A Look at the Compiz and Beryl Merger 250
invisibastard writes to mention that Linux Tech Daily has an editorial on the merger between Compiz and Beryl. "This state of affairs was a shame. Something that was finally getting the general public excited about Linux, the 3D desktop, was wasting time with duplication of effort and fighting. There were concerns about the long term viability of Beryl. The perception in the community overall was, Compiz = old and stale, Beryl = fresh and exciting. This despite the feeling in the Compiz community that the "real work" was being done by David Reveman and Compiz, and there were exciting things with Compiz core (like input redirection, etc...) on the horizon."
Error 500 - Internal server error (Score:5, Funny)
Server committed seppuku rather than face a slashdotting.
Re:Error 500 - Internal server error (Score:5, Funny)
<raises hand>
Courtesy of FootnoteLink in Wikipedia Compiz entry (Score:4, Informative)
(ok, so that might go down in flames too)
Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree.
People are not working AGAINST each other; that is what Microsoft does - form teams that actually try to take down competitors by hook or by crook.
With open source, it's more like many different interpretations of what needs be done competing and the end user profits by choosing what lives. There is no active sabotage as in the case of MS, so don't try casting it (even unintentionally) in such a light. Even competing open-source projects can use each other's ideas without fearing repriesals.
They are not working "against" each other, they are evolving in parallel.
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Remember when that non-slashdoter you knew got a girl who wasn't his sister knocked up? That was a biological merger.
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Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also one of its great strengths. This one, along with things like the free desktop project are starting to address the next step along. How, once a good decision has been made, to converge multiple projects into the best solution.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Having a kitchen-sink approach in order to please everyone usually makes for crappy software. And putting all your eggs in one basket is very bad.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I've never heard of Compiz until this story.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Informative)
Those are the lucky exceptions, not the rules. I know from bitter experience. Microsoft breaks some backwards compatibility with every minor revision.
And? You've heard of X11, which is where all this stuff is going when it's mature.
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Come on now. At least they try to maintain backward compatibility (except, of course, when they want to play planned obsolescense with Office). The Linux desktop projects don't even try. And that's been 'good enough' so long as nobody runs anything but the stuff that comes with their distro. Yep. We've got the source, so stuff can be rebuilt every time
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:3, Funny)
MOD PARENT UP! Agreed! I for one *hate* having source code. It makes no sense to me - especially when written in some crazy out-dated language like C++. I'd much rather just get the binary, or if it has to be source, then I want it in something that doesn't need to be compiled like Python or Unlambda.
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I never really understood this. Are people really so uncoordinated that they can't carry a big basket of eggs without dropping it? I've personally handled several hundred dozen eggs in my lifetime, and have not yet had an accident. I want to meet these "egg breakers:. I need proof of their existence. Until that moment, I'll keep on putting all my eggs in a fat ole basket (usually under the bread) untill I hit that mythically improbable moment where
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Good. Then fork from the start, and everyone's happy...
Having one project, among other things, means everyone is working on the same thing, in the same direction, etc. With different projects, you get to see two different paths taken, different ideas, different problems solved, and one may run-up against underlying limitations that the other does not have.
Ability to fork a project can't prevent these problems.
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I dunno if I'd go so far as to say that it's a weakness. That's like saying Microsoft's greatest strength is how their entire development process is centrally planned - there's two sides to that coin.
There are definitely times when it's good to have multiple tools to do the same thing - if one app or codebase is incompatible or inappropriate for whatever reason, it's nice to have another option. Additionally (though open sou
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It's looking to me like the future of the linux desktop 3d accelerated monoculture. And if you want any of the flexibility that has made X so great you have to give all that up. And what happens when applications start depending on the 3d accelerated fu
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
I like my bling, I run Beryl, and I've got windows that go up in blue flames when I close them. (Nifty.) There are some really great usability improvements, though, that are only marginally related to special effects:
I also do image processing research, so that last one is great when I need to see fine detail. None of these by themselves are any great reason to have an OpenGL desktop (except Zoom if you've got bad eyesight), but they make a very compelling case in the aggregate.
slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)
Corel? (Score:2)
Is that in a WordPerfect file format?
