Slashdot Mirror
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."
Chilly urine is all I have to contribute to this story.
Is this a sign of how the merger will turn out?
It all may be a bit irrelevant when Mac OS X 10.5 comes out...
--
http://www.metagovernment.org/
Government by, of, and for the people. Serious this time.
Error 500 - Internal server error
Server committed seppuku rather than face a slashdotting.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
http://lists.beryl-project.org/pipermail/beryl-dev /2007-March/000371.html
(ok, so that might go down in flames too)
It's really great to see this. One of linux's greatest weaknesses is the amount of duplication that happens. Sometimes it's necessary but a lot of the time the community would be better served by everybody working together instead of against each other. This is one of those times and I applaud the beryl and compiz devs for realizing that and having the good sense to swallow a little bit of their pride on both sides. I'm looking forward to the great things that will come out of this.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
corel cache is up here.
http://www.networkmirror.com/9VoYxUYQ4uLdx_2F/www. linuxtechdaily.com/2007/04/editorial-compiz-and-be ryl-merger/index.html
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I believe it is a pretty generally accepted theory of Computer Science that humble programmers aren't much good on a project. So why would they discuss the inflated egos of programmers on these projects as though it was a bad thing?
For future reference, the formula is:
(BIG EGO == GREAT CODER)
(HUMBLE == BAD BAD BAD CODER)
Are we all clear on this now?
I started reading the article and I felt like this could be really insightful, and then it ended.
I'm glad these projects are merging since eye candy (done properly) is definitely something that can stand to make Linux a player in the desktop market. We'll be able to say to people who catch a glimpse "oh, you can't install that, you don't run Linux".
If Bush wants to kill the terrorists, he should jump off a cliff.
In Flames \m/
I personally see a merger of the two communities as being a great thing to attain. After all, they came from the same source, have the same general ideas as to where the projects should go, and it would allow for a more focused attack on the problems stemming from both projects. There would be less man hours wasted on overcoming the problems of each implementation.
I got through after a number of retries...
Editorial: Compiz and Beryl Merger
It isn't official yet, but Compiz and Beryl are merging. For the last few weeks I have been following the mailing list discussions on this topic. A lot of the work has been started. It is sort of unofficially announced, so I feel now is as good a time as any to comment. First some back story:
The war between Compiz and Beryl has been entertaining if counterproductive. Originally I planned to interview Quinn (Beryl's unofficial leader) about the Beryl project. That turned into an interview with the team that never really got anywhere. I dropped the ball. My feelings at the time were typical of those in the community. Beryl seemed to be this fantastic project that saved Compiz from being boring and a slave to Novell. They launched a beautiful website. It was exciting to see the frequency of their releases. At the time, I decided to check out Compiz to see what it was up to. It was surprising. Their forums were very helpful and positive. The more I read, the more I realized that I had made a mistake. There was more to the story than I was aware.
The communities were getting along a lot worse than I had realized. People in the Beryl camp dismissed David Reveman (creator of Compiz and XGL among other things) as a bad coder. Compiz dismissed Beryl as hacky code. Personal attacks flew around. Through decisions made with (hopefully) good intentions, like the insistence that Beryl code be GPL (thus unable to move upstream to the MIT licensed Compiz core) or the desire on some Beryl developers part to rip apart the Compiz core and " improve" it, it looked as if the teams were hopelessly split.
Meanwhile, Beryl continued to grow. Resentment grew in the Compiz community. One estimate was that Beryl used 95% Compiz code while taking all the credit. YouTube filled up with tons of spinning transparent cubes and burning windows. Any Digg story mentioning Beryl received a lot of Diggs. Flamewars in comment sections broke out regularly. Things reached a low point when a frustrated Compiz community member hacked the Beryl site.
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.
