted upstream or not I don't know. Qt also makes it relatively easy to add such backends.

I assume Canonical plans to do the same for GTK, but again I don't know whether it will be accepted upstream (probably less likely than with Qt). On the other hand they may just decide to rely on XMir, although how long GTK will support X is again uncertain (probably for a while, but who knows).

For other things like SDL, TK, wx, Elementary, FLTK, etc, it is much less likely that there will be Mir backends for them. SDL is probably the only one with a snowballs' chance, and only because of Valve, but that is only if Valve decides to go with Mir instead of sticking with X or abandoning Ubuntu entirely.

[chrisb]

Cause bash and coreutils are not needed in a embedded environment (locked down mobile phone, for example). There's Busybox for that.

Yes but Ubuntu Touch is using bash and coreutils, not busy box. It wouldn't be impossible to switch, but it would be a lot of effort, and would be a significant fork from desktop Ubuntu.

[dee.]

It is likely that canonical will at the very least write a Qt backend, since they are planning on using Qt for many apps. Whether this is accepted upstream or not I don't know. Qt also makes it relatively easy to add such backends.

I assume Canonical plans to do the same for GTK, but again I don't know whether it will be accepted upstream (probably less likely than with Qt). On the other hand they may just decide to rely on XMir, although how long GTK will support X is again uncertain (probably for a while, but who knows).

For other things like SDL, TK, wx, Elementary, FLTK, etc, it is much less likely that there will be Mir backends for them. SDL is probably the only one with a snowballs' chance, and only because of Valve, but that is only if Valve decides to go with Mir instead of sticking with X or abandoning Ubuntu entirely.

Also, apps that will not use toolkits but instead use the Wayland/Mir API directly (eg. games). There's already one (proprietary) game that uses libwayland, although I don't know what exactly it does with it...

[DDF420]

Basically, developers (at least the ones who don't want to or can't for some reason use toolkits, such as game developers) have 3 choices:

- support Mir, and run on Ubuntu only
- support Wayland, and run on the rest of Linux
- or stay with X, which can run on both Mir and Wayland

I thought said developers would simply support either GLX which would work for both xwayland/xmir or support wayland/mir with EGL ?

Though i believe EGL only supports opengl ES 3.0 which is good but may not be the best option for desktop games since excluding geometry shaders and other features missing from opengl ES 3.0