Mirror of article (Score:4, Informative)
Humble Programmers Are Bad (Score:2, Funny)
I believe it is a pretty generally accepted theory of Computer Science that humble programmers aren't much good on a project. So why would they discuss the inflated egos of programmers on these projects as though it was a bad thing?
For future reference, the formula is:
(BIG EGO == GREAT CODER)
(HUMBLE == BAD BAD BAD CODER)
Are we all clear on this now?
Re:Humble Programmers Are Bad (Score:4, Funny)
(HUMBLE == BAD BAD BAD CODER)
Hey, wait a minute - not only am I a great coder (possibly the best), but I'm also the most humble person you will ever meet!
Alright... (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, at least I didn't say J#.
*DUCKS*
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The more you boast of how good you are at something, the better you must be!
Re:Humble Programmers Are Bad (Score:5, Funny)
You've got it all wrong! (Score:2)
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I disagree.
Have you ever worked with someone with a huge ego? If the person with the ego is wrong, and unwilling to admit it, there's a huge problem.
Good coders need more than an ego. I'm in music, and there's a big problem with musicians that have an ego. Try telling them they are out of tune. Try telling them that they learned their music wrong. Try correcting anything... it doesn't work.
I'd imagine it's the same in computers. If you're dead-set that you're right because you're better than any
Interesting read... but short. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm glad these projects are merging since eye candy (done properly) is definitely something that can stand to make Linux a player in the desktop market. We'll be able to say to people who catch a glimpse "oh, you can't install that, you don't run Linux".
Here's TFA (Score:5, Informative)
Editorial: Compiz and Beryl Merger
It isn't official yet, but Compiz and Beryl are merging. For the last few weeks I have been following the mailing list discussions on this topic. A lot of the work has been started. It is sort of unofficially announced, so I feel now is as good a time as any to comment. First some back story:
The war between Compiz and Beryl has been entertaining if counterproductive. Originally I planned to interview Quinn (Beryl's unofficial leader) about the Beryl project. That turned into an interview with the team that never really got anywhere. I dropped the ball. My feelings at the time were typical of those in the community. Beryl seemed to be this fantastic project that saved Compiz from being boring and a slave to Novell. They launched a beautiful website. It was exciting to see the frequency of their releases. At the time, I decided to check out Compiz to see what it was up to. It was surprising. Their forums were very helpful and positive. The more I read, the more I realized that I had made a mistake. There was more to the story than I was aware.
The communities were getting along a lot worse than I had realized. People in the Beryl camp dismissed David Reveman (creator of Compiz and XGL among other things) as a bad coder. Compiz dismissed Beryl as hacky code. Personal attacks flew around. Through decisions made with (hopefully) good intentions, like the insistence that Beryl code be GPL (thus unable to move upstream to the MIT licensed Compiz core) or the desire on some Beryl developers part to rip apart the Compiz core and " improve" it, it looked as if the teams were hopelessly split.
Meanwhile, Beryl continued to grow. Resentment grew in the Compiz community. One estimate was that Beryl used 95% Compiz code while taking all the credit. YouTube filled up with tons of spinning transparent cubes and burning windows. Any Digg story mentioning Beryl received a lot of Diggs. Flamewars in comment sections broke out regularly. Things reached a low point when a frustrated Compiz community member hacked the Beryl site.
This state of affairs was a shame. Something that was finally getting the general public excited about Linux, the 3D desktop, was wasting time with duplication of effort and fighting. There were concerns about the long term viability of Beryl. The perception in the community overall was, Compiz = old and stale, Beryl = fresh and exciting. This despite the feeling in the Compiz community that the "real work" was being done by David Reveman and Compiz, and there were exciting things with Compiz core (like input redirection, etc...) on the horizon.
It was a pleasant surprise to see talks of a merge start to show up on the mailing lists. This article by Kristian Hogsberg seemed to kick it off. The talks so far have been bumpy. There are fights about whether to rename the communities. There are heated discussions about what the merger means and where things should go from here. Old wounds have been reopened. There are complaints about the egos of the developers in the forums. At one point, reading a twenty-four page forum discussion, I wondered if the merge was a good idea after all. Little by little things seem to be working out, though. Quinn mentioned in one forum post that the fork was a mistake and regrettable. It takes a big person to make an admission like that.
