so Canonical/Ubuntu doesn't follow the Linux community rules...

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise...03/ubuntu-mir/

So what do you think of this article? After reading it, I can't say what Canonical is doing bothers me at all. Like many Linux users, I don't like Ubuntu and won't use it. But everything I've ever observed in the Linux community suggests we have a laissez-faire ethic; surely this isn't the first time in Linux history someone has taken advantage of that to ignore a Linux distro designer's traditional social obligation to share their code. And it pales in comparison to what Microsoft does in the non-Linux PC world.

It's troubling. I have liked Ubuntu, but then I don't have experince with other distros. I would like to see the Linux community, as a whole, be more "unified", but then "divergence" is the beneft/downside of the freedon to innovate.

Shuttleworth/Canonical wants to be the new Steve Jobs/Apple. I don't use Ubuntu, so I really don't care much, I guess. Mir will either work well, and if it does, hopefully be released to the OSS community; work well and be kept in-house (in which case not be OSS); or fall flat on its face.

Some thoughts on the Wired article:

"Is This the Future of Linux Everywhere?" Uh, no.

"The company is building its own platform for running a Windows-like interface on Linux..." "These other tools often include a graphical user interface, a Windows-like creation that makes it easier to use the OS..." Uh, X.org Server predates Windows, so perhaps Windows is "X.org-like?.

X works fine for me. I have no idea why it should be replaced.

Originally Posted by newbiesforever X works fine for me. I have no idea why it should be replaced.

Yeah, I'm certainly not qualified to understand whatever shortcomings X may have moving forward into the future, but it seems to work for me just fine, too.

I wonder how it compares to Quartz in Mac OSX:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz...phics_layer%29

https://developer.apple.com/technolo...animation.html

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/...is-quartz.html

Originally Posted by newbiesforever surely this isn't the first time in Linux history someone has taken advantage of that to ignore a Linux distro designer's traditional social obligation to share their code.

Er, what?

The Mir source code is right here:

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mir-team/mir/trunk/files

What the Wired article actually says that Ubuntu is not accepting Mir contributions from outside of their own development team. That's quite something else.

Originally Posted by dugan Er, what? The Mir source code is right here: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mir-team/mir/trunk/files What the Wired article actually says that Ubuntu is not accepting Mir contributions from outside of their own development team. That's quite something else.

Let me get this straight: people are complaining not because Ubuntu won't share with them but because they can't share with Ubuntu? That's even less reason for anyone to be unhappy.

Perhaps users can create a community version of Mir a la Fedora Core?

Originally Posted by newbiesforever Let me get this straight: people are complaining not because Ubuntu won't share with them but because they can't share with Ubuntu? That's even less reason for anyone to be unhappy.

That's what I got from the Wired article, yeah.

Just to get that clear: Anyone, outside or inside of Canonical, can contribute to Mir (or FWIW to many other Canonical projects), but you have to sign a Contributor License Agreement. This agreement gives Canonical the right to use your code (which is licensed by GPL3 otherwise) in projects that are used with a different license. So Canonical id free to say in the future: "Well, look, Imageon is not happy with providing us with drivers that have to be used with GPL3 licensed code-wrappers, so we will give them a BSD (or MIT, EULA or whatever else license) for the same code."
Some people see this as a problem, because the code can be closed down later, just as with other permissive licenses. I don't see that that as a problem per-se, but for some people anything not GPL is inherently evil.

The much bigger point for most people was the behavior of the Canonical guys when they announced their plans for Mir, after officially backing up Wayland and nonetheless developing secretly an alternative, with stating "facts" about Wayland on their Wiki (that got quickly removed after they got debunked), showing that they a) didn't even had a real look at Wayland and b) just didn't care about the damage they have done to Wayland with that. After they have seen that this was a disaster from a marketing point of view they also changed to be more open about their true goals with Mir, for example here: http://blog.cooperteam.net/2013/03/a...fferences.html

Where the Wayland libraries are all about IPC, Mir is about producing a library to do the drudge work of a display-server-compositor-thing, so in this way it's more like Xorg than Wayland. In fact, it's a bit more specific - Mir is about creating a library to make the most awesome Unity display-server-compositor-thingy. We're not aiming to satisfy anyone's requirements but our own.