It was a pleasant surprise to see talks of a merge start to show up on the mailing lists. This article by Kristian Hogsberg seemed to kick it off. The talks so far have been bumpy. There are fights about whether to rename the communities. There are heated discussions about what the merger means and where things should go from here. Old wounds have been reopened. There are complaints about the egos of the developers in the forums. At one point, reading a twenty-four page forum discussion, I wondered if the merge was a good idea after all. Little by little things seem to be working out, though. Quinn mentioned in one forum post that the fork was a mistake and regrettable. It takes a big person to make an admission like that.
I have to hand it to both communities. This is a brave and bold step. Not many of us can check our egos, put hurt feelings aside and move forward. The road ahead won't be easy, but the benefit to the Linux community will be immense. Energy won't be wasted on fights and duplication of effort. Confusion over what to use will be eliminated. Hopefully more effort can be spent by the distributions on getting the combined product packaged properly (How many times can I install a distro and the 3d desktop only to have no window borders in KDE?). The discussions I read are passionate. It looks like the project will be a meritocracy,
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Specially when competitor projects are based on different developments models. Merger of Beryl and Compiz will take quite some time and effort, both of which can instead be efficiently used while developing separately. Not to mention the obvious embarrassment that would arise from another disagreement between developers ...
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.
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.
Editorial: Compiz and Beryl Merger
It isn't official yet, but Compiz and Beryl are merging. For the last few weeks I have been following the mailing list discussions on this topic. A lot of the work has been started. It is sort of unofficially announced, so I feel now is as good a time as any to comment. First some back story:
The war between Compiz and Beryl has been entertaining if counterproductive. Originally I planned to interview Quinn (Beryl's unofficial leader) about the Beryl project. That turned into an interview with the team that never really got anywhere. I dropped the ball. My feelings at the time were typical of those in the community. Beryl seemed to be this fantastic project that saved Compiz from being boring and a slave to Novell. They launched a beautiful website. It was exciting to see the frequency of their releases. At the time, I decided to check out Compiz to see what it was up to. It was surprising. Their forums were very helpful and positive. The more I read, the more I realized that I had made a mistake. There was more to the story than I was aware.
The communities were getting along a lot worse than I had realized. People in the Beryl camp dismissed David Reveman (creator of Compiz and XGL among other things) as a bad coder. Compiz dismissed Beryl as hacky code. Personal attacks flew around. Through decisions made with (hopefully) good intentions, like the insistence that Beryl code be GPL (thus unable to move upstream to the MIT licensed Compiz core) or the desire on some Beryl developers part to rip apart the Compiz core and " improve" it, it looked as if the teams were hopelessly split.
Meanwhile, Beryl continued to grow. Resentment grew in the Compiz community. One estimate was that Beryl used 95% Compiz code while taking all the credit. YouTube filled up with tons of spinning transparent cubes and burning windows. Any Digg story mentioning Beryl received a lot of Diggs. Flamewars in comment sections broke out regularly. Things reached a low point when a frustrated Compiz community member hacked the Beryl site.
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.
It was a pleasant surprise to see talks of a merge start to show up on the mailing lists. This article by Kristian Hogsberg seemed to kick it off. The talks so far have been bumpy. There are fights about whether to rename the communities. There are heated discussions about what the merger means and where things should go from here. Old wounds have been reopened. There are complaints about the egos of the developers in the forums. At one point, reading a twenty-four page forum discussion, I wondered if the merge was a good idea after all. Little by little things seem to be working out, though. Quinn mentioned in one forum post that the fork was a mistake and regrettable. It takes a big person to make an admission like that.
I have to hand it to both communities. This is a brave and bold step. Not many of us can check our egos, put hurt feelings aside and move forward. The road ahead won't be easy, but the benefit to the Linux community will be immense. Energy won't be wasted on fights and duplication of effort. Confusion over what to use will be eliminated. Hopefully more effort can be spent by the distributions on getting the combined product packaged properly (How many times can I install a distro and the 3d desktop only to have no window borders in KDE?). The discussions I read are passionate. It looks like the project will be a meritocracy, which works the best in Free Software. My take is
It's not ego! A good programmer is simply right about everything and has brilliant design ideas. If other people (Managers, other programmers, etc) would simply realize his inherent superiority and let him do what he wants, much more work would get done. Good programmers HATE to have other people fight with them about their designs, which are quite clearly Good and Correct!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'd love to see common driver abstraction layer implemented so the BSD projects can share drivers without reimplementation, this would free up a lot of developers to do real kernel work.
