Opinion: Canonical's Mir Moment of Madness

With time to let the dust settle and reflect on the bust-up between Canonical and some parts of the Ubuntu community, what can we really say about the state of relations between the sponsor and its contributors? Last month Canonical caused some upset by unveiling its' Project X, the new compositing and rendering engine, Mir, turning away from Wayland, which Mark Shuttleworth had been supporting for the best part of two years. Mir will be a substantial technical prop for Ubuntu across devices and platforms, as Canonical seeks commonality of code and toolkits for development. However, not only is Mir looking somewhat proprietary, but the nature of the announcement and the revelation that Mir was developed secretly under wraps for nine months has caused some friction within the community, to say the least.