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

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

#91
post #44
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv3 will prevent hardware manufacturers from locking down their devices if they intend to ship Ubuntu Mobile. Actually the opposite; Canonical will sell phone vendors a non-GPL version of Mir so that they can lock down their phones.

Hence the copyright assignment required for any contribution to Canonical's projects, to ease the double licensing. But for now, it's only speculation. Time will tell.

It's not copyright assignment, it's just a broader license grant than what the GPL allows.

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know why?

Wayland wasn't ready

That doesn't make sense. At the time, Wayland was more ready than a project written from scratch. Their initial manifesto also called out a bunch of things as failings of Wayland that were patently false. The Wayland core devs also did not know that Ubuntu was having these issues, IIRC.

So either:

1) Ubuntu didn't understand Wayland at all, amd decided to write their own from scratch without talking to or consulting the Wayland devs.

Or

2) Ubuntu has an ulterior motive (e.g. Not-Invented-Here-syndrome).

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

#93
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apostasy needs to be punished, that's 21st century thinking right there.

If Linux is ever to become mainsteam the way OSX and Windows are then 'apostasy' needs not be accommodated. Now you can debate whether the philosophy of the Linux and open-source community is for creating a standardized product that can be easily adopted and used by the mainstream user-base. But for companies like Intel, I understand why they want to push it in that direction.

Linux doesn't need to become mainstream the way OS X and Windows are. Linux is mainstream the way Linux is, and will continue to be with Android, Steambox, and a huge chunk of the smart TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and other embedded device markets.

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

#94
post #81
post #76

Can someone summarize the story in a way that doesn't presuppose prior knowledge of what Mir or XMir is, and who isn't familiar with the Ubuntu-Intel history? Free karma if you do!

== Backstory == The X Window System (known as X11 - 11th version) is currently the predominant way for Linux users to use a graphical interface, specifically a windowed interface. It is old and was designed for a purpose that doesn't match current usage nor technology. For this reason, a number of projects have risen to replace X11. 'Wayland' is the best supported of these projects, whilst 'Mir' is similar but has mu…

Does anyone know if Intel could just expose an API that is entirely agnostic of the display server, so Wayland, Mir, XMir, or some random other project could all use the same interface and get full functionality?

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

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it kinda the kernel's job to allow multiple processes to access shared resources? Imagine if only one process at a time were allowed to access the disk.

Resources that require low-latency low-level access cannot be multiplexes easily

So have multiplexing desktop mode by default, and give pros a "reduce my latency" button?

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it kinda the kernel's job to allow multiple processes to access shared resources? Imagine if only one process at a time were allowed to access the disk.

Resources that require low-latency low-level access cannot be multiplexes easily

Why couldn't the kernel perform simple mixing of the audio streams with just as low latency as something like JACK?

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

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright assignment.

Neither Wayland nor Mir require copyright assignment

Look at the fine print when you contribute patches then.

For individuals: http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/images/C...

2.3 Outbound License

Based on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, if We include Your Contribution in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this right, We agree to also license the Contribution under the terms of the license or licenses which We are using for the Material on the Submission Date.

Same goes for the entity license: http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/images/C...

You might also want to read the following:

http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/25376.html

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Wayland nor Mir require copyright assignment

Look at the fine print when you contribute patches then. For individuals: http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/images/C... 2.3 Outbound License Based on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, if We include Your Contribution in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this r…

Yes, but that's still not assignment of copyright. The contributor still retains their copyright.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the fine print when you contribute patches then. For individuals: http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/images/C... 2.3 Outbound License Based on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, if We include Your Contribution in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this r…

Yes, but that's still not assignment of copyright. The contributor still retains their copyright.

Fair call.

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

#100
post #21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I didn't even know that. That's a great reason to prefer Wayland over Mir or Mir over Wayland. I'm a bit torn now..

Indeed, also X.Org is X11 Licensed (MIT license variant). Wayland and Mir driver support is pretty much a mystery, and Canonical has been trying to engage hardware designers (Nvidia, Intel, AMD) for support. This recent spate between Canonical and Intel may be indicative that the process isn't going well. Ubuntu's next LTS release is 14.04 so it's 8 months away, and if there's any surefire way to piss Canonical off t…

Hmm, I would say the oppposite. The recent spate between Canonical and Intel might indicate that Canonical's engagement with competitors NVidia and AMD are going well. Canonical doesn't really need to cooperate with Intel, because Intel already makes excellent open source drivers for their graphics cards.

I think Valve is the reason that Canonical can work together with NVidia and AMD, and that they're probably not nervous about this at all.

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