Intel Reverts Plans, Will Not Support Ubuntu's XMir

[dee.]

Look at yourself... rationalizing Intel's actions... Are you proud?

Sometimes, things are just as they seem you know. Your rationalization is not the reason Intel gave for reverting the patch. Why are you trying to make excuses for them?

Intel has a vested interest in Wayland (Tizen). They do not support Canonical's decision [to crate Mir]. That is why the patch was reverted. That is what they said. They did not give any other reason that people have tried to present in this thread. If those reasons were a part of their position then they would have presented them.

It's exactly the right choice. Intel shouldn't have to maintain patches for a one-distro solution. If everyone and their grandmothers start churning out display servers, will Intel have to support and maintain patches for those as well? No. If I go and fork XMir, change one thing so it requires different driver patches, and publish it on my one-man distro, will Intel need to maintain patches for that too? No. Why would Canonical be an exception?

If Canonical wants to do such a horribly stupid thing like Mir, they can do the work for it themselves, not count on others to do their job for them. It's as simple as that.

Do you think Intel's decision is for the good of the "community" as some people call it?

You are just choosing your own dictator... But alas, everyone does reserve the right to choose their own dictator...

Intel's actions set precedence for what could be some quite nasty actions in the future.

Slippery slope fallacy. Intel has shown that they have great open source driver support. They have the best open source drivers of any GPU manufacturer. Yet the moment they decide they don't want to maintain a patch for a one-distro solution, they're the evil empire. Durr....

Intel does not care about the "Linux community". Intel cares about Intel and their decisions are made solely to benefit Intel and not competitors.

Remember the Intel + Microsoft monopoly? Intel wants to recreate that with Linux except this time it will just be Intel.

What happens when Intel management decides that they do not condone the actions of RedHat, SUSE , [Insert other distro or company here that may be a competitor]?

More slippery slope.

People have their problems with Canonical or Mir or whatever else, but they shouldn't let this blind them to the fact that Intel's action was bad and sets precedence for similar actions but which negatively affect more than just Canonical or Ubuntu in the future.

Just remember when it happens that you supported it.

Dude, it was one rejected patch that shouldn't have been submitted in the first place. Canonical should have taken up maintainership of that patch in the first place, because that patch doesn't benefit anyone other than Canonical. It's not like Intel is actively hindering Canonical's plans on creating & using Mir, they're not actively making changes that would harm Mir's performance in any way. They're simply saying that if Canonical takes this road, they're free to do that, but they're not helping. Which is good, misbehaving children need to be set boundaries, otherwise they'll never learn.

And don't kid yourself, this decision doesn't affect anyone other than Canonical (not even them, really, as they can just maintain their own patch). No one else is ever going to use Mir. It's Unity-only, and everyone else will use X or Wayland. That's just the way it is, deal with it.

[johnc]

Yeah, I agree. There's no way Intel is going to maintain patches for a one-distro display server like, say... SurfaceFlinger.

...ohh, wait...


I took a look at the code that was backed out. Yeah we're talking about stuff that would cost approximately $25 to maintain over the course of the code's life. A real burden for Intel here.

[finalzone]

Yeah, I agree. There's no way Intel is going to maintain patches for a one-distro display server like, say... SurfaceFlinger.

...ohh, wait...


I took a look at the code that was backed out. Yeah we're talking about stuff that would cost approximately $25 to maintain over the course of the code's life. A real burden for Intel here.

Bad comparison and you know it. You try to shift the topic by using SurfaceFlinger (actively maintained by Google, a profitable company) example found on majority of sold Android devices worldwide.
Edit:
Mir, being a duplicate of Wayland featuring rejected patches, which sole purpose is for Unity only that gather both desktop and mobile is redundant.
Canonical role in business market is so minimal considering their lack of profit, inability to properly maintain their own software they have to rely on someone else work. Tell again why Intel wants to invest on a company in the red.

[F i L]

Yeah, I agree. There's no way Intel is going to maintain patches for a one-distro display server like, say... SurfaceFlinger.

...ohh, wait...


I took a look at the code that was backed out. Yeah we're talking about stuff that would cost approximately $25 to maintain over the course of the code's life. A real burden for Intel here.

Android's SurfaceFlinger is a much more widely used project than Mir. And what's the problem with Canonical maintaining it downstream? I mean, it's not like any other distro is going to use Mir (and if they do, then maybe Intel will reconsider merging the patch).. They may be a few bugs reported to the wrong place, but i doubt that will be a issue (and again, if it becomes one, maybe Intel will reconsider). The point is, regardless of how small, Intel has some amount of overhead in maintaining all the code in their repo. Why should they burden themselves at all for a project they don't care about when the people who created it can manage it themselves with "approximately $25" worth of maintenance?