Those high priced Mercedes, Jaguar, Toyota's and Honda lost out to the much lower priced Ford, GM, Jeep, Buick, and Traubaunts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This comment will probably get lost in the general hubub of Slashdot, but I find it somewhat amusing that I've spent my day trying to get Beryl to work in a VM of OpenSUSE (my first time working with Beryl at all) and then come to Slashdot on a mini-break and find myself faced with it again. Is Slashdot reading my mind like Google, or is Beryl taking over the universe?
Compiz and Beryl are mostly eye candy. I don't see much useful in either. Metisse looks much more interesting. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Mandriva 2007.1.
OK - we'll settle and give you the title of 'Great Java Programmer'.
Hey, at least I didn't say J#.
*DUCKS*
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
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.
Deleted
Is that in a WordPerfect file format?
Yeah i'm talking to you. The wannabe computer programmer who thinks they are good at computers because they can click around the computer enough times and find the reboot button and 'fix' an inherently flawed windows system. You think you're cool because you can pirate photoshop but not know anything about it, get Microsoft Office for free but have the literacy of a 1st grader when writing a paper, and get a copy of Norton Anti-virus because your inherently flawed system is useless without Administrative privileges. Get a clue, you are not smart, you are just a corporate sheep for a company that will bury you if you ever tried to write any software that did anything remotely useful. You are a clickaround and all you know if your ugly gray existence that is Windows.
/dev/random > Windows.com
Want the sourcecode to windows vista?
head -n 1000000
Contrary to what is claimed, the war between Compiz and Beryl was productive. It did three things:
1) Forced David and friends to restructure his development process to be more like Beryl's
2) Forced Quinn and friends to realize that maybe David was right on some issues
3) Allowed Beryl to experiment with alternative ways of developing Compiz without destroying Compiz's approach.
Okay, maybe the conflict was a bit less civilized that than it could have been, but sometimes you need a good fight to raise the issues and so you can look for ways to solve them. You can't fix what you won't even acknowledge. The approach taken before the split up was disfunctional and didn't give people what they wanted. It's likely the new approach will be a lot better since it'll allow David to focus on what he's best at and Quinn to focus on what he's best at without stepping on each other's feet.
Excuse me, Opera is closed-source and sells their browser (on other platforms) for a price. How exactly would you go about merging that with Firefox?
Sounds like the Linux community is in turmoil ... wasn't it just a few months back Eric Raymond announced he is switching distros??? could at least one of the three serious "Linux as a dekstop" users chime in here? What is going on ...?
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 tend to think of Sun, HP, and IBM *nix line as being the Jags/Mercedes, while the Apple is more akin to Toyota and Honda. Basically, they are slightly more expensive than the GM/Ford type cars, but offer so much more.
That was not meant to be a troll. Just sarcasm. It find it silly that ppl are trying to claim that Apple is so expensive, when they are right in the same price range and in reality, you are getting a system that last longer and works better (and that is just the hardware, let alone the software).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Scenario 1: Apple releases something first.
Verdict: Wickedest thing evar!!!!
Scenario 2: Someone else releases something first, Apple follows suit in me too fashion.
Verdict: It sucks anyway, Apple's approach is better.
The too-many-chefs-in-the-kitchen problem does not apply if a project is organised efficiently. Compiz or Beryl (or KDE or Gnome) are not singular projects but made up of multiple smaller largely self-organised entities quite capable of absorbing surplus egos. Individual coders are able to work on specific areas of interest outside "the whole."
