Compiz 0.8 was branched from master back in November, but only today do we now have the v0.8.0 release of Compiz. Since that point the future of Compiz was called into question and Compiz++ had emerged as a C++ rewrite of Compiz that also brings a separation of the Composite and OpenGL layers, a new plug-in design, and other changes.

It was then decided earlier this month that the Compiz developers would release Compiz 0.8 and then go on to merge Nomand and Compiz++ back into Compiz prior to reaching a 1.0 status. Compiz++ will be merged into Compiz prior to version 0.9.0 while Nomad will follow that. It was also determined around the same time that Compiz Fusion will be dropped.

Now there is a more clear future to Compiz, but today we have the Compiz 0.8.0 release to celebrate. Since the release of Compiz 0.7.8 back in September, Compiz has picked up new plug-in changes, proper GNOME 2.24 support, memory leak fixes, adjustments for KDE 4.2, and a large number of bug-fixes.

The Compiz 0.8.0 release announcement can be found on the project's mailing list. Compiz 0.8.0 will be found in the next round of Q2'09 distribution updates, including Ubuntu 9.04 and Fedora 11.