I have to hand it to both communities. This is a brave and bold step. Not many of us can check our egos, put hurt feelings aside and move forward. The road ahead won't be easy, but the benefit to the Linux community will be immense. Energy won't be wasted on fights and duplication of effort. Confusion over what to use will be eliminated. Hopefully more effort can be spent by the distributions on getting the combined product packaged properly (How many times can I install a distro and the 3d desktop only to have no window borders in KDE?). The discussions I read are passionate. It looks like the project will be a meritocracy,
The war between Compiz and Beryl was productive (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Forced David and friends to restructure his development process to be more like Beryl's
2) Forced Quinn and friends to realize that maybe David was right on some issues
3) Allowed Beryl to experiment with alternative ways of developing Compiz without destroying Compiz's approach.
Okay, maybe the conflict was a bit less civilized that than it could have been, but sometimes you need a good fight to raise the issues and so you can look for ways to solve them. You can't fix what you won't even acknowledge. The approach taken before the split up was disfunctional and didn't give people what they wanted. It's likely the new approach will be a lot better since it'll allow David to focus on what he's best at and Quinn to focus on what he's best at without stepping on each other's feet.
Re:Here's TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should use a license that ask for credit. I have sometime the impression that people don't get what "free" code means... it's even sadder when those people are the one that develop it (or even worse: try to promote the freedom idea without understanding what it means)
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Big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
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Agreed. There a misconception of "wasted" time and effort in open source. Like if you have 20 total programmers working on 3 similar projects, it is necessarily better that all 20 combine efforts on one project. The problem is is more programmers doesn't necessarily make for a better product or even fast
Future (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sounds like it's time for you to go find a different non-problem to solve
Re:Future (Score:5, Informative)
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On the other hand, as far as I can see, compiz is more or less functionally identical to metacity, just with more wobbling -- it even uses the same window themes. Why would I want to run metacity instead?
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Better question: why run a compositing window manager? What's the point? My kids LOVE the wobbling windows, but I'm a grown up and wobbly burning windows are nothing but a waste of RAM and cycles that could be better spent making the system more responsive.
Linux programming may be a "boy's" world... (Score:5, Funny)
This is not a 3D desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
Xinerama support (Score:5, Informative)
2.5D (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yes. Merger will be hugely successful and attract a lot of users.
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Re:Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
Take Compiz's springy windows. It's cute when you play with it, and I thought it'd go great with the whole concept of water that Apple loves. However, when I showed it to a few friends that are not as technically inclined, they said the effect was "distracting." Mind you, these are college students, not grandmothers.
I think eye candy adds to the overall appeal of an operating system, but only if it's tasteful. Take virtual desktop switching—it's great to have a cube rotate, because it establishes what you're doing in spatial terms; however, I don't think anybody who actually wants to use their computer wants to waste time manipulating a cube themselves. I feel that many of the effects in Compiz are too much eye candy with too little usability.
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I use the desktop cube in Beryl and I find that it is faster to see what I'm doing and more logical to use it than to go down to the lower right of my screen and click the desired virtual desktop.
Of course, I have the option to use it either way, and the cube still rotates to let me know that something like that has happened.
Re:Leopard (Score:5, Informative)
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What kind of pointing device are you holding in your right hand exactly to make it shoot?
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Aside from controlling it precisely the same way you control virtual desktops in pretty much any window manager, which is to say through key combinations or clicking on the icon, you can middle-drag on the desktop to rotate the cube. You can also move the mouse to the edge of the screen and rotate the scroll wheel, but I think it's the middle-drag that we're talking
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I haven't used Beryl, but I'm curious. Don't you end up with a desktop that's upside-down once in a while?
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I've also never used beryl, but I'd assume it rotates the scr
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Now, to get back to the OP of this thread: Leopard may - or may not - incorporate these kinds of "blingtop" technologies when it comes out this summer. Beryl (and Compiz) are available now.
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No. It always shows the desktops right-side up. It's a 'cube' but only 4 sides, not all 6, are used. Although I wonder what it'd do if you had 6 desktops?
