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The problem with Mir, Unity and all the convergence ideas was that they were poorly communicated. They didn't really engage with the community and kept all the

The problem with Mir, Unity and all the convergence ideas was that they were poorly communicated. They didn't really engage with the community and kept all the discussions and development behind closed doors, releasing dumps of code once in a while once they reached a milestone that they were satisfied with. That's what Google does with Android, for example, and that would be okay... but only if they were able to take on such ambitious plans. You can't expect the community to welcome you when you blindly follow your ideas and you can't even produce anything in quality. And when I mean in quality, I mean something that justifies going your own way, not just another "GNOME clone" without any added features. I'm pretty sure they had amazing ideias in mind and that they had reasons on why they avoided going to Wayland but... is anyone able to point out any public mailing list, or public blog discussions, where they discuss all of this? I really tried to follow all Ubuntu/Mir/Unity/Phone/Convergence project but all the information I found was poor and outdated. Even working Ubuntu Phone images for the Nexus 5 was hard to find.

reitanqild 9y ago
The problem with Mir, Unity and all the convergence ideas was that they were poorly communicated. Another problem with Unity was that it was totally not like the thing that made many of us like Ubuntu in the first place. I'm not saying it was bad but I didn't like it. I guess this holds true for a number of earlier Ubuntu users.
- btschaegg 9y ago
  > Another problem with Unity was that it was totally not like the thing that made many of us like Ubuntu in the first place. Well not so much a "problem" per se, but this was always something that amazed me: Unity was the last thing I was/am looking for. I get that choices for the DE are great. Unity isn't my cup of tea, but having the option is nice. However, my main quibbles with Ubuntu lied - and still lie - totally elsewhere. For example, I have never done a dist-upgrade with Ubuntu that didn't break everything and force me to do a new installation. This confuses me a bit, since Ubuntu is a great go-to distro for newcomers to Linux. And from that perspective I get that some people might be upset by the "NIH" of some parts of Ubuntu while others still could use more improvements overall. That said, I like what Canonical does very much. Ubuntu is - amongst other things - a great live-system. I always make sure to have an Ubuntu Live flash drive around in case I have to save a friend's files because their Windows system kicked the bucket. And I suspect Canonical wouldn't have ended up where they are now if they didn't have the guts to go their own way on some things.
Udo 9y ago
> You can't expect the community to welcome you when you blindly follow your ideas and you can't even produce anything in quality. So you'd rather destroy a promising program just because you weren't asked about your opinion? Doesn't this effectively mean that we stopped caring about open source, the only thing that actually matters now is the perception of broad community support? It doesn't seem to be about users anymore either, it's all about the approval of gatekeepers now. It used to be anyone, a guy in a garage, or even a huge company, could make something, share the source code, and we'd be happy for their contribution. Now that's apparently shifted to "don't start anything new, just fall in line with the existing stuff". What company or individual would want to publish anything new in this kind of environment?
- igk 9y ago
  Nobody is destroying anything. But people can refuse to adopt or support your project/program
  - Udo 9y ago
    > Nobody is destroying anything. But people can refuse to adopt or support your project/program There is a difference between ignoring a piece of software you don't like and actively campaigning against it.
    - simlevesque 9y ago
      It's not like Mir wasn't campaigning actively against Wayland. No project exist in a vacuum. I like it that way.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - VLM 9y ago
    Thats what they said about systemd but careful application of product tying strategies rammed that thru.

reitanqild 9y ago

The problem with Mir, Unity and all the convergence ideas was that they were poorly communicated. Another problem with Unity was that it was totally not like the thing that made many of us like Ubuntu in the first place. I'm not saying it was bad but I didn't like it. I guess this holds true for a number of earlier Ubuntu users.

btschaegg 9y ago
> Another problem with Unity was that it was totally not like the thing that made many of us like Ubuntu in the first place. Well not so much a "problem" per se, but this was always something that amazed me: Unity was the last thing I was/am looking for. I get that choices for the DE are great. Unity isn't my cup of tea, but having the option is nice. However, my main quibbles with Ubuntu lied - and still lie - totally elsewhere. For example, I have never done a dist-upgrade with Ubuntu that didn't break everything and force me to do a new installation. This confuses me a bit, since Ubuntu is a great go-to distro for newcomers to Linux. And from that perspective I get that some people might be upset by the "NIH" of some parts of Ubuntu while others still could use more improvements overall. That said, I like what Canonical does very much. Ubuntu is - amongst other things - a great live-system. I always make sure to have an Ubuntu Live flash drive around in case I have to save a friend's files because their Windows system kicked the bucket. And I suspect Canonical wouldn't have ended up where they are now if they didn't have the guts to go their own way on some things.

Udo 9y ago

> You can't expect the community to welcome you when you blindly follow your ideas and you can't even produce anything in quality. So you'd rather destroy a promising program just because you weren't asked about your opinion? Doesn't this effectively mean that we stopped caring about open source, the only thing that actually matters now is the perception of broad community support? It doesn't seem to be about users anymore either, it's all about the approval of gatekeepers now. It used to be anyone, a guy in a garage, or even a huge company, could make something, share the source code, and we'd be happy for their contribution. Now that's apparently shifted to "don't start anything new, just fall in line with the existing stuff". What company or individual would want to publish anything new in this kind of environment?

igk 9y ago
Nobody is destroying anything. But people can refuse to adopt or support your project/program
- Udo 9y ago
  > Nobody is destroying anything. But people can refuse to adopt or support your project/program There is a difference between ignoring a piece of software you don't like and actively campaigning against it.
  - simlevesque 9y ago
    It's not like Mir wasn't campaigning actively against Wayland. No project exist in a vacuum. I like it that way.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- VLM 9y ago
  Thats what they said about systemd but careful application of product tying strategies rammed that thru.