Ubuntu 14.04 Codename Revealed, Mir Haters Attacked

[Alex Sarmiento]

For the most part, it is nonsensical FUD. But that doesn't mean Mir isn't going to cause some grief for Linux users who won't be using Ubuntu for whatever reason (there are plenty of good reasons not to use Ubuntu that have nothing to do with it being necessarily 'bad'). Imagine, for instance Steam OS eventually gets pretty big and decides to go with Mir for whatever reason. There is a possiblity that some games will support only Mir or have severely degraded experiences elsewhere, leaving everyone except for SteamOS or Ubuntu users with a problem simply because they're using Wayland or X11. Of course, SDL and similar libraries will continue to support multiple display technologies, but there is a potential for bugs under Wayland to be ignored since SteamOS uses Mir, or some such nonsense. On top of this, Mir isn't entirely portable, and if it were there are still issues with copyright that would prevent other distros from using it.

So, regardless of Mir's technical merits (which have yet to be proven in a meaningful fashion), Mir is just another point where app developers may support Ubuntu and forget everyone else, as we have already seen with various closed software on Linux. Not to mention we already have deep conflicts between upstream packages and Ubuntu.

Even a highly optimistic view on this issue should permit some skepticism. Things aren't going to go smoothly, and 'just use Ubuntu' is about as good an answer as 'just use Windows'.

Since when Canonical have to worry and take care about other distros projects?

[finalzone]

Your theory makes more sense if you disregard speed as a reason. They can't sell Wayland to an OEM, but they can sell Mir.
Mir is GPLv3 and completely owned by Canonical, an OEM trying to avoid dealing with GPLv3 and proprietary ARM drivers can simply buy a license from Canonical.

The key part is the Clause Licensing Agreement. LGPLv3 or other copyleft license could be used but the CLA is a deal breaker i.e. only Canonical can switch to other license of their choice. It is no different than the legacy OpenOffice CLA under both Sun and Oracle.

[scionicspectre]

Since when Canonical have to worry and take care about other distros projects?

They've never had to do any of those things. However, since people have settled on Ubuntu as the go-to Linux distro, we all suffer as a consequence when Canonical decides to go another direction on important areas of the software stack. They're not building on top of the best the community has to offer anymore- I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to fork Qt next.

So while I don't expect Canonical to address these kinds of issues anymore, I know there are many people in the Ubuntu community who find these decisions unsettling, and will likely join the rest of us working on Debian, Fedora, SuSE, and even Arch. Although I will admit that there aren't too many distros outside of the Ubuntu 'family' that give you everything you want out of the box (codecs, fonts, and plugins like Flash). Still, I think we could do a lot better than Ubuntu. If we had something with the package availability of Arch and ease of Ubuntu, I can see a lot of people reconsidering.

Unfortunately, much like Windows, a lot of people stick to Ubuntu for a feeling of security and familiarity, especially as so many companies and vendors have been endorsing Ubuntu specifically for a few years, now. I'm hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

[Alex Sarmiento]

They've never had to do any of those things. However, since people have settled on Ubuntu as the go-to Linux distro, we all suffer as a consequence when Canonical decides to go another direction on important areas of the software stack. They're not building on top of the best the community has to offer anymore- I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to fork Qt next.

So while I don't expect Canonical to address these kinds of issues anymore, I know there are many people in the Ubuntu community who find these decisions unsettling, and will likely join the rest of us working on Debian, Fedora, SuSE, and even Arch. Although I will admit that there aren't too many distros outside of the Ubuntu 'family' that give you everything you want out of the box (codecs, fonts, and plugins like Flash). Still, I think we could do a lot better than Ubuntu. If we had something with the package availability of Arch and ease of Ubuntu, I can see a lot of people reconsidering.

Unfortunately, much like Windows, a lot of people stick to Ubuntu for a feeling of security and familiarity, especially as so many companies and vendors have been endorsing Ubuntu specifically for a few years, now. I'm hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

Are "security" and "familiarity" bad things at all? Ubuntu is still an open source project just like any other linux distro. I thought those things were the most relevant differences against Windows from Microsoft. It might be true that other distros might not get any benefit from Ubuntu's Mir, but the same is true the other way around. For instance, the gnome shell, yast and pacman.

Those are valid concerns yes, but not really valid complains .

[johnc]

I don't see why people are so down on Ubuntu. Sure the display manager doesn't work, the window manager doesn't work, the shell doesn't work, the entire unity / compiz integration is fundamentally broken, and Canonical has made it clear that they have no intention of fixing the problems... but other than that, the desktop environment is great. Can't imagine why Dell isn't selling millions of these boxes.

