Mir

Comment 2 for bug 1149581

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Simon K (octav14n) wrote : Re: [Bug 1149581] Re: Mir will cause fragmentation in Linux on desktop

> My belief is that, in order for Unity to excel, it needs to detach from
> the "legacy of bad interfaces" that is represented by all the other
> desktop environments and display servers, and start fresh. If you look
> in the application store right now, you will find that 90% of the
> applications simply do not match Unity design guidelines or do not even
> have a friendly design, which is vital if Ubuntu really wants to succeed
> on this side.
The same integration-aspect can be archived by removing every software from Ubuntu Repos [they won't work with Mir nonetheless, so this has to happen in the future]
After this "muck out", Canonical can easily add requirements (Visual and Functional), what the (GUI) applications have to "implement" in order to get into the repos.

> Also, work on Wayland/Weston started in 2008. It is 2013, and, only now
> has it started to get some momentum. Ubuntu started work on Mir in June
> 2012 and it is already rolling it out to the public, with the first
> major release in October 2013.
This is a good point of yours. But if granted: a look into the future:
People developing Mir: 8 [1]
People developing Wayland: 51 (April 2012) [2]

Potential developers behind Mir: Canonical employees ~500 [3], Everyone crazy enough to sign a contract to mainstream OpenSource-Changes.
Potential developers behind Wayland: Readhead employees ~5300 [4], Attachmate Group (SUSE) employees ~750 [5], Every OpenSource developer.

> If you read the https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec, you will find some of
> the reasons behind this "rupture",
Yes, I read those.

> as well as the plans for compatibility with X11/Weston.
So...
Every application running under X11 or Wayland will be usable by Ubuntu-Users.
*Not* Every app running in Ubuntu will be usable by other Distro users...
Well played Canonical.

This statement in contrast with your first paragraph, Every ugly app will also run in Ubuntu in the future...

> I like Ubuntu's boldness and I think it will only make other distros
> more aware of the need to be competitive.

Yes. I agree with you in this.
However, the main opponent of Ubuntu isn't Fedora nor Suse, it is Microsoft Windows, Google Android and Apple iOS.
Fedora, Suse and Ubuntu are all heading in the same direction in being opponents to the "big 3". We shouldn't fight against each other, we should however try to work together as well as possible.

Mir is an interesting move, I'm concerned -however- that Mir could become to much to be handled by Canonical.
And I think a low-level component (like the display-server, kernel or sound-server) should be consistent on all Linux-systems.
Only if every Linux-Developer is backing those parts, we'll be able to address Bug #1 and archive a "ecosystem" where Main-Vendors/Producers are interested in (Ubuntu) Linux.
Btw. by "backing" I don't mean actively developing on one of those parts. I also include "making software which runs against this infrastructure" [Valve, Nvidia, Amd Graphics to name the big once recently in the news...]

[1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTMxNzc
[2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4OTM
[3] www.canonical.com/about-canonical
[4] http://investors.redhat.com/faq.cfm
[5] http://itic-corp.com/qa-interviews/michael-miller/