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A Look at the Compiz and Beryl Merger
invisibastard writes to mention that Linux Tech Daily has an editorial on the merger between Compiz and Beryl. "This state of affairs was a shame. Something that was finally getting the general public excited about Linux, the 3D desktop, was wasting time with duplication of effort and fighting. There were concerns about the long term viability of Beryl. The perception in the community overall was, Compiz = old and stale, Beryl = fresh and exciting. This despite the feeling in the Compiz community that the "real work" was being done by David Reveman and Compiz, and there were exciting things with Compiz core (like input redirection, etc...) on the horizon."
Take Compiz's springy windows. It's cute when you play with it, and I thought it'd go great with the whole concept of water that Apple loves. However, when I showed it to a few friends that are not as technically inclined, they said the effect was "distracting." Mind you, these are college students, not grandmothers.
I think eye candy adds to the overall appeal of an operating system, but only if it's tasteful. Take virtual desktop switching—it's great to have a cube rotate, because it establishes what you're doing in spatial terms; however, I don't think anybody who actually wants to use their computer wants to waste time manipulating a cube themselves. I feel that many of the effects in Compiz are too much eye candy with too little usability.
[...]a lot of the time the community would be better served by everybody working together instead of against each other.[...]
I disagree.
People are not working AGAINST each other; that is what Microsoft does - form teams that actually try to take down competitors by hook or by crook.
With open source, it's more like many different interpretations of what needs be done competing and the end user profits by choosing what lives. There is no active sabotage as in the case of MS, so don't try casting it (even unintentionally) in such a light. Even competing open-source projects can use each other's ideas without fearing repriesals.
They are not working "against" each other, they are evolving in parallel.
Congrats on the first comment... it's a shame you couldn't make it worth the magnetic material it's stored on.
I think that in the Linux world, mergers are a good thing and need to be made across the entire Linux community. Imagine if the Gnome and KDE camps could work together... or how about Mozilla and Opera... or most importantly the package management camps.
Want to bring linux to the mainstream, pick a standard and develop it. Set aside your disagreements and work for the greater good. The world doesn't need another linux distro, it needs everyone working to create a single comprehensive distro.
I hate it when I find a piece of software I want, only to discover there is no binary for my chosen distro. I don't hate it because I don't know how to compile it myself, but because I shouldn't have to.
I hate that I can only seem to get hardware drivers for Suse and Redhat because the vendor couldn't cater to everyone.
And I hate hearing about projects forking because two intelligent people can't come to a compromise.
Choice is good... but only when there is at least one option that meets the need. Too often there is so much competition that none of the products can really fulfill the needs they set out to fulfill because there are not enough developers to go around.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
> One of linux's greatest weaknesses is the amount of duplication that happens.
It is also one of its great strengths. This one, along with things like the free desktop project are starting to address the next step along. How, once a good decision has been made, to converge multiple projects into the best solution.
Think of it as evolution in action.
There is always place for multiple projects. Different focus, different personalities even different geographical location. Multiple projects encourage innovations that wouldn't be thought about otherwise.
If you believe that all GNU/Linux users will leap on Leopard when it comes out then you are sadly mistaken. Some of us demand FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), this is the reason we choose our software. Spangly, OMGPONIES!!!!1 GUI effects are far down on the list of requirements, that something like this is being developed is a sign that GNU/Linux is maturing.
But just because we insist on running open, Free software does not mean we don't want nice effects. It just means we'll do it our way: Freely (and with flame wars, separations, bad blood, complaining, forks etc).
If you love your Mac, that's great, but don't think that because you love it the rest of the world has to. They have different requirements.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Having a kitchen-sink approach in order to please everyone usually makes for crappy software. And putting all your eggs in one basket is very bad.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Personnally I believe the future is not Beryl or Compiz but already existing window managers like Metacity and KWin, seeing how both of them should provide 3d effects in their next version. Once everyone can get their wobbly windows and other useful effects with the standard window manager, no one will care about Beryl or Compiz anymore.
Mada mada dane.
I hate it when the ONLY option I have sucks, which usually happens 99% of the time. Which is why I love Free Software -- I can fork it.