As one can see, they don't want to write a new general purpose display server, but an Ubuntu only solution, more specific, an Ubuntu main-version specific solution, aimed solely at Unity. If other projects can use it this will be nothing but a byproduct and is not in general aimed at. Which actually doesn't really matter, since all the major toolkit and DE developers are already backing up Wayland here: Gnome/GTK with their huge number of Intel and Red Hat developers go for Wayland, so do the Qt people and with them the KDE project, XFCE and LXDE will most likely just follow the GTK path and Enlightenment with its EFL toolkit also aims at Wayland.
How this works out for the smaller WMs like the *boxes, IceWM or the tiling WMs is something that is still open, I haven't seen statements from their developers yet how they will handle the transition to Mir or Wayland.

Some minor points:

Originally Posted by newbiesforever surely this isn't the first time in Linux history someone has taken advantage of that to ignore a Linux distro designer's traditional social obligation to share their code.

At this point the code of Mir is GPL3 licensed and anyone can feel free to fork it.

X works fine for me. I have no idea why it should be replaced.

X actually worked fine, but it was designed decades ago with different use cases in mind, which lead to a codebase that has design flaws (including security problems caused by that design) that can't be easily fixed, A re-design was necessary and was done by the Wayland team (many of them are actually also Xorg developers), so it is actually legit to see Wayland as a form of X12.

Originally Posted by eyeofliberty Mir will either work well, and if it does, hopefully be released to the OSS community; work well and be kept in-house (in which case not be OSS)

OSS is a form of licensing. It can be a development model, too, but doesn't has to. A company can develop code in-house and nonetheless release it under OSS licenses, much like for example Apple does it with their code contributions to FreeBSD. Code can also be released under different licenses, much like Digia does it with Qt.

Just grab all the little evil details and you'll see the bigger evil behind all of it. One must question, why this, why that?

so Canonical/Ubuntu doesn't follow the Linux community rules

Of course not, because they aren't really part of the community, they want people to believe they are. That is why they do all the sneak moves around, here and there. People usually just look at the surface of things, we must look way deeper to really see what is really going on.
How many times people come talking about, they did it and they did that, and things have been under questioning?
Think about it!! Why they can't contribute to Wayland? Why they must make their own thing with Wayland code?
Tobi stated very well some technical facts, still we must look beyond it to see their true colors.
Honestly, if we draw a line and say no, there is nothing they can do about it.
Boycott Ubuntu, we have thousands of other distributions that are probably better. Want another reason to boycott Ubuntu? Here:

original link Ubuntu provides specific repositories of nonfree software, and Canonical expressly promotes and recommends nonfree software under the Ubuntu name in some of their distribution channels. Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too. In addition, the version of Linux, the kernel, included in Ubuntu contains firmware blobs. Ubuntu's trademark policy prohibits commercial redistribution of exact copies of Ubuntu, denying an important freedom. As of October 2012, Ubuntu sends personal data about users' searches to a server belonging to Canonical, which sends back ads to buy things from Amazon. This does not, strictly speaking, affect whether Ubuntu is free software, but it is a violation of users' privacy. It also encourages buying from Amazon, a company associated with DRM as well as mistreatment of workers, authors and publishers. This adware is one of the rare occasions in which a free software developer persists in keeping a malicious feature in its version of a program.

If you keep digging you'll find a lot more.

Regards

Originally Posted by ukiuki Just grab all the little evil details and you'll see the bigger evil behind all of it. One must question, why this, why that?

A question that is easy to answer. After all, Canonical is company, not the Salvation Army. They have to make money and they have to find ways to do it. this is legitimate and no contradiction to open source.

Why they can't contribute to Wayland? Why they must make their own thing with Wayland code?

They could, but as stated before, they want a display server specifically aimed at Unity, their main desktop environment, without having to take care of the needs of other DEs/WMs. It would be pretty hard to do that with Wayland. Besides that, they don't use much Wayland code at this time (I do assume you have looked at their source code to backup your claim?).

Ubuntu provides specific repositories of nonfree software

Funny, Debian does the same.

Canonical expressly promotes and recommends nonfree software under the Ubuntu name in some of their distribution channels

You mean like Debian tells you how to install proprietary drivers in their Wiki?

Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too.

As does Debian and almost any other distro, besides the very few libre distros.

In addition, the version of Linux, the kernel, included in Ubuntu contains firmware blobs.

As does the kernel in Slackware and most other distros.

Ubuntu's trademark policy prohibits commercial redistribution of exact copies of Ubuntu, denying an important freedom.

