Compiz Comes Together

February 5th, 2009 by Justin Ryan

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (5 votes)

Compiz — the compositing window manager responsible for more than a few dropped-jaws — has a long history of ins and outs, not the least of which includes more forks than at a garden club lunch. It seems, however, that things always come back together, and such was the case on Tuesday, as the Compiz community announced the imminent re-merger of several well known forks.

According to the newly-minted Compiz Council, the future of Compiz is in mergers and acquisitions: Mergers with its forks, and acquisition of their code. The first to be announced involves the C++-based Compiz++ and the remote-desktop-oriented Nomad branch, which the project plans to merge in by early Fall 2009. Compiz++ is planned to merge first as Compiz 0.9.0, with a 0.9.2 release to follow shortly thereafter as a "cleanup" measure. Following Compiz 0.9.2, the project will then review the Nomad code: if it is considered ready to merge, it will merge into Compiz 0.9.4, with its own 0.9.6 cleanup release. If it is found to not be ready, the project will focus on option handling for Compiz 0.9.4, with the Nomad merger remaining on hold as long as necessary.

As though the merger of two forks back into the mothercode wasn't achievement enough, the project will also be merging in Compiz Fusion, the configuration and plugin system formed in early 2007 by the merger of Beryl — an earlier Compiz fork — back into the main Compiz community. The news came after the Compiz Council, composed of five longstanding Compiz community members, issued an official statement announcing its formation and setting out a roadmap for future development — with the code described as "expected to be quite volatile."

The council also announced that the project would be parting ways with freedesktop.org, an interoperability-focused organization which provides hosting for a number of similar projects, including the X.Org Server, GStreamer multimedia framework, and the GTK-Qt engine. Details of the move, and of the Compiz-Fusion merger, are said to be still under development, and should be forthcoming in the near future.
__________________________
Justin Ryan is the News Editor for Linux Journal.
Look for him in the #linuxjournal IRC channel.


Special Magazine Offer -- Free Gift with Subscription
Receive a free digital copy of Linux Journal's System Administration Special Edition as well as instant online access to current and past issues. CLICK HERE for offer

Linux Journal: delivering readers the advice and inspiration they need to get the most out of their Linux systems since 1994.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
El Perro Loco's picture

Documentation

On February 12th, 2009 El Perro Loco (not verified) says:

A lot of good things can come from the "reunited" Compiz. I certainly hope one of those things is better documentation - for the techie, the power user and the newbie alike. I would like to have everything spelled out - including the dependencies and, if everything else fails, cake-recipe-style instructions to completely *remove* Compiz-whatever from my installation!

If somebody out there has already seen such documentation, please post the address. So far, my googlings (!) have not been fruitful.

Post new comment

Please note that comments may not appear immediately, so there is no need to repost your comment.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <pre> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <i> <b>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

Newsletter

Each week Linux Journal editors will tell you what's hot in the world of Linux. You will receive late breaking news, technical tips and tricks, and links to in-depth stories featured on www.linuxjournal.com.
Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Tech Tip Videos

From the Magazine

December 2009, #188

If last month's Infrastrucuture issue was too "big" for you then try on this month's Embedded issue. Find out how to use Player for programming mobile robots, build a humidity controller for your root cellar, find out how to reduce the boot time of your embedded system, and if you're new to embedded systems find out the basics that go into one. You can also read about the Beagle Board, the Mesh Potato and a spate of other interestingly named items. And along with our regular columns don't miss our new monthly column: Economy Size Geek.







Read this issue