Slashdot Mirror
Intel Rejects Supporting Ubuntu's XMir
An anonymous reader writes "Just days after Intel added XMir support to their Linux graphics driver so it would work with the in-development the X11 compatibility layer to the Mir display server premiering with Ubuntu 13.10, Intel management has rejected the action and had the XMir patch reverted. There's been controversy surrounding Mir with it competing with Wayland and the state of the display server being rather immature and its performance coming up short while it will still debut in Ubuntu 13.10. Intel management had to say, "We do not condone or support Canonical in the course of action they have chosen, and will not carry XMir patches upstream." As a result, Canonical will need to ship their own packaged version of the Intel (and AMD and Nouveau drivers) with out-of-tree patches."
Though Intel will be open to an alternative to X11 they are in no way obliged to carry an immature release just because Canonical wants to push theirs.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Canonical decided to write their own Mir display server instead of adopting the existing Wayland. They stated their reasons for doing so, but I'm not convinced they really had to start their own project instead of modifying Wayland.
It seems only fair to me that if Canonical wants to do their own thing, they'll have to put in the effort to maintain it. Because that is what this is about: Intel management decided that they're not going to pay their engineers to maintain code that benefits only Canonical.
I think Mir is a case study in how to correctly identify problems and then going about solving them all wrong.
See, the good thing about Wayland is, it does the right thing in having a limited scope. It aims to do one thing and do it well: provide an API for GUI clients to share buffers with a compositor.
And the problem with Wayland is, of course, that... it has a limited scope. Screen management? Input handling? Buffer allocation? "A modern desktop needs all that!" say the Ubuntu devs, and yeah, that's absolutely correct. "That's a client concern," say the Wayland devs, and guess what? From their point of view, that's correct too. (Although Wayland since started working on an input handling API.)
Now, the important thing to realize is, when the Wayland guys say that something is a client concern, as I understand, they don't necessarily mean the GUI applications, no. They mean the compositor.
Meaning that a whole lot of the stuff desktop shells rely on is, in fact, not provided by Wayland itself.
That's where Weston comes in: it's supposed to be an example (a "reference implementation", to use the designated words) of how to write a compositor. But... not necessarily in a way that meets the higher level needs of desktop shells. Unsurprisingly, both KDE and GNOME will be using their own compositors.
So basically, a whole lot of the desktop integration on top of Wayland will be, as it were, left as an exercise to the reader.
With all that in mind, I think the highest outcome end game is somewhat clear: frame-perfect rendering through the Wayland API of Mir-composited KDE/GNOME/Unity clients.
Or in other words, Mir should probably be a set of APIs to handle all the admittedly important desktop integration -- clipboard, multi-screen layout, input and gestures, systray/notification requests... -- with an optional and replaceable compositor thrown in.
All the points of contention that I know of, mainly that Canonical requires server-side buffer allocation (presumably for mobile ARM platforms) where Wayland does it client-side, could have been resolved with some diplomacy and a mutual willingness to reach a satisfactory compromise.
But instead, it looks like the report card is just going to say, "Doesn't play well with others." As usual. What a sad mess and wasted opportunity.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Sorry but the patent trolls who sue everybody will make you sign a NDA making your work closed source if you make hardware. So the days of having it in the kernel are over.
You realize you're commenting on a story about Intel, right? You know, the company that has Linux kernel developers writing open source drivers for their chipsets.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
More like disinterested third party sees which way the winds are blowing and decides to pull resources away from supporting what is going to be an also-ran. Intel has been a very good citizen where it comes to provided chipset and video driver support to the Linux community. They are still making drivers for X.org ( you know the display server people actually use ) and likely will develop drivers for Wayland.
Why you or anyone else ( who does not run Ubuntu ) would want them dividing their efforts a third way writing software that will only be useful to a tiny segment escapes me. Normally I am not anti-choice but the best outcome here is for MIR to go down in flames.
The one factor that has made desktop UNIX/Linux a reality is the near universality of X11. Despite all the toolkit and desktop environment / window manager fights X11 was something software devs could depend on being there. As far as end users some integration issues aside they could run multiple toolkits and other high level stuff when needed. It would be really hard though for users to efficiently run multiple display servers. The display server is pretty much a core platform component now. I honestly think MIR is a Cononical attempt to create a walled garden for their platform. It isn't about better software for them but control.
I am glad Intel is abandoning the platform; hopeful Cononical's garden will simple become a ghetto.
Then Ubuntu comes along and goes "NOOOO", and decides to do it differently.
yep, this is the way of Linux. You throw many different things at a wall and see which one sticks best. Then you standardise on that thing.
Too many people are just about bitching that one thing is better than another thing without any comprehension that this is the way FOSS systems evolve. I imagine (or would hope) that Wayland and XMir will stand on their own and one will become a dominant player over the other. Politics aside this is the way it should be. Unfortunately, once the politics and the 'my thing is better than yours' attitude gets involved, it makes dropping the poor version for the better one difficult - people try to maintain the poorer one regardless.
You see this in Openoffice v LibreOffice. Surely by now one of these would have their best bits of code migrated to the other so development and evangelism could focus efforts on just one product, but instead we still have the bitching about which one is better. (though maybe its just too soon for this example)