[scionicspectre]

I don't see why people are so down on Ubuntu. Sure the display manager doesn't work, the window manager doesn't work, the shell doesn't work, the entire unity / compiz integration is fundamentally broken, and Canonical has made it clear that they have no intention of fixing the problems... but other than that, the desktop environment is great. Can't imagine why Dell isn't selling millions of these boxes.

I agree, whether you're being sarcastic or not. Ubuntu isn't perfect, but it's still a decent user experience nonetheless. It's certainly not 'bad', not unless you're used to something much better. I think people are only truly upset when Canonical makes political decisions that undermine the efforts of others within the community who are trying to improve the experience for everyone, not just one distro (Wayland devs, for instance).

As far as I'm concerned, people should make whatever software they want, for better or worse, so long as they don't make it incompatible with certain distros or environments for superficial reasons. If your software can run anywhere with only minor adjustments, it probably should. Otherwise, you shouldn't expect every user to like what you're doing and use your software. Linux users of all people should be familiar with this incompatibility problem, and it's a shame that we're treating what Canonical's doing as a unique situation. :\ But confirmation bias works both ways, and I'd be glad to be proven wrong and see everything proceed smoothly. Of course, if Ubuntu weren't so astoundingly popular, people probably wouldn't be so concerned.

[computerquip]

Are "security" and "familiarity" bad things at all? Ubuntu is still an open source project just like any other linux distro. I thought those things were the most relevant differences against Windows from Microsoft. It might be true that other distros might not get any benefit from Ubuntu's Mir, but the same is true the other way around. For instance, the gnome shell, yast and pacman.

Those are valid concerns yes, but not really valid complains .

Actually, all of those can be used on most distributions, including pacman. Also, how does gnome-shell apply to this? It's distro-independent. If you mean Unity, it requires patches to run in a different distribution but it's still quite possible. I know Arch Linux has a AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/unity/

Also, Wayland is built with Linux in mind, not Ubuntu. Wayland will easily work on Ubuntu but it's quite possible Mir may not work on another distribution without major modifications. It's inflexible and a waste of time. It doesn't meet everyone interests like Wayland attempts to, because not everyone uses Ubuntu.

EDIT: Also, their source code licensing is a complicated issue for poor reasons. Wayland has a liberal license to remove complications. That alone is a reason for me to favor Wayland.

[mrugiero]

Of course, if Ubuntu weren't so astoundingly popular, people probably wouldn't be so concerned.

Of course not, but mostly because if Ubuntu weren't so popular their efforts to make an incompatible display server would have no more consequences on the rest of the ecosystem than ReactOS' development. A hint, ReactOS has zero influence in the Linux community (and I don't mean this as an attack to ReactOS, a project I love). Popularity gives the power to do great goods and great wrongs.

[scionicspectre]

Are "security" and "familiarity" bad things at all? Ubuntu is still an open source project just like any other linux distro. I thought those things were the most relevant differences against Windows from Microsoft. It might be true that other distros might not get any benefit from Ubuntu's Mir, but the same is true the other way around. For instance, the gnome shell, yast and pacman.

Those are valid concerns yes, but not really valid complains .

Well, aside from GNOME Shell benefiting Ubuntu GNOME users currently, and the relative fundamentality of display technologies vs. package managers, I'd say being open source isn't the most relevant thing to most computer users. I think what is most important is that your software empowers you, and it's no coincidence that the best general purpose software tends to be open source. Of course, that isn't to say that all open source software empowers you, as much of it is frustrating to use, despite the developers' intentions.

A sense of security is only as good as the rationale it's based on- delusion isn't a good thing. Familiarity is nice, but hardly indicates an objective quality. I don't find a problem with people doing what they're used to, of course, if it's not inherently 'bad'. But I can't say I advocate actions that would tear our community apart without a damn good reason. If you want to create a whole new display server, and you want to convince the developers of various frontend software to come along, you're going to need a lot better reasons than, "well, we're the best, and this is where the party's at, so you kinda' have to! We've never done anything like this before, but you can watch us try."

I really do wish them the best, since Ubuntu users deserve something good to come of all this. But if we're not all in this together anymore, Canonical should make it clear so we can do something more productive than whine at each other. I'm still hoping we can work together, though- if KDE and GNOME could collaborate on freedesktop.org, and if the various web vendors could collaborate with W3C, we should be able to come out of this with something gained.

[Delgarde]

Like the Tea Party analogy from Mark is really bad

It's a terribly ill-judged analogy, because it offends practically everyone. It offends the pro-TP elements because it's clearly intended as an insult to them, and it offends all the anti-TP elements who are being likened to something they despise. And even those with no interest in US politics are offended by the ineptness of the analogy...

I just hope Ubuntu-Phone is not laughed at by the Market.

Fat chance of that... that would imply that the market *noticed* it. And frankly, I don't see that happening... for all Mark's talk, they're too much of a minority player for anyone outside the tech sector to pay them much attention.