Ubuntu Technical Board votes on Compiz for Ubuntu 7.10 By
Ryan Paul | Published: September 12, 2007 - 11:00PM CT
The Ubuntu Technical Board voted yesterday to ship Ubuntu 7.10("Gutsy") with Compiz enabled by default. Although Compiz has beenfeatured in Ubuntu 7.10 Tribe prerelesases, the board has haddifficulty determining whether or not it is reliable and functionallycomplete enough to warrant inclusion in the final release.
Compiz is a compositing window manager that includes a number of
highly sophisticated visual effects like window shadows, transparency, and desktop zooming. In the Tribe prereleases, basic visual effects are
enabled by defaulton supported hardware, and more sophisticated visual effects—likewobbling windows—can be enabled with a configuration utility. Acompositing window manager was originally planned for inclusion inUbuntu 7.04, but it was
delayed because the software wasn't considered mature enough.
Unfortunately, there are still a number of technical issues thatdetract from the viability of Compiz as a default option. Thesetechnical issues and various human factors make inclusion of Compiz adifficult decision. During the
Ubuntu Technical Board meetingwhere the decision was made, the problem was concisely summarized byUbuntu development manager Scott James Remnant. "It strikes me thatwe're repeatedly in a rock-and-hard-place situation," said Remnant."
Drivers aren't good enough to support bling, [but] withoutrequirements of bling, there's no incentive to make the drivers goodenough." A similar concern was echoed by Travis Watkins later in thediscussion. "It still has some rough spots," said Watkins, "but if wedon't get it out there at some point it'll never get good enough."Technical board member Matthew Garrett disagreed. "Shipping compizwon't make those problems get fixed faster," Garrett argued.