What would this important freedom be? That you use the Ubuntu trademark for yourself? Why is this different from Red Hat, Slackware or almost any other trademark out there?

As of October 2012, Ubuntu sends personal data about users' searches to a server belonging to Canonical, which sends back ads to buy things from Amazon. This does not, strictly speaking, affect whether Ubuntu is free software, but it is a violation of users' privacy. It also encourages buying from Amazon, a company associated with DRM as well as mistreatment of workers, authors and publishers.

A behavior that is in fact questionable, but can be easily disabled.

This adware is one of the rare occasions in which a free software developer persists in keeping a malicious feature in its version of a program.

And here we see where you went wrong. At which point did you come to the conclusion that Canonical has to be a free software developer? They are a software developing company, sure, and they have free software projects, sure, but they also develop proprietary software. Besides that, it is not that you are forced to use that "malicious feature", just disable it, use one of the Ubuntu versions that don't come with it or just don't use it at all.

In short: Were there some questionable acts when Ubuntu announced the Mir display server? Yes, there were. Is it questionable that they have an adware feature in Ubuntu? Yes, it is, but it can be easily disabled. Were there technical reasons for Ubuntu to go for Mir instead of Wayland? Yes, although they didn't present them at the announcement.
Is Canonical evil because they are a company that has to make money or is there even an evil conspiracy? Definitely not.
The way they announced Mir was a marketing disaster, nothing more, nothing less.

@Tobi you still only scratching the surface, look/search/dig/invastigate beyond the obvious.

Originally Posted by TobiSGD ...And here we see where you went wrong.

That isn't my statement, that is RMS's, who probably knows way better and more than us.

Originally Posted by TobiSGD ...At which point did you come to the conclusion that Canonical has to be a free software developer?...

That isn't what I'm saying nor making any conclusions. The quote is just to mention one of the many examples about the wrong things.

It isn't just what they are doing but the real intentions behind it. And that is why people should make questions and ask, why this why that(bellow the surface), for what end? The answers are just pieces of a huge puzzle, it isn't possible to see the big picture until enough pieces have been put together.

Regards

Originally Posted by ukiuki Just grab all the little evil details and you'll see the bigger evil behind all of it. One must question, why this, why that? Of course not, because they aren't really part of the community, they want people to believe they are. That is why they do all the sneak moves around, here and there. People usually just look at the surface of things, we must look way deeper to really see what is really going on. How many times people come talking about, they did it and they did that, and things have been under questioning? Think about it!! Why they can't contribute to Wayland? Why they must make their own thing with Wayland code? Tobi stated very well some technical facts, still we must look beyond it to see their true colors. Honestly, if we draw a line and say no, there is nothing they can do about it. Boycott Ubuntu, we have thousands of other distributions that are probably better. Want another reason to boycott Ubuntu? Here: If you keep digging you'll find a lot more. Regards

I probably don't fully understand the issues, but your post sounds pretty hysterical. And who says a Linux distro maker is required to be part of the community? It sounds slightly similar to the position some individuals of libertarian inclination take on voting: they hear they have a civic duty to vote, but laugh that off.

Why they must make their own thing with Wayland code?

Because they want to?

Originally Posted by newbiesforever ...I probably don't fully understand the issues...

Welcome to the club!!

Regards

I don't have any issue with a fork of wayland...

The real issue:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD The much bigger point for most people was the behavior of the Canonical guys when they announced their plans for Mir, after officially backing up Wayland and nonetheless developing secretly an alternative, with stating "facts" about Wayland on their Wiki (that got quickly removed after they got debunked), showing that they a) didn't even had a real look at Wayland and b) just didn't care about the damage they have done to Wayland with that. After they have seen that this was a disaster from a marketing point of view they also changed to be more open about their true goals with Mir, for example here: http://blog.cooperteam.net/2013/03/a...fferences.html As one can see, they don't want to write a new general purpose display server, but an Ubuntu only solution, more specific, an Ubuntu main-version specific solution, aimed solely at Unity. If other projects can use it this will be nothing but a byproduct and is not in general aimed at.

Canonical Ltd are simply a leech and they should just come out and admit it, instead of sneaking around. Anything developed by canonical turns out to be either proprietary or next to impossible to build on other distributions... canonical don't want to contribute to the GNU/Linux / FOSS ecosystems, they want to set up something "Linux based" (like android) for the average user.