To say that moving all developers from one to the other would create an lossy overload (a.k.a. mythical man month) is nonsense. If developers lack the initiative to allocate themselves appropriately I would have serious doubts for their value.
Most projects split for ideological reasons - not practical, technical or sensible ones.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
I would love to take advantage of the eye candy a 3D accelerated desktop provides, but until I can do it with a multi-head setup it won't get used by me. The COMPOSITE extension doesn't play well with the XINERAMA extension. It's a showstopper for me.
BIG EGO == I PRETEND I'M A GREAT CODER
HUMBLE == I KNOW I'M A GREAT CODER
"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." -- Will Rogers
Ya know... on further reflection, I have to admit it is flamebait. Someone go ahead and kick my karma in the crotch.
:-P
In my defense, however... in a nerd forum, practically any statement about Macs is flamebait.
You can buy a Mac mini from MacMall (in Southern California, iirc) for $575.
But a Yaris is stripped-down, feature-wise. The Mac mini comes with every luxury feature of its bigger brothers, namely iLife.
Plus every Mac comes with the equivalent a Lexus sport engine... namely Mach and BSD.
If anything else, this story made me laugh. It's like a food fight in the nerd headquarters.
The green button is a simulation of the right-size button in OS 9. That button actually worked. The green button is, as you say, worse than useless. However, your other criticisms are off-base.
The dock is not homosexual, afaik.
The default behavior for double-clicking a window in OS X 10.4 is to minimize the window.
Command-clicking the text in the title of a Title Bar allows one to navigate the folder's entire directory tree. This has been true for all OS Xs. There's also the sidebar in Tiger which gives one powerful navigation tools.
It sounds like you're judging OS X based on version 10.1 or 10.2. You may want to give 10.5 a try.
Ever heard of interface hacks? There are about a billion for OS X. Most of then require typing one line in the shell.
And more to the point, there is a decided dis-advantage to being "able" to resize from any side of a window. First, you have about two pixels you have to grab; that's a real pleasure, especially for older people. Then what... you start dragging each side of the window to the exact position on your screen you need at that moment? Who has time for that crap?
3D, whatever. Just as long as they've got my X system using the superfast graphics coprocessor for rendering, offloading from my CPU, they can keep it looking "old and stale", by doubling (or more) my old, stale PC power. If they actually find some 3D features, like rotating idle objects into profile for less screen real estate, or 3D pipes among onscreen widgets for dataflow direction among app GUIs, then that's great. But not nearly as great as offering multiprocessing desktops on these multiprocessor machines.
--
make install -not war
"A Look at the Compiz and Beryl Merger"
I'm much more interested in their shader support. I assume pixel and vertex shaders can be written and easily inserted into either one.
What does the composite extension actually do? I have an ATI x1600 and have not been able to try this - and I can't find much info on this online either. Does it have something to do with layering and transparency?
> We've got the source, so stuff can be rebuilt every time backward compatibility breaks. But that's definitely *not* a good thing
MOD PARENT UP! Agreed! I for one *hate* having source code. It makes no sense to me - especially when written in some crazy out-dated language like C++. I'd much rather just get the binary, or if it has to be source, then I want it in something that doesn't need to be compiled like Python or Unlambda.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
... does it run with ion?
(Captcha: "adultery" -- does that mean I should switch window manager?)
It's a shame someone doesn't fork metacity though;
Compiz was built as a quick hack and wasn't meant to grow into a proper window manager originally.
Metacity has years of window management work in it that is a shame to throw away for some eyecandy.
The codebase is pretty stable so they don't want to make any big changes though, to get the best of both worlds it needs to be forked, all this work should be going into it's compositer.
The only way for this to happen is to fork it.
metacity-ng anyone ?
How can you convince people that Beryl/Compiz IS NO BIG DEAL. Just a window manager with 3000 lines of code to use the xgl functions.
\
liquid - shiny - translucent
Here's the mascot.