Ubuntu 14.04 Codename Revealed, Mir Haters Attacked

[Temar]

makomk, thanks for your very interesting posts. I really hope some Wayland developers will respond to the concerns you have raised.

Not being able to run Wine, would be a huge problem for me.

[mrugiero]

Well, TBH, since that's a problem with the rootless X approach, Canonical should worry too, as XMir will have to work through that too.
Anyway, I expect WINE to be eventually compatible with Wayland.

[DanLamb]

It's not hard to follow the criticism at all. Canonical is often accused of freeloading off the Linux community and not contributing anything to Linux society. Basically a useless sponge soaking up everyone else's hard labors. And worse yet, since the introduction of Unity, dictating to their user community exactly how the UI is going to look and work w/ no option for non-conformity, and if you don't like it, then you can just go grab your ankles.

Canonical contributes lots of QA + testing resources to base Linux software. It has also clearly done something to attract more users to Linux. They provide funding to upstream pieces like KDE. Canonical has also contributed development on highly controversial efforts like Unity and now Mir. I don't see how they are "sponging" off of others any more than any other distro. That seems silly. Also, I understand a lot of people hate Unity, but Canonical themselves supports alternatives like KDE and XFCE and if you really want something more like the old Gnome, there are plenty well supported and maintained options. With such easy to choose alternatives, I don't see a validity to the bitterness towards Unity.

[Hamish Wilson]

Canonical contributes lots of QA + testing resources to base Linux software. It has also clearly done something to attract more users to Linux. They provide funding to upstream pieces like KDE. Canonical has also contributed development on highly controversial efforts like Unity and now Mir. I don't see how they are "sponging" off of others any more than any other distro. That seems silly.

The main complaint is not that they don't do anything, but the fact that when they do do something it is usually only for themselves. Unity and Mir are almost unusable on anything other than an Ubuntu system by design, and Canonical does not have a great track record when it comes to working with the upstream developers (you mention funding which would be interesting to mark if it could be verified and elaborated upon) who provide a lot of the plumbing that Canonical's vendor specific solutions still rely upon.

That is the main difference - when Fedora or OpenSUSE test some new technology such as Wayland or Btrfs it can be expected to benefit everyone. Most of what Ubuntu does only benefits Ubuntu, despite the fact they still rely themselves on the work done by other distros.

Also, I understand a lot of people hate Unity, but Canonical themselves supports alternatives like KDE and XFCE and if you really want something more like the old Gnome, there are plenty well supported and maintained options. With such easy to choose alternatives, I don't see a validity to the bitterness towards Unity.

No, but that may validate the bitterness towards Mir, which will make those alternatives a lot harder for both the projects themselves and Ubuntu to support.

[DanLamb]

What do you consider "basic human rights"? Because AFAIK, they want to shut down medical care for everyone who can't afford it, and that sounds like a basic human right to me. But I acknowledge it's arguable, and "basic human rights" vary from one ideology to other. I'd like to know which are according to you, and if you happen to know, which are according to the Tea Party.

What is a basic human right? The right to not have all the rules of life dictated by a hostile group of people who managed to achieve a majority vote and are determined to silence the voices and seize the assets, labors, and communities of those who were in the minority and lost the election.

Almost everyone, especially the political right, believe in some form of medical service to the poor. We don't believe that a remote federal government should have such intensely concentrated power that they can dictate elaborate systems around that and completely crush any voice of disagreement.

The moral high ground of the political right is that we don't want the concentrated power to stop opponents from forming the communities, charities, and organizations that they believe in. The fundamental mindset of the left is seizing assets and institutions of the opposition through political force and using them for their own purposes.

[johnc]

Canonical contributes lots of QA + testing resources to base Linux software.

They don't even QA / test their own releases. And I'm not being harsh here... the types of bugs that get pushed out -- and yes, even in an LTS release -- and then subsequently never fixed is evidence that they don't actually use their products seriously in house, or they don't expect us to use them seriously. Show-stopping bugs like "can't install proprietary drivers" or "lightdm won't start with proprietary drivers installed". Compiz is an absolute disastrous broken mess since they decided to integrate Unity in there. (And fixes won't be coming to 12.04 LTS.)

I personally don't have anything against Canonical and I'm not exactly a Linux community knob slobberer and I could care less if they contribute upstream or not, but Canonical has really bit the big one the past ~18 mos or more in terms of the end product.

[Hamish Wilson]

What is a basic human right? The right to not have all the rules of life dictated by a hostile group of people who managed to achieve a majority vote and are determined to silence the voices and seize the assets, labors, and communities of those who were in the minority and lost the election.

That is hardly a basic human right. The right to life is a basic human right, which is the main point that mrugiero was referencing. Without access to medical care, the right to life can not be assured to its most reasonable extent. Unless such services are insured by somebody, that right is violated.

And how exactly are you being silenced? And how much of your assets and really being seized by the government? Who foreclosures your house, the government, or private banks/individuals?

Also, do you believe in the rule of law? Because if you do, then you are a hypocrite (I will save judgment on this until this point has been established, however).

[hiryu]

The problems with XWayland/Wine and the lack of global screen coordinates are actually trivial to solve - it simply requires a way of accessing the global coordinates that all the Wayland compositors already track. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to ever happen. Not exposing those coordinates is a deliberate design decision the Wayland developers are very keen on sticking to. Same with some of the other problems - they're not bugs, it's intentionally designed that way.

Please correct me if I'm wrong; however, isn't this how X itself already works? So this is actually a drawback with X itself? Sounds like the solution is for Wine to be ported to Wayland then.

[johnc]

And how much of your assets and really being seized by the government?

Too much.

Who foreclosures your house, the government, or private banks/individuals?

Let's not pretend that the banks and federal government aren't the same entity these days.

[Hamish Wilson]

Too much.

As compared to what?

Let's not pretend that the banks and federal government aren't the same entity these days.

No, lets. Just because our politicians are bought and sold does not mean banks are part of government. It just means we have a corrupt governments.