4 ms·

| vitriolic attacks on KDE/Unity/Gnome I can understand the attacks on Unity. It was swapped to the default environment in Ubuntu before it was ready for prim

by pyre 14y ago

| vitriolic attacks on KDE/Unity/Gnome I can understand the attacks on Unity. It was swapped to the default environment in Ubuntu before it was ready for primetime, and it represents Ubuntu's increasing distance from the rest of the Open Source (or at least Linux) community (see Mir vs. Wayland).

kunai 14y ago
Mir is actually making a lot of progress, but I can also see why Canonical would want to create their own display server rather than use an existing one. Part of it is NIH, but the other part is probably the lack of full integration and control they'd have with regards to Ubuntu. It's still open-source, and they're working hard on it. I don't see what the issue is.
- pyre 14y ago
  The issue is that they bad-mouthed the competing project by making a bunch statements about short-comings that apparently don't exist. It would have been much better for them to just come out and say, "we want to create Mir so that we have control over it and can integrate it completely with Unity Next," but they didn't. See also the recent post on HN about Kubuntu + Mir/Wayland and the possible issues (and unresolved questions) about keeping Kubuntu going.
  - thomasmeeks 14y ago
    Well, Ubuntu definitely messed up on their arguments regarding Wayland. That said, keeping Kubuntu going is not Ubuntu's responsibility. It may very well be that Kubuntu will need to fork off Ubuntu (or base off a different distro), and that's ok!
    - pyre 14y ago
      It's not their responsibility, but it's not going to generate a bunch of goodwill for the Canonical/Ubuntu though. If they came out and told people the real reason for Mir, and why they thought that they wouldn't be able to integrate Wayland and Unity Next (beyond NIH syndrome), people might be more understanding. Also, the biggest question mark for Kubuntu seems to be whether or not Wayland and Mir can coexist on the same system.
thomasmeeks 14y ago
Ubuntu is not distancing themselves from anyone, least of all Open Source. Everything they are doing is open, and I'd argue in the spirit of the Linux community, as well (experiment, scratch your own it, prove your idea by building it, etc.) I may not agree with all their technical & business decisions, but I do love that they are willing to experiment on the "big things" and provide a little competition in the space. That said, their arguments against Wayland were way off. Which was a very big mistake. Though I tend to attribute that to not understanding Wayland well rather than malice.
- pyre 14y ago
  | That said, their arguments against Wayland were | way off. Which was a very big mistake. Though I | tend to attribute that to not understanding Wayland | well rather than malice. I don't necessarily think that it was malice (you can bad-mouth someone without malice), but it raises a lot of questions. - Why was Ubuntu so misinformed? Why didn't they discuss things with the Wayland devs? - Why haven't they admitted their mistake in their reasons[1]? - Why is Ubuntu still going forward with Mir? Why not just use Wayland if the 'shortcomings' of Wayland that drove them to create Mir don't exist? [1] Maybe they have, but I haven't come across it.
  - csense 13y ago
    > Why is Ubuntu still going forward with Mir? Why not just use Wayland if the 'shortcomings' of Wayland that drove them to create Mir don't exist? Maybe the switching cost of moving to Wayland outweighs the remaining cost of completing Mir. Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining about the result, since I actually think it's healthy for multiple competitors to exist in the same space, especially for something as widely used as a windowing system: (1) They can cross-pollinate ideas (2) Competition puts pressure on sub-par projects to innovate. Regarding (2), IMHO it's much easier for your project to innovate when a competitor who's on your radar pulls ahead in mindshare or market share gives you the kick in the pants you need when you're merely starting down the road to stagnation. If you're a near-monopoly on your market niche (post-X FOSS windowing systems in this case), you can get completely ossified and not realize it until everyone leaves as soon as your monopoly disappears due to new competitors (funded by the fraction of your own dissatisfied customers who have deep pockets) -- a position which is much more difficult to recover from.

by pyre 14y ago

kunai 14y ago

Mir is actually making a lot of progress, but I can also see why Canonical would want to create their own display server rather than use an existing one. Part of it is NIH, but the other part is probably the lack of full integration and control they'd have with regards to Ubuntu. It's still open-source, and they're working hard on it. I don't see what the issue is.

pyre 14y ago
The issue is that they bad-mouthed the competing project by making a bunch statements about short-comings that apparently don't exist. It would have been much better for them to just come out and say, "we want to create Mir so that we have control over it and can integrate it completely with Unity Next," but they didn't. See also the recent post on HN about Kubuntu + Mir/Wayland and the possible issues (and unresolved questions) about keeping Kubuntu going.
- thomasmeeks 14y ago
  Well, Ubuntu definitely messed up on their arguments regarding Wayland. That said, keeping Kubuntu going is not Ubuntu's responsibility. It may very well be that Kubuntu will need to fork off Ubuntu (or base off a different distro), and that's ok!
  - pyre 14y ago
    It's not their responsibility, but it's not going to generate a bunch of goodwill for the Canonical/Ubuntu though. If they came out and told people the real reason for Mir, and why they thought that they wouldn't be able to integrate Wayland and Unity Next (beyond NIH syndrome), people might be more understanding. Also, the biggest question mark for Kubuntu seems to be whether or not Wayland and Mir can coexist on the same system.

thomasmeeks 14y ago

Ubuntu is not distancing themselves from anyone, least of all Open Source. Everything they are doing is open, and I'd argue in the spirit of the Linux community, as well (experiment, scratch your own it, prove your idea by building it, etc.) I may not agree with all their technical & business decisions, but I do love that they are willing to experiment on the "big things" and provide a little competition in the space. That said, their arguments against Wayland were way off. Which was a very big mistake. Though I tend to attribute that to not understanding Wayland well rather than malice.

pyre 14y ago
| That said, their arguments against Wayland were | way off. Which was a very big mistake. Though I | tend to attribute that to not understanding Wayland | well rather than malice. I don't necessarily think that it was malice (you can bad-mouth someone without malice), but it raises a lot of questions. - Why was Ubuntu so misinformed? Why didn't they discuss things with the Wayland devs? - Why haven't they admitted their mistake in their reasons[1]? - Why is Ubuntu still going forward with Mir? Why not just use Wayland if the 'shortcomings' of Wayland that drove them to create Mir don't exist? [1] Maybe they have, but I haven't come across it.
- csense 13y ago
  > Why is Ubuntu still going forward with Mir? Why not just use Wayland if the 'shortcomings' of Wayland that drove them to create Mir don't exist? Maybe the switching cost of moving to Wayland outweighs the remaining cost of completing Mir. Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining about the result, since I actually think it's healthy for multiple competitors to exist in the same space, especially for something as widely used as a windowing system: (1) They can cross-pollinate ideas (2) Competition puts pressure on sub-par projects to innovate. Regarding (2), IMHO it's much easier for your project to innovate when a competitor who's on your radar pulls ahead in mindshare or market share gives you the kick in the pants you need when you're merely starting down the road to stagnation. If you're a near-monopoly on your market niche (post-X FOSS windowing systems in this case), you can get completely ossified and not realize it until everyone leaves as soon as your monopoly disappears due to new competitors (funded by the fraction of your own dissatisfied customers who have deep pockets) -- a position which is much more difficult to recover from.