why the noise about Mir & Wayland

[Guest]

Howdy,

In simple words why the community hates Mir and prefer Wayland? Does it because Wayland is open source while Mir isn't? OR Mir violates some open source licenses?

[verndog]

One reason is because resources are now split between the two.

[tek_heretik]

There's this and this, and Mir + Wayland.

Simply put, Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu founder, the base OS for Kubuntu) wants to implement Mir so it works across all supportable devices (ie; tablets, smartphones, laptops, PC's, etc), Wayland on the other hand is supposed to be a good/simple replacement for the long in the tooth 'X server' (what makes your GUI, the catalyst between the Linux kernel and the video driver). One of the issues is Intel, a major player who decided to go with Wayland instead of Mir, the future drama should be interesting. Basically Mir is Mark Shuttleworth's baby/dream (which might include proprietary code) where Wayland will be compatible with all Linux distributions, or at least it should be.

Thanks for asking, now I know too, didn't really pay attention until today, lol.

So in answer to your original question, I'm not sure about the licensing for Mir but Canonical is a corporate entity so who knows what path that will follow, Wayland on the other hand should most certainly be FOSS.

You have to understand that in the Linux/FOSS culture, we like to keep things free and open, where on the other hand, Mark Shuttleworth (I will probably get some flack for saying this but here goes...) likes to 'ride the fence' somewhat, he does own Canonical so priority lines have the possibility to get blurred. Now I will go duck my head in some sand until the storm from that last statement passes, lol.

A link about Raspberry Pi and Wayland for my friend Feathers.

[Guest]

which might include proprietary code

Although Mir suppose to work under (ie; tablets, smartphones, laptops, PC's, etc) but adding proprietary code to it quite enough to leave it unless Shuttleworth announce that Mir will be under one of open source licenses.
BTW, I'm not sure what if the performance of Wayland is great as Mir but Kubuntu 13.10 performance was horrible even I couldn't install it because it couldn't work with nVidia (I'll create a bug report about this issue soon); I suppose it uses Wayland now, does is?

[tek_heretik]

I suppose it uses Wayland now, does is?

No no, still X.org but Wayland is coming to future releases as you can see here, scroll 3/4 the way down the page to see it.

As you will see in the link I provided, Kubuntu runs the KDE DE and they took the advice of the KDE developers to go with Wayland.

"future releases will use the new Wayland graphics system as advised by KDE and in common with many other distributions."

Kubuntu is a fork of Ubuntu, it's a separate entity apart from Ubuntu so it's not bound by the Ubuntu development model/rules, basically Ubuntu under the hood with KDE stitched on top.

[SteveRiley]

which might include proprietary code ... I'm not sure about the licensing for Mir

You are speculating, and not very well. Mir is fully open source and governed by Canonical's Contributor License Agreement.

now I know too, didn't really pay attention until today

Tek, you really need to research this stuff better before you make these unfounded claims.

[SteveRiley]

BTW, I'm not sure what if the performance of Wayland is great as Mir but Kubuntu 13.10 performance was horrible even I couldn't install it because it couldn't work with nVidia (I'll create a bug report about this issue soon); I suppose it uses Wayland now, does is?

Many people on the forum here have experience with nVidia graphics. Please create a new post, describe your problem in detail, and the steps you've taken so far to try to get it to work.

And no, Kubuntu is not using Wayland in 13.10.

[Snowhog]

Tek, you really need to research this stuff better before you make these unfounded claims.

But then he would be the 'Tech' Heretic here.

[SteveRiley]

Lol!

[GreyGeek]

... Kubuntu is a fork of Ubuntu, it's a separate entity apart from Ubuntu so it's not bound by the Ubuntu development model/rules, basically Ubuntu under the hood with KDE stitched on top.

My son's System76 Gazelle arrived and he booted it up last night. Beautiful machine. i7 with 8GB RAM and 1TB 7200 rpm SATA HD. Intel HD graphics which runs Stellarium at vsync speed, 59.8 fps.

It is running Ubuntu 13.04. I don't know enough about Ubuntu to know if that was "Unity" or what. My son has been using a KDE desktop for years, Kubuntu since 2009, when I adopted it. He played with the installed desktop for an hour of so and liked it, so he decided to stick with it. The fact that we searched through the app manager and couldn't find a kde-desktop meta package was instrumental in deciding to stay with the installed OS. It has a compatibility layer that allowed running KDE based packages but no meta package which would pull in the KDE desktop and kdm and offer the user a desktop option at login. There WAS an LXFD and XFCE meta package, and Enlightenment, IIRC, but not kde-desktop or plasma-desktop.

He needed Win7 for work so he bought a Win7 home premium CD. The plan was to boot a gparted CD and divide the 1TB HD into about two equal partitions and install Win7 on the first and Kubuntu on the second -- dual boot. He liked the Unity (?) desktop so much I installed VirtualBox for him (he'd never used it before) and installed Win7 as a guest OS. It worked perfectly. We gave it 3GB of RAM and it is fast. That gives him the ability to use iTunes for his iPhone account and to use a VPN to connect to work (but, he's going to try the VPN the Unity offers first). VB also gives him the opportunity to install several Linux distros as guests and try them without messing up his main OS.

For sure it this Acer V3-771G dies before I forget how it use it my a System76 will be my next box.

[tek_heretik]

You are speculating, and not very well. Mir is fully open source and governed by Canonical's Contributor License Agreement.


Tek, you really need to research this stuff better before you make these unfounded claims.

Canonical's license, not GPL, but I'm sure you will refute that too.

As for researching, it seems your only issue was with the Mir license, which there has been some chatter about that, and if you were to read the original text again, you will notice might in bold and italics, again...

[tek_heretik]

where on the other hand, Mark Shuttleworth (I will probably get some flack for saying this but here goes...) likes to 'ride the fence' somewhat, he does own Canonical so priority lines have the possibility to get blurred. Now I will go duck my head in some sand until the storm from that last statement passes, lol.

See, told ya...*battening down hatches*

[claydoh]

Mir is licensed under the gpl v3, the cla is granting the right to take any code contributed and relicense it. Tricky, as the code can be forked, but I guess being able to relicense it would appease some handset manufacturers, one among many reasons for changing or dual-licensing code

[Feathers McGraw]

A link about Raspberry Pi and Wayland for my friend Feathers.

Thanks!

Interesting read. I only ever used the graphical desktop on the very first Pi, and only for a couple of hours. One of my friends is an IT teacher, and we've been chatting about working a Pi into some lessons, so that's good news for him.

GreyGeek, I guess that install party went well then?

I must have missed something here, why write a licence that allows you to use a different licence? You might as well have no licence at all.

Feathers

[Feathers McGraw]

Come to think of it, Raspbmc might see some improvements if it currently uses X. Don't know enough about it to say either way.