Wayland vs. Mir: Intel, Ubuntu 13.10 Display Server Debate Surfaces
Intel (INTC) has decided not to support the Mir display server built into Canonical's forthcoming Ubuntu 13.10 release, which is set to arrive in late October 2013. Most observers think Intel backed away from Mir because the chip giant is embracing Wayland, another display server. Here's the background, and potential implications for Ubuntu and Intel partners.
Canonical embraced the Mir display server to fulfill founder Mark Shuttleworth's vision of a single operating system running across desktops, notebooks, tablets and smart phones. Originally, it sounds like Intel planned to support Canonical's Mir vision. But something apparently changed in August — with Intel disclosing the Mir rejection in a brief online comment.
Poke around and you'll notice Intel talking a lot about Wayland, another display server. According to FreeDesktop.org, "Wayland is intended as a simpler replacement for X, easier to develop and maintain. GNOME and KDE are expected to be ported to it."
Without mentioning Wayland by name, Shuttleworth in a July 2013 blog conceded that Mir will have competitors. At the time he wrote:
"Of course, there is competition out there, which we think is healthy. I believe Mir will be able to evolve faster than the competition, in part because of the key differences and choices made now. For example, rather than a rigid protocol that can only be extended, Mir provides an API. The implementation of that API can evolve over time for better performance, while it’s difficult to do the same if you are speaking a fixed protocol. We saw with X how awkward life becomes when you have a fixed legacy protocol and negotiate over extensions which themselves might be versioned. Others have articulated the technical rationale for the Mir approach better than I can, read what they have to say if you’re interested in the ways in which Mir is different, the lessons learned from other stacks, and the benefits we see from the architecture of Mir."
Should Canonical partners panic over Intel's Mir rejection? Not really. While that news isn't uplifting, the far bigger concern for Ubuntu resellers, VARs and system builders involves customer and developer reaction to Ubuntu 13.10, which is expected to ship in late October 2013.
As the world increasingly shifts to smartphones and tablets, Canonical's single greatest victory remains on desktop PCs and notebooks — though the company's cloud server business also sounds like it's raming up nicely. Meanwhile, a lot of big technology companies — Dell, Microsoft, HP and others — are trying to adjust to the post-PC world.
So, too, must Canonical.
Intel has been and still is
Intel has been and still is evil, if they treat Canonical like this, I wonder how they will kick out AMD/Nvidia from ‘their’ Wayland stuff
Well, I don’t know if I can
Well, I don’t know if I can agree that they are “evil”; that’s sorta getting a bit crazy… Maybe you just don’t like them that much?!
Intel does not reject Mir.
Intel does not reject Mir. They reject to maintain XMir patches upstream, which is the normal way to go for single-distribution-only software in the open source world, these patches clearly belong downstream and the burden of maintenance has in no way to be carried by Intel, but by Canonical. This will change if (unlikely) XMir will become a solution that is used on more than one distro.
Please be aware that Mir and XMir are not the same.
No, the patches do not belong
No, the patches do not belong to downstream.
The git comment even makes it clear, that Intel is playing dirty and abusing once again their position for something so simple.
Nobody in the real world even
Nobody in the real world even cares about this stuff. Certainly not a linux server, either. I like the name Wayland and Weston, too. Mir sounds too much like the old USSR. Canonical. Politburo. Hmmmmmm………
Intel reject support for XMir
Intel reject support for XMir not Mir – it’s not the same…
Intel rejected to maintain
Intel rejected to maintain the XMir patches upstream for good reason, Mir is using a modified 3 GPL license. The modification states that without notice they may change their license from opensource to proprietary and your copy will also be required to abide by the proprietary license even if it was originally opensource licensed. Intel hates this because it means if someone comes along and modifies Mir for their distro, Canonical can magically slap a You Must Buy license on it. Intel is at the mercy of its vendors, if they dont want something, intel wont bother working on it.
Guys, did you read the
Guys, did you read the article? Did you see the patch?
Mir is different from Xmir.
Wayland is not endorseed at intel, but at xorg where some intel’s employeers work.
Not some evil move, just rational: do not provide support upstream for program used by one distribution, quite simple.
The evil afterall is Canonical that in this delicate phase of transition choose to not help the development of wayland. Sure, they can, but they shouldn’t cry if someone rejects their plans.
And the ideas behind Wayland are great, not an api drawing definition but a shared buffer. Brilliant, wayland can stay with us for eternity (if X11 protocol is with us since 1980…)
Really?Canonical is evil for
Really?Canonical is evil for what?I’ve not even heard of Wayland until Canonical announced Mir(and I bet a lot of peoploe didn’t either)?As is known Wayland is in development for years.Yeah Mir took stuff from Wayland but its advancing at much faster rate.Canonical is evil for taking from wayland what it needs?
Why not trashing Gnome for making they’re own apps instead of remaining on other apps like other DEs do?All GPU manufacterers are lousy when it comes to linux drivers development.Especially Intel.
Mark Shuttleworth mentioned
Mark Shuttleworth mentioned Wayland years ago when he explained the intention of putting Wayland in ubuntu as the default display server. Here’s a blog post by Mark himself:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/551
Mir is not advancing faster than Wayland. In order for a new display server such as Wayland or Mir to even work, the Linux graphics stack had to be rewritten from the ground up. This work started in 2008 and only really started to mature in 2012. Canonical, seeing that most of the heavy lifting had already been done for them, decided to set off and create their own unity-only display server in secret and then made the announcement a year later, all the while saying they were still going with Wayland.
Mir uses a lot of the same design ideas as Wayland. The XMir compatibility wrapper is actually 99% XWayland. Mir’s support for running on Android drivers? That’s from a project for allowing Wayland to run on Android drivers called libhybris. They implied that this support was something they did but it soon came out that they were using someone else’s Wayland work (this caused Mir/Canonical to have a bit of negative PR as a result).
Along with the Mir announcement were a bunch of false technical reasons why Wayland wouldn’t work for them. These reasons were immediately and thoroughly debunked. Had they been honest about the explanation, Canonical would be receiving far less flak. The truth is that they want control (hence the CLA). Wayland gives everyone equal footing. If Canonical wants control, great, but being dishonest is what’s gotten them into hot water more than anything else.
Cononical is in it for the
Cononical is in it for the money and they do not share. Intel just protects its intrests, like any normal company would.