<story><title>Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir</title><url>https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kunai</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exactly. Standards exist in the GNU/Linux world for reason. Mir, Unity, etc. all don&apos;t seem to play too well with other distros and are very tightly integrated with Ubuntu; if this continues Ubuntu might turn into a slightly more open OS X, which isn&apos;t good at all.</text></item><item><author>acabal</author><text>Maybe this is a good idea, I don&apos;t know about X/Wayland enough to say.  But it worries me that Ubuntu is increasingly striking out on its own.  What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings.  It&apos;s also less knowledge to have to keep in your head for system administration stuff.  (Which is still necessary in Ubuntu, regardless of what the &quot;it just works for me&quot; people say.)&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is the kick in the pants Linux needs to increase adoption.  But I would much rather know &lt;i&gt;GNU/Linux&lt;/i&gt;, not &lt;i&gt;Ubuntu&lt;/i&gt;.  Now Ubuntu is standing alone with Compiz, Unity, Upstart, Launchpad, and Mir, all pretty fundamental pieces of the core system.  In a decade, will switching from Ubuntu to Debian be as big of a culture shock as switching from Windows to Linux?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jjcm</author><text>Standards are great and all, but holding on to those standards is what&apos;s keeping back the UX of linux. Gnome3 is familiar, but very dated. X is supported by all, but it&apos;s a tangled mess that everyone hates.&lt;p&gt;Yes Ubuntu is straying from the pack, but I&apos;d rather have them stray and the rest follow when they find something good then have the entire linux community sit in the same place they have been for years. Regardless of what path Ubuntu takes, I think it will be good for the linux community to have that diversity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir</title><url>https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kunai</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exactly. Standards exist in the GNU/Linux world for reason. Mir, Unity, etc. all don&apos;t seem to play too well with other distros and are very tightly integrated with Ubuntu; if this continues Ubuntu might turn into a slightly more open OS X, which isn&apos;t good at all.</text></item><item><author>acabal</author><text>Maybe this is a good idea, I don&apos;t know about X/Wayland enough to say.  But it worries me that Ubuntu is increasingly striking out on its own.  What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings.  It&apos;s also less knowledge to have to keep in your head for system administration stuff.  (Which is still necessary in Ubuntu, regardless of what the &quot;it just works for me&quot; people say.)&lt;p&gt;Maybe this is the kick in the pants Linux needs to increase adoption.  But I would much rather know &lt;i&gt;GNU/Linux&lt;/i&gt;, not &lt;i&gt;Ubuntu&lt;/i&gt;.  Now Ubuntu is standing alone with Compiz, Unity, Upstart, Launchpad, and Mir, all pretty fundamental pieces of the core system.  In a decade, will switching from Ubuntu to Debian be as big of a culture shock as switching from Windows to Linux?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mseebach</author><text>There are very few standards in the GNU/Linux world. GNU and Linux has, by themselves, &lt;i&gt;become&lt;/i&gt; standards through ubiquity. POSIX is one, yes, but it&apos;s woefully inadequate when you&apos;ve gotten used to all the bells and whistles any modern GNU/Linux distro puts on top of it by default.&lt;p&gt;And what about the BSDs? They certainly doesn&apos;t play well with Linux, or vice versa, but that&apos;s hardly an argument for calling either an agent for closedness.</text></comment>