Ubuntu 15.10 Plans Being Discussed Next Week

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 15.10 Plans Being Discussed Next Week

Next week marks the initial Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS) for planning out the community+Canonical Ubuntu 15.10 release, the next major update to the popular Linux distribution due out in October...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...-UOS-Next-Week

[Michael_S]

I think if they can't have Unity8 ready for 15.10, it shouldn't be default in 16.04

In my experience, Ubuntu LTS releases since 10.04 are rock solid and the interim releases are of lower quality - not terrible, just not as good as the LTS releases. I think if Unity8 launches with 16.04, it's going to harm the Ubuntu LTS reputation.

... obviously it won't affect servers that don't run X11 or Mir, so on the server side Canonical will be fine. But for desktop users, I think this is a risky move.

I tried to run Unity8 on my 15.04 install and it just hangs until I restart lightdm.

[uid313]

They are making Mir while we already have Wayland and that is what everyone else will be using.
They are making a calendar, calculator, terminal and weather app while GNOME already have that.

So they are just doing things that already exist.
I would rather see them work on polishing things and making integration work.

[Michael_S]

I'm less irritated that they're making Mir than I am that they make contributors assign them copyright. GPLv3 alternative to Wayland? Fine. GPLv3 alternative to Wayland in which only Canonical has the option to relicense it as they see fit? Not fine - that's wielding copyleft as a weapon.

[dh04000]

In my experience, Ubuntu LTS releases since 10.04 are rock solid and the interim releases are of lower quality - not terrible, just not as good as the LTS releases. I think if Unity8 launches with 16.04, it's going to harm the Ubuntu LTS reputation.

... obviously it won't affect servers that don't run X11 or Mir, so on the server side Canonical will be fine. But for desktop users, I think this is a risky move.

I tried to run Unity8 on my 15.04 install and it just hangs until I restart lightdm.

Unity 7 will still be in the repo and maintained for a number of years according to Canonical. X11 will also be available and maintained. You can switch it if you want and still enjoy the LTS support. That's my plan until U8/Mir reaches stability of U7/X11.

[dh04000]

They are making Mir while we already have Wayland and that is what everyone else will be using.
They are making a calendar, calculator, terminal and weather app while GNOME already have that.

So they are just doing things that already exist.
I would rather see them work on polishing things and making integration work.

Breaking NEWS! KDE DE just released a new calendar and mail application! The SHAME!, don't they know those already exist! GASP! Elementary OS just released a new mail and calendar application! These mad men, don't they know those already exist! Le DOUBLE GASP! Canonical is making their own calendar and mail application! Don't they know that these already exist?!? How dare they build an application with their own time and money to meet their needs! Shame, shame on all of your houses!

[Michael_S]

Unity 7 will still be in the repo and maintained for a number of years according to Canonical. X11 will also be available and maintained. You can switch it if you want and still enjoy the LTS support. That's my plan until U8/Mir reaches stability of U7/X11.

I'm not worried for myself - I've been using Linux for years, I can switch to alternative desktops or alternative distributions pretty quickly. I just think Ubuntu has had a reputation problem since Unity launched, which was made worse by the Amazon lens, and then worse by release of Mir, and all of that with a few errors related to community dealings along the way. If Ubuntu 16.04 comes out and the most common end user experience can be summarized as: "Works like a champ as long as you don't use the default desktop configuration" that's just one more hit to their reputation.

Despite the mistakes I want Ubuntu, Canonical, and in general (GNU/)Linux to succeed. I'm just a little nervous here.

[profoundWHALE]

I think if they can't have Unity8 ready for 15.10, it shouldn't be default in 16.04

16.04 won't be a LTS release, so it shouldn't be an issue

I'm less irritated that they're making Mir than I am that they make contributors assign them copyright. GPLv3 alternative to Wayland? Fine. GPLv3 alternative to Wayland in which only Canonical has the option to relicense it as they see fit? Not fine - that's wielding copyleft as a weapon.

It would allow them to go proprietary (partially) at basically any moment if they had a lot of the core "Ubuntu" pieces with CLA.

[nanonyme]

It would allow them to go proprietary (partially) at basically any moment if they had a lot of the core "Ubuntu" pieces with CLA.

Sounds like a reasonable thing to have if you have long-term plan of selling the OS

[Michael_S]

16.04 won't be a LTS release, so it shouldn't be an issue

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BradFigg/SupportSchedule
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeekly...untu_16.04_LTS

As far as I know, it is. I haven't seen anything anywhere that says it won't.

Sounds like a reasonable thing to have if you have long-term plan of selling the OS

Yes - except that many community contributors are partly motivated by the fact that the code is open source. So if Canonical wants to go proprietary, that's their right - but I suspect they'll lose a lot of fans, a lot of users, and a lot of contributors.