The problem is that it horribly splits up development work. It isn't as if there are enough OSS developers as it is, and they seem to fork their way out of existence. These developers have to compete against multi billion dollar software companies that provide reasonably unified APIs, UIs and frankly, better backward compatibility. I'm still using a piece of expensive CAD software made in 1994, designed for Win32S on Win 3.1, and it still works fine on XP, for all I know, it might even work under Vista, I won't know because I don't plan to get it. Sure, statically built linux binaries from that time probably will work, but should it need a library, you are more likely than not stopped right there.
Also, I've never heard of Compiz until this story.
I'm not sure if you were trying to be funny or insightful. But just in case, I must disagree. I happen to work with a guy who is a great developer. Incredibly bright (probably a genius but I've never asked). Has a PhD in Chem E. yet chooses to be a software developer because he enjoys that right now in his life. And I'm not talking just some hacker, he actually knows a crap load about comp sci (theory and all). He's the type of guy (this actually happened) that re-wrote one of our display drivers over a weekend because the third party one had bugs.
Meanwhile, he is the nicest, most humble guy I've ever worked with. And I don't know a single person at work that doesn't get along with him.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
You see it a lot in government and other large organisations, in the space programme for example. A single direction dictated from above which turns out to be completely inappropriate after billions or trillions have been spent. ESR called it the cathedral, it's just a form of totalitarianism and it's the antithesis of freedom. Choice is good... but only when there is at least one option that meets the need No. Choice is always good. It means that if there's a gap, someone, somewhere will fill it. Without that choice it will take a lot longer to fill. You're essentially serialising the process. The world doesn't need another linux distro, it needs everyone working to create a single comprehensive distro. You should read the mythical man month. More people on a project doesn't necessarily make it faster or better.
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"One estimate was that Beryl used 95% Compiz code while taking all the credit."
Maybe they should use a license that ask for credit. I have sometime the impression that people don't get what "free" code means... it's even sadder when those people are the one that develop it (or even worse: try to promote the freedom idea without understanding what it means)
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Agreed. Looking at the comments on the compiz forum, it seems that compiz will stay compiz and the Beryl brand will be destroyed, to be replaced with whatever they decide on when they merge compiz-extras and beryl. This is too bad. Beryl had (a) a cool mineral-themed branding [beryl/emerald] (b) a fast capable development team (c) strong dedication to GPL licensing and (d) was basically responsible for much of at least my excitement around 3D window managers with their outstanding plugins. And (e) their settings manager was always the better one as well.
Then what happens? They come up with an agreement that destroys the Beryl brand and remerges essentially back into compiz? If they are in their right minds, they will at least insist on keeping the beryl name.
I would consider OSX if it came with a decent package manager and repositories stocked with the same great software I can find in my Ubuntu desktop.
Until then, it's a cute toy that may work for you, but doesn't work for me.
That said, I wish my Linux notebook had better hardware support, but the fact that I can live without multi-touch scroll on the trackpad and a close-to-zero configuration wireless network says a lot about how important the other, deeper, things Linux has to offer are.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
That doesn't change the fact that they're releasing code under the license. Not that most folks would care anyway, really, to ever look at the list of contributors. Look, everyone wants credit for their good work, but if the Compiz folks are jealous about Beryl adding 5% work and getting all the glory, think of how the GCC crew must feel about the whole OSS/free software universe. :)
Lets throw out some rough numbers. Lets say that window's has 60% of the desktop market share, OSX has 25%, and Linux has 15%. Competition is a good thing i'm sure we all agree on that and 15% of the desktop market share is nothing to laugh at. The problem is the 15% linux has is then divided up. Say Red hat has 4%, ubuntu has 6%, suse has 3%, and other has the rest. Linux doesn't have enough market share to have this much competition. Once most of the main distros have 10-20% of the overall market share then they will be in a better position to compete.
.deb to Ubuntu). I think he is saying instead of having 3 developers per project on 8 similar projects, maybe it would be better to have 8 developers per project on 3 similar projects. To often someone comes along and reinvents the wheel.
I think what the grand-parent was going at is that there is to much competition within linux, and that there needs to be some mergers. He isn't saying that ubuntu and suse should merge together, but maybe it would be beneficial for them to share a package management system, like how Ubuntu and Debian do (ok so they don't share perfectly, but its easy enough to move a
I believe the grand-parent is trying to say that if your a developer and you need features X, Y, And Z, then it might be ideal to add them to an already existing program rather than starting your own. Simply saying: linux is spreading its developers thin would be sufficient.