Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#1

Post by redman25 » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 5:27 PM UTC

Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way
arstechnica.com

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#2

Post by gaius » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 5:49 PM UTC

Watch Linux video go the way of Linux audio... Intel are 100% in the right to make a stand.

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#3

Post by lelandbatey » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:08 PM UTC

I'm confused. I've seen this a bunch of times, and I don't understand why Canonical submitted a patch to a video driver to "support" their Xmir window server. Why does a video driver need to have code in it to support a window server? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the window server supposed to work on top of the video driver (and all the other hardware drivers)? What's going on?

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#4

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:12 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#5

Post by drivebyacct2 » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:20 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #2

Watch Linux video go the way of Linux audio... Intel are 100% in the right to make a stand.

A completely overblown exaggeration and really not an issue for 98% of users ever, let alone regularly?

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#6

Post by achat » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:23 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #3

I'm confused. I've seen this a bunch of times, and I don't understand why Canonical submitted a patch to a video driver to "support" their Xmir window server. Why does a video driver need to have code in it to support a window server? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the window server supposed to work on top of the video driver (and all the other hardware drivers)? What's going on?

While developing some application, did you ever feel that your SDK is lacking some feature which would make your app development much easier?

So think the video driver as library and the windowing system as an application using video driver library.

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#7

Post by tinco » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #3

I'm confused. I've seen this a bunch of times, and I don't understand why Canonical submitted a patch to a video driver to "support" their Xmir window server. Why does a video driver need to have code in it to support a window server? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the window server supposed to work on top of the video driver (and all the other hardware drivers)? What's going on?

On Linux it is actually the window server that provides the interface between applications and the video driver.

Linux does not have a standard graphics driver interface like Windows does, at the moment is sort of defined by X, and since Wayland and Mir aim to replace X, the interface will be replaced too.

This means that every driver needs to interface with each of the window managers.

I would agree that is a silly idea, but such is the world when applications need very low level access to hardware to attain real time performance. You just get a tangly mess.

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#8

Post by ihsw » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #3

I'm confused. I've seen this a bunch of times, and I don't understand why Canonical submitted a patch to a video driver to "support" their Xmir window server. Why does a video driver need to have code in it to support a window server? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the window server supposed to work on top of the video driver (and all the other hardware drivers)? What's going on?

Beyond that, it may be because Mir is GPLv3 licensed and Wayland is MIT licensed. Just a hunch.

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#9

Post by WestCoastJustin » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:28 PM UTC

> Intel customers who use Ubuntu will not see any regressions as we will simply continue to support XMir in the Intel driver as part of Ubuntu.

This is an issue only if you wish to use XMir outside of Ubuntu. Ubuntu controls their own ecosystem so they can just patch/compile/repackage their distribution as needed, like they do for many other packages (i.e. Mesa, xf86-video-ati, and xf86-video-nouveau). The core issue is that they wanted to push XMir support upstream so that other distros could use XMir.

Cryptic messages are making people draw their own conclusions as to what the issue is.

> We do not condone or support Canonical in the course of action they have chosen, and will not carry XMir patches upstream. - The Management [1]

> I've said it before, I'll say it again. You will not make your open source project better by pulling another open source project down. - Michael Hall [2]

I think we are not seeing the full discussion happen in public light and there is a lot of guess work happening.

[1] http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/com...

[2] https://plus.google.com/109919666334513536939/posts/QzAyr5fo...

Re: Intel rejection of Ubuntu’s Mir patch forces Canonical to go own way

#10

Post by route66 » Mon, Sep 16, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #3

I'm confused. I've seen this a bunch of times, and I don't understand why Canonical submitted a patch to a video driver to "support" their Xmir window server. Why does a video driver need to have code in it to support a window server? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the window server supposed to work on top of the video driver (and all the other hardware drivers)? What's going on?

It's outlined here: http://www.x.org/wiki/guide/concepts/#xisclientserver . In a nutshell, X "serves" the application to the (in- and output) devices.