Apology from Compiz Dudes

[tox]

Hi,

Over the past few years, I have promised a new direction for the compiz project. I promised that with the new backing we’d see a revival in development, and increased stability.

I have failed.

I have failed the compiz community.

I have failed the Ubuntu community.

I have failed the previous maintainers.

Despite my best efforts, stability has gotten worse, and I feel as though I can’t even get the simplest things right for the project anymore.

Perhaps things will get better, perhaps things will get worse. I would only hope that the project can attract some of the people it needs in order to keep it alive as it once was, or can solidify on a new direction.

i agree with this comment

I haven’t been around much lately, but there are a few things I see as problems for the compiz project:
– Website is unmaintained
– Development seems scattered
– Information is hard to find
– No C++ based stable release

I understand that the ubuntu folks have you busy, but I think that these are real barriers for people to get involved. The website is too big, a window manager doesn’t need something of this size, especially when the community has shrunk so far. Perhaps a github-style wiki/website is all that’s really needed. Following from that, there are too many mailing lists for such a small project. Forums are probably not needed at this point, IRC and mailing lists should suffice considering the vast majority of newbies will be on the ubuntu forums and experienced users will know how to reach the development community. The last thing I think should be rushed out is a stable C++ release. Most people won’t install unstable software just to develop a plugin for it, so getting that out might attract attention.

To summarize: Simplify _everything_, scale down, don’t document each and every option of every plugin with screenshots, and get a stable release out.

I honestly feel like I am coming a bit harsh and unappreciative, I would love to start helping and might take a look at some of the stuff myself soon, but I feel that this is urgently needed.

http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/apology-2/ , dunno but i somewhat get the feeling maybe compiz is dying a slow death?

[leigh123linux]

I've had enough of their crappy releases, I am going to orphan all the compiz chain that I own/maintain for F17.

[Pitfall]

Since I have used GNU/Linux (since Ubuntu 9.10) I always disliked Compiz because it is unstable. It crashed every now and then and it is slow.

I agree with the second quote in detox's comment. Scale everything down. I prefer less fancy effects in favor of stability. Just cut down the bloat and focus on some effects and stability.
It might seem that Compiz is a huge fail, but in my opinion the opposite is true. Compiz attracts/attracted alot of new people in using GNU/Linux. All thanks to the effects like 'Desktop cube' and 'wobbly windows'. Someone said to me once that he rembered Ubuntu because of all the crazy effects it had.

[leigh123linux]

I have had enough of their crappy releases, I am going to orphan all the compiz chain that I own/maintain for F17.

Orphaning completed for F17

[tox]

does this mean Unity will Die along with compiz? i always thought Canonical took the wrong approach to using compiz for there Unity Plugin


will there be an official 0.9.6 release? my guess is no. i think the first comment i quoted abov in the 1st post is pretty clear. why they bothered with a forum is beyond me, why they have tyhat stupid twitter thing on the page idunno which fills up with spam anyway

[Dan]

This is kinda sad. I use Leigh's compiz-fusion packages in this F11 install exclusively. Haven't booted into straight Gnome on it in dang near a year. (Ever since I installed Compiz-fusion, really.) There's been no need to. It's rock solid and functions very well.

Just one more quality piece of good work sacrificed on the Gnome 3 alter, I guess. <....>

[Gareth Jones]

Just one more quality piece of good work sacrificed on the Gnome 3 alter, I guess. <....>

I think GNOME3 is certainly part of the story here. gnome-shell runs on Mutter, and Compiz isn't an option. Users who dislike GNOME3 are generally switching to desktops where Compiz has little foothold (although should be usable). MATE and GNOME3 in fall-back mode are the last desktops where Compiz is likely to be consciously installed, and they're not likely to see much future development.

On the other hand, Unity is built on Compiz and presumably still has a large user-share amongst all the KDE4 and GNOME3 splinters. So has Canonical still not learnt how to work with upstream FOSS projects that it doesn't own? Unless Canonical decide to give up on Unity or re-base it on Mutter or KWin, it looks like they may have to take over the bulk of Compiz development, but that bodes little better for people who want to use Compiz independently of Unity. This is a shame; although I'm quite happy with GNOME3 and Mutter, I do sometimes miss the desktop cube.

Gareth

[leigh123linux]

I got sick of crap like this

http://bugs.opencompositing.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1352

http://gitweb.compiz.org/?p=compiz/c...71f5aa33b2ac1f

[Gareth Jones]

They use CMake? Well that explains all.

Gareth

[Gareth Jones]

Well I don't normally post Phoronix links, but this seems relevant: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTA1MjI. I guess if anyone particularly wants to keep Compiz (or get Unity) on Fedora (the Unity effort is still bogged down in arguments as far as I can see), either adopt it, or heed Leigh's warnings and prepare to move on...

Gareth

[tox]

i think we all knew in some ways that compiz was Dead. there's an ongoing thread ovdr on the Ubuntu forum to Drop CCSM.


does HUD need compiz to work like unity depends on compiz?

i think eventually it will all be Wayland

---------- Post added at 09:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 AM ----------

compiz has also been dropped from Gentoo http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-de...6b24af6f54.xml

[David Batson]

Not having any problems here with Compiz on Arch Linux with XFCE...

Minor quirks on using Compiz with Mageia 1 KDE. Namely, I have to reset the number of desktops on log in.

Haven't tried Compiz in Fedora 16 Gnome. Used to use it in Fedora 15 though (fusion-icon didn't work, but otherwise Compiz did).

[Gareth Jones]

does HUD need compiz to work like unity depends on compiz?

As I understand it, the HUD is/will be a development of the unified top-menu system, part of Unity rather than a replacement, so I guess Compiz will still be needed.

i think eventually it will all be Wayland

I expect Wayland to replace X in a few years, at least for machine-local graphics, but there is still a need for Window decoration and management in Wayland. The reference Weston compositor seems to leave window decoration to clients, like MS Windows does. Meanwhile KWin and one or two other window managers are themselves being adapted into Wayland compositors (ultimately as an alternative to running them on top of X). Presumably Mutter will do likewise, and Compiz if it is to survive.

What all this means for Unity, I don't know.

Gareth

[bob]

Sheesh! Leigh made headlines: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTA1MjI

[Evil_Bert]

I'm using Compiz in SL6 and it's working well enough. But, yeah, there no longer seems to be a point to Compiz in Fedora.