Intel Reverts Plans, Will Not Support Ubuntu's XMir

[johnc]

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).

Then it really comes down to Canonical is just a small fish and gets different treatment because of that. Which might be legitimate in a business sense, but it isn't nearly as altruistic. After all, just looking at the political aspect, Canonical really hasn't done much different than Google did. Google went off and spun their own display server in their own little world that only works on their OS and foisted it on everybody who wants access to their distro. And I assume Intel has been left to maintain some kind of patches. I don't get the impression that SF was a Linux community-driven project like X and Wayland are. Yeah Google has the clout and that likely overrides the politics of it all. But that just means Intel's values are malleable based on the size of the partner company. Canonical bad, Google good.

I don't know. I just think they could have handled it better. Their little commit note was patronizing and petty.

Then again it seems like Intel is really pushing Windows tablets at IDF this week so... keep those eyes open.

[bkor]

Canonical bad, Google good.

Complexity vs expected revenue. Seems rather logical to me.

[johnc]

Complexity vs expected revenue. Seems rather logical to me.

Right. So all this "they don't want to support a single distro-specific display server" talk posted in this thread is just silly. Glad we all finally have that settled.

[F i L]

Then it really comes down to Canonical is just a small fish and gets different treatment because of that.

Well to be clear, I wasn't really defending Intel's special catering to SF. Only that I see how it makes sense from a practicality stand point when a project reaches that size.

[Vim_User]

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

Ah, then what you are really saying is: I don't know if Intel is making any money with supporting Android and Wayland, I just claim that they don't despite being able to back up that claim with facts. Glad we finally have settled that.

[johnc]

Ah, then what you are really saying is: I don't know if Intel is making any money with supporting Android and Wayland, I just claim that they don't despite being able to back up that claim with facts. Glad we finally have settled that.

Oh no I know they're not making any money with Android or Wayland.

[DDF420]

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.

So normally we get **Canonical suck they never submit their changes upstream** to **Canonical suck because they submitted their changes upstream thus deserve to be rejected and no change should ever be accepted**?
The circle jerk shouting not to accept a patch to a video driver simply because its canonical is beyond the ridicules


Upstream won't take patches because other distros don't use it. Other distros don't use it because other DE's don't use it. Other DE's don't use it because it requires upstream patches that haven't been accepted. Upstream won't accept the patches because other distros don't use it................the linux community at its best
Fuckwits like Dee proclaim canonical are naughty children that deserve to be spanked simply for doing their own thing
No pleasing you lot

[Vim_User]

So normally we get **Canonical suck they never submit their changes upstream** to **Canonical suck because they submitted their changes upstream thus deserve to be rejected and no change should ever be accepted**?
The circle jerk shouting not to accept a patch to a video driver simply because its canonical is beyond the ridicules

Last I checked Chris Wilson, the one who submitted that rejected patch, worked for Intel, not Canonical. Your argument is invalid.

Upstream won't take patches because other distros don't use it. Other distros don't use it because other DE's don't use it. Other DE's don't use it because it requires upstream patches that haven't been accepted. Upstream won't accept the patches because other distros don't use it

You really think that other DEs don't use MIR because of missing patches upstream? Wow, you really should inform yourself before ranting, maybe read Martin Grae?lin's blog why they won't port to Mir instead of talking such nonsense.

[DDF420]

Last I checked Chris Wilson, the one who submitted that rejected patch, worked for Intel, not Canonical. Your argument is invalid.

last time i checked the patch was originally submitted by Christopher Halse Rogers - Canonical Ltd. and signed off and accepted by chris wilson. It is then later reverted by chris with the management statement. So how exactly is it invalid ?

[dee.]

So normally we get **Canonical suck they never submit their changes upstream** to **Canonical suck because they submitted their changes upstream thus deserve to be rejected and no change should ever be accepted**?
The circle jerk shouting not to accept a patch to a video driver simply because its canonical is beyond the ridicules

Aww, it's cute when you guys try to make rational arguments. Keep reaching, I'm sure you'll get there some day.

Upstream won't take patches because other distros don't use it. Other distros don't use it because other DE's don't use it. Other DE's don't use it because it requires upstream patches that haven't been accepted. Upstream won't accept the patches because other distros don't use it................the linux community at its best
Fuckwits like Dee proclaim canonical are naughty children that deserve to be spanked simply for doing their own thing
No pleasing you lot

Oh ho. Where'd you learn such language? Do you kiss your mommy with that mouth, young man?

Anyway, no one is under any obligation to take Canonical's patches to help them create a one-distro solution for one desktop environment. Canonical themselves choose the path to go Mir, if they wanted collaboration and other people's help, there was already a very simple choice for them: use Wayland. That's the project chosen, by consensus, as the target for development as the next-generation Linux graphics system. Canonical is free to discard that option and make their own solution, but then it means that they can't just ask the rest of the community to do their work for them, if they want to go against the entire community and say "no, you guys are all wrong, we know better, things should be done our way" then they need to prove themselves and do all the work for it.

You can whine all day long about how people are evil for not doing Canonical's work for them, but in the end, if Canonical wanted collaboration, they should have gone with the project where people are already investing their work in, because that's the thing about free software, it's about choice. People get to choose where they put their work, and if Intel says they'd rather not put their work into maintaining patches for an unnecessary display solution that only benefits one company, instead of a display solution that benefits the entire community, that's their choice. Canonical also made their choice, now they have to live with it and put in the work.