Ubuntu graphic stack roadmap update

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 12:28:40PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > I think it's a bit premature to ask this question (there is validity for
> > it, just the timing seems off) as things were only announced today and the
> > technology is just becoming available for a technical assessment. Right
> > now, only kubuntu has jumped the gun and made a decision against Mir, I
> > hope others are taking the necessary time, will be looking at the resources
> > that are and will be provided and make an informed decision based on that.

> I hardly think following the advice of our upstream developers qualifies
> as "jumping the gun".  Nothing is carved in stone for eternity.  I think
> we have taken an informed decision based on the current status.  If things
> change in the future, the decision might be re-evaluated when that
> happens.

  "Kubuntu Won't be Switching to Mir or XMir"
  http://blogs.kde.org/2013/06/26/kubuntu-wont-be-switching-mir-or-xmir

I think that's rather a bit more than following the advice of your upstream
developers; it looks to me like Jonathan is staking out a position against
Mir.  Frankly, this doesn't look to me like an informed decision at all, it
looks like a polemic one.  XMir is going to be the X stack that receives the
most attention from Canonical, as well as from other Ubuntu developers
working on Ubuntu-the-flavor.  Given that the major concern I've seen
expressed is that the Kubuntu team won't have resources to maintain their
own display stack, I don't see how anyone could have arrived so quickly at
the conclusion that using the XMir stack - the one used by Ubuntu - is
risky, and using the native X stack - not used by Ubuntu - is safe.

Compositing may be fragile, but there should be no difference visible to
KWin between XMir and native X with respect to compositing.  And given the
tendency for bugs to arise as a result of mismatches between X+mesa, or
X+mesa+kernel, I would be much more worried about native X not receiving the
attention it needs to be kept in sync with mesa - a problem that won't arise
with XMir, since Mir+mesa are obviously going to be maintained as a usable
combination.

> Personally, I'm not certain how viable Kubuntu on X/Wayland will be in the 
> long run, but that's at least as true about Kubuntu on Mir.  We'll get to the 
> long run, in the long run, but for right now Mir/XMir offers us nothing but 
> complication.

So I'm not convinced that XMir actually represents complication for Kubuntu,
rather than beneficial alignment.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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