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Oh well that makes sense.
Although I wonder what it'd do if you had 6 desktops?
Well seeing how you're not using the top and bottom faces, they don't really have to be square. So some sort of hexagonal prism is in order.
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Re:Leopard (Score:5, Informative)
For a really fun time, try turning on springy windows, turning the spring strength all the way down and the friction all the way up. Then try to drag the window. You can stretch it practically all the way around your desktop cube.
All in all, this reminds me of way back in the day when Enlightenment (the window manager, kdawson, not the metaphysical oneness-with-all thing) first came out. Everyone started making these obscenely complex themes showing off how cool E was. Then it seems like everyone uttered a collective "Meh," and went back to FVWM. I did, anyway.
Beryl/Compiz does have other modules that enhance functionality such as tiling/cascading, and some that are mostly for show but have some use, like trailfocus. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that all the effects are scriptable, so that different effects or placement schemes can be applied to different classes of window
Re:Leopard (Score:4, Insightful)
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Regarding the cube: No one understood virtual desktops until I got a similar effect on OS X, and now I can actua
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Beryl might be a little better, because you can drag and drop between desktops, and with the transparent "backs" of windows, you can orient
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Not at all (Score:5, Insightful)
If you believe that all GNU/Linux users will leap on Leopard when it comes out then you are sadly mistaken. Some of us demand FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), this is the reason we choose our software. Spangly, OMGPONIES!!!!1 GUI effects are far down on the list of requirements, that something like this is being developed is a sign that GNU/Linux is maturing.
But just because we insist on running open, Free software does not mean we don't want nice effects. It just means we'll do it our way: Freely (and with flame wars, separations, bad blood, complaining, forks etc).
If you love your Mac, that's great, but don't think that because you love it the rest of the world has to. They have different requirements.
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we'll do it our way: Freely (and with flame wars, separations, bad blood, complaining, forks etc).
I have contributed nothing (save a few $ in donations here and there) to the open source movement what-so-ever. Yet I've reaped all the benefits of it. OpenVPN, Open Office, inkscape, Ubuntu, and god help me even The GIMP in all its gimpy-ness. The above quote is why I say "I love nerds" to myself daily.
For all the flustered hubbub, and sticking to their(as in each ones own unique) perception of the moral high-ground. At the end of the day them doing their own thing for the sake of doing it, has benefited
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If you believe that all GNU/Linux users will leap on Leopard when it comes out then you are sadly mistaken.
There are two sides to this. As a Linux and OS X user, each has its place for me. I'm not going to be running OS X for a file server anytime soon. I'm not going to be building devices on top of OS X anytime soon. I doubt I'm going to be using Linux as my primary desktop workstation anytime soon either.
In the last few years I've seen a huge number of GNU/Linux people move to OS X. Partly I attribute this to OS X becoming an accepted and mature platform for geeks and partly I attribute this to more and mo
Re:Leopard (Score:4, Insightful)
Until then, it's a cute toy that may work for you, but doesn't work for me.
That said, I wish my Linux notebook had better hardware support, but the fact that I can live without multi-touch scroll on the trackpad and a close-to-zero configuration wireless network says a lot about how important the other, deeper, things Linux has to offer are.
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In the end, there appears to be a separation between the OSX side and the "Finkspace" that's really less comfortable than a plain Linux install. And comfort is _the_ reason to have a Mac.
I can't say it was a happy choice, but there are days for Porsches and days for Humvees, but I am currently in a Humvee phase and enjoying it thoroughly.
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Yeah, how true (Score:2)
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Stupid car analogies...
Not really (Score:3, Interesting)
That was not meant to be a troll. Just sarcasm. It find it silly that ppl are trying to claim that Apple is so expensive, when they are right in the same price range and in reality, you are getting a system that last longer and works better (and that is just the hardware, let alone the softw
Re:Frosty piss! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that in the Linux world, mergers are a good thing and need to be made across the entire Linux community. Imagine if the Gnome and KDE camps could work together... or how about Mozilla and Opera... or most importantly the package management camps.
Want to bring linux to the mainstream, pick a standard and develop it. Set aside your disagreements and work for the greater good. The world doesn't need another linux distro, it needs everyone working to create a single comprehensive distro.
