What are the Implications of Kubuntu with Wayland and Ubuntu with Mir

[vw72]

That's right, kubicle.

And regardless of any technical merits Mir might possess, other distributions must remember that Canonical makes no promises that Mir won't cause breakage. They specifically deny any attempt to preserve API/ABI compatibility across releases. That's an enormous risk.

Let's take a look at some other Canonical projects. How many non *buntu distributions use:

• Upstart
• Bazaar
• Unity
• indicator-*
• LightDM
• ufw
• Landscape
• Harmony

Few to none, because better, more widely-used alternatives exist.

I thought that LightDM was a freedesktop.org project, not a Canonical one. Several distros use it, however, other than that, your point is well taken.

[SteveRiley]

That's right, kubicle.

And regardless of any technical merits Mir might possess, other distributions must remember that Canonical makes no promises that Mir won't cause breakage. They specifically deny any attempt to preserve API/ABI compatibility across releases. That's an enormous risk.

Let's take a look at some other Canonical projects. How many non *buntu distributions use:

• Upstart
• Bazaar
• Unity
• indicator-*
• LightDM
• ufw
• Landscape
• Harmony

Few to none, because better, more widely-used alternatives exist.

[kubicle]

In terms of display servers, even debian will be faced with a choice eventually. If they are going to support Gnome 3 and KDE 4, they will need to support Wayland

I think that was Steve's point, that Debian will support Wayland which is what basically every distro except ubuntu plans to use in the future.

[vw72]

Beat ya http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...l=1#post330140

I like your idea even better -- structuring the work such that all the flavors could take advantage of it. But this begs the obvious question, then: what's the benefit of remaining aligned with Ubuntu after this? Very little that I can see. Rebasing on straight-up Debian, IMHO, makes more sense.

Like it or not Ubuntu has a lot of media coverage and if somebody is going to support something linux-wise, it is probably going to be Ubuntu. Currently kubuntu and the other *buntu's benefit from the efforts that others put in to make things work with Ubuntu. It is likely that Ubuntu's support in the market (free or otherwise) will continue, however, the further away from debian it moves, then the less benefit it will provide to the *buntus if they are based off of debian.

I think it is more likely that once Canonical gets Unity Next and it's other projects where they want them, then all of these seemingly wild changes will settle down. All of this change isn't in their best interest for their own development either.

The real issue is how successful will Wayland be? With Gnome and KDE 4 both moving towards it, it has a good chance of success. Most likely somebody will move the various other window managers once it is established. At that point the question will be whether X.org will continue to be developed or not (granted that might be years, look how long COBOL has been around).

My point being is that it might be premature to dump Ubuntu as a base and switch to debian because the Wayland/Mir. It would be better to wait and see how Wayland works out. Who knows, maybe Ubuntu is right about Mir (but I doubt it).
In terms of display servers, even debian will be faced with a choice eventually. If they are going to support Gnome 3 and KDE 4, they will need to support Wayland.

[SteveRiley]

I wonder if BlueSystems could help out here

Beat ya http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...l=1#post330140

I like your idea even better -- structuring the work such that all the flavors could take advantage of it. But this begs the obvious question, then: what's the benefit of remaining aligned with Ubuntu after this? Very little that I can see. Rebasing on straight-up Debian, IMHO, makes more sense.

[bsniadajewski]

I wonder if BlueSystems could help out here with the needed resources for getting Kubuntu (as well as all other *buntu-besed distros, including Mint) over to Wayland once it's ready. It would definitely be good if all the *buntus can pool their resources to allow a (smoother?) transition to Wayland.

[SteveRiley]

sources.list from Linux Mint 15 "Olivia":

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ olivia main upstream import
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ raring partner
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ raring free non-free

Olivia repository: http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Olivia

All of Mint's X Server stuff comes directly from Ubuntu.

[kubicle]

However Ubuntu will be keeping xorg in it's LTS repository for quite some time I believe and it will be updated somewhat during that time. but may not be upgrade to newer versions. So they will have something to work with. I think they will eventually go with wayland though.

I don't doubt that, the point I was trying to make was that "Kubuntu repackaging Mint's display server packages" isn't really a solution, because Mint actually uses Kubuntu's packages. I'm sure we'll have xorg in the repos for a good while.

[kc1di]

I don't think Mint is actually overstaffed either. And I am under the impression (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I've never used Mint) that most of Mint comes straight from the ubuntu repos, including the xserver. Mint's own repos are very small (consisting mainly of desktop customizations and a few tools), there is no one working on most of the packages which come from ubuntu repos.

I believe your mostly correct. About Mint. However Ubuntu will be keeping xorg in it's LTS repository for quite some time I believe and it will be updated somewhat during that time. but may not be upgrade to newer versions. So they will have something to work with. I think they will eventually go with wayland though.

[kubicle]

My reason for asking about what Mint was going to do was in response to comments related to Kubuntu's (and the other *buntus) limited staff and having to integrate either Wayland or Xorg once Canonical shifts to Mir for Ubuntu. My thought was that Mint is faced with the same situation. Assuming that Mint remains Ubuntu based, my thought was maybe Kubuntu to repackage their work on the display server if manpower is short.

I don't think Mint is actually overstaffed either. And I am under the impression (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I've never used Mint) that most of Mint comes straight from the ubuntu repos, including the xserver. Mint's own repos are very small (consisting mainly of desktop customizations and a few tools), there is no one working on most of the packages which come from ubuntu repos.

[vw72]

My reason for asking about what Mint was going to do was in response to comments related to Kubuntu's (and the other *buntus) limited staff and having to integrate either Wayland or Xorg once Canonical shifts to Mir for Ubuntu. My thought was that Mint is faced with the same situation. Assuming that Mint remains Ubuntu based, my thought was maybe Kubuntu to repackage their work on the display server if manpower is short.

[kc1di]

I think it's too early to tell what exactly Ubuntu is trying to do with MIR but it's unity related and since their primary focus seems to turning away from the Desktop to smart phone and tablets, it may be an effort to become exclusive enough to gain share in those markets. This is all speculation at this point though. I think Kubuntu , Mint and others will stay with Xorg or Wayland for the near future. as MIR seems to be only relevant to Unity and as has been mentioned no other Distro has picked up unity. Will be interesting for sure though.

[SteveRiley]

Agreed. The author of that blog is a curious sort. In the same article he mentions that while he's a Kubuntu user now, he's making the switch to Unity; in other articles, he praises it.

[oshunluvr]

While I don't necessarily disagree with that (at least on a general level), I don't like the term "bloodsuckers". There is no "leeching" in the free software world, free software is free for anyone to use for any purposes (even commercially, this is basically what Canonical does with Debian). There is also no obligation to contribute.

Agreed. Profit motivation is not ipso facto "bloodsucking" although they often intersect

[kubicle]

The (unknown) writer of Ubuntube, a blog I recently discovered, makes a rather strong accusation

While I don't necessarily disagree with that (at least on a general level), I don't like the term "bloodsuckers". There is no "leeching" in the free software world, free software is free for anyone to use for any purposes (even commercially, this is basically what Canonical does with Debian). There is also no obligation to contribute.