[johnc]

Bad comparison and you know it. You try to shift the topic by using SurfaceFlinger (actively maintained by Google, a profitable company) example found on majority of sold Android devices worldwide.
Edit:
Mir, being a duplicate of Wayland featuring rejected patches, which sole purpose is for Unity only that gather both desktop and mobile is redundant.
Canonical role in business market is so minimal considering their lack of profit, inability to properly maintain their own software they have to rely on someone else work. Tell again why Intel wants to invest on a company in the red.

It's not like Wayland is going to produce any money for Intel either.

[Vim_User]

It's not like Wayland is going to produce any money for Intel either.

Oh, that must be the reason they invest so much money in it. Maybe you should call Intel and tell them, so that they can stop development. When you are in contact with them already I would recommend also to ask them for a job, since you seem to have better insight into Intel's projects and the market. You must be a genius in that, what was your multi-billion dollars company called again?

[johnc]

Android's SurfaceFlinger is a much more widely used project than Mir. And what's the problem with Canonical maintaining it downstream? I mean, it's not like any other distro is going to use Mir (and if they do, then maybe Intel will reconsider merging the patch).. They may be a few bugs reported to the wrong place, but i doubt that will be a issue (and again, if it becomes one, maybe Intel will reconsider). The point is, regardless of how small, Intel has some amount of overhead in maintaining all the code in their repo. Why should they burden themselves at all for a project they don't care about when the people who created it can manage it themselves with "approximately $25" worth of maintenance?

I have no problem with them not maintaining it. As long as we're honest about the reasons. Cost and "we don't do one-distro solutions" are not the actual reasons.

They clearly took a political stance. Not one based on money or one-distro-ism. People here are trying to whitewash that.

I don't have a horse in this race per se. I think Canonical has turned into a bit of a turd and I have no intention of ever using Mir, but I'm open-minded. I am the token Phoronix forum X fanboy. But I just think there is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much Intel knob polishing that goes on here and in the "Linux community" at large. I know Intel is a big corp. and so it brings a sense of legitimacy to Linux, but as a company you have to keep at least one eye on them.

[johnc]

Oh, that must be the reason they invest so much money in it. Maybe you should call Intel and tell them, so that they can stop development. When you are in contact with them already I would recommend also to ask them for a job, since you seem to have better insight into Intel's projects and the market. You must be a genius in that, what was your multi-billion dollars company called again?

I'm sure they invest a lot of money in Android too... doubt they're making any money on it.

[intellivision]

Right, but if we really want to see some mainstream success on the laptop/desktop side, with an actual Linux OS, not some silly cloud toy, then Tizen on ultrabooks is probably the best shot there is of that happening.

You have to be kidding when you say an 'actual Linux OS' and not just several privately developed frameworks layered on top of each other rather than the freely available community frameworks available out there.
And there's also something that I don't trust about Intel, their past business dealings with SiS, VIA and AMD don't put them high in my support book.

[F i L]

I have no problem with them not maintaining it. As long as we're honest about the reasons. Cost and "we don't do one-distro solutions" are not the actual reasons.

They clearly took a political stance. Not one based on money or one-distro-ism. People here are trying to whitewash that.

I don't have a horse in this race per se. I think Canonical has turned into a bit of a turd and I have no intention of ever using Mir, but I'm open-minded. I am the token Phoronix forum X fanboy. But I just think there is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much Intel knob polishing that goes on here and in the "Linux community" at large. I know Intel is a big corp. and so it brings a sense of legitimacy to Linux, but as a company you have to keep at least one eye on them.

Well i can agree to most of that (only i'm a fan of Wayland). However, I think Cost and distro-specific policies do come into play with Intel's decision, along with the politics. I don't think it's fair to claim it's a purely political move, just as it's not fair to claim is a purely un-political move. Intel may be rejecting this patch as they see themselves taking on more Mir patches in the future, and they don't want that technical burden.

It's also not really fair to claim that, because SurfaceFlinger (a huge project backed by a major player) gets special treatment, so should Mir. In the case of SF, the politics of supporting it upstream outweigh the technical burden. But that's simply not the case for Mir (at least not now), especially when Mir is basically a duplicated efforts of a project Intel is already dedicated too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge supporter of Open-Source and usually discourage moves made for political reasons (no commercial entity can truly be "trusted"). Which coincidentally, is why i hate Mir so much. That said, given the circumstances, I have to agree with Intel's move to reject Mir on both political and technical grounds. Canonical should be made very aware that their choice created needless extra burden for developers, and that that burden, however small today, isn't appreciated by anyone else (as they truly seem to be naive about that).