I hate it when I find a piece of software I want, only to discover there is no binary for my chosen distro. I don't hate it because I don't know how to compile it myself, but because I shouldn't have to.
I hate that I can only seem to get hardware drivers for Suse and Redhat because the vendor couldn't cater to everyone.
And I hate hearing about projects forking because two intelligent people can't come to a compromise.
Choice is good... but only when there is at least one option that meets the need. Too often there is so much competition that none of the products can really fulfill the needs they set out to fulfill because there are not enough developers to go around.
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Re:Frosty piss! (Score:5, Interesting)
What does a "distribution" or "operating system" mean to a large number of computer users ? Nothing. They just see it as part of "the way the computer works". So why do we need more than one operating system ? So let's extend your argument to cover operating systems:
I think that in the [computing] world, mergers are a good thing and need to be made across the entire [computing] community. Imagine if the [Windows] and [Linux] camps could work together... or how about [Windows] and [Linux]... or most importantly the [software installation] camps.
Want to bring [computing] to the mainstream, pick a standard and develop it. Set aside your disagreements and work for the greater good. The world doesn't need another [operating system], it needs everyone working to create a single comprehensive [operating system].
I hate it when I find a piece of software I want, only to discover there is no binary for my chosen [operating system]. I don't hate it because I don't know how to compile it myself, but because I shouldn't have to.
I hate that I can only seem to get hardware drivers for [windows] because the vendor couldn't cater to everyone.
And I hate hearing about projects forking because two intelligent people can't come to a compromise.
Choice is good... but only when there is at least one option that meets the need. Too often there is so much competition that none of the products can really fulfill the needs they set out to fulfill because there are not enough developers to go around.
So......pursuing your argument a little further, should we all just use windows ????
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If you are looking for a one size fits all operating system, it'd be Linux, not windows.
Re:Frosty piss! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what the grand-parent was going at is that there is to much competition within linux, and that there needs to be some mergers. He isn't saying that ubuntu and suse should merge together, but maybe it would be beneficial for them to share a package management system, like how Ubuntu and Debian do (ok so they don't share perfectly, but its easy enough to move a
I believe the grand-parent is trying to say that if your a developer and you need features X, Y, And Z, then it might be ideal to add them to an already existing program rather than starting your own. Simply saying: linux is spreading its developers thin would be sufficient.
Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
You see it a lot in government and other large organisations, in the space programme for example. A single direction dictated from above which turns out to be completely inappropriate after billions or trillions have been spent. ESR called it the cathedral, it's just a form of totalitarianism and it's the antithesis of freedom.
It looks like a victory for compiz (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what happens? They come up with an agreement that destroys the Beryl brand and remerges essentially back into compiz? If they are in their right minds, they will at least insist on keeping the beryl name.
Not really.. (Score:2)
To say that moving all developers from one to the other would create an lossy overload (a.k.a. mythical man month) is nonsense. If developers lack the initiative to a
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Obviously the optimal solution is somewhere in between the extremes being argued. But it becomes rather tiring hearing how "Linux will be mainstream when everything merges." Gnome and KDE are both great because they have pushed each other (and copied each other) over the years. The same goes with Debian and RH.
Competition and Choice are good! (sometimes we h
Re:Mozilla and Opera? (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone with little or no understanding of open-source or free software that reads and posts on Slashdot. Quite possibly, someone from the Microsoft Astroturf Unit who gets paid to troll and spread disinformation (a.k.a. FUD).
It works better on Digg, where they can submit and put stories on the first page. It works somewhat less in Slashdot, because they won't be able to use the first page for their disinformation unless they reach editor status.
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To the user, they still have the choice, to the coder, they can merge many of the features of both and work on a common code foundation for both.
Essentially it would make most of the functionality optional, to be turned on or off at will... so you could have your Gnome, I could have my KDE, or we could both hav
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I assert that the average user of any OS doesn't care about developers' differences of opinion, they care that they can do what they wish to do with their system. You assert that developers don't care what their users' wishes are, they care about what they wish to do with their software. Until this can be remedied, Linux will never overtake the, arguably,