As if moving away from the GNOME Shell wasn’t enough, Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth has now announced that Ubuntu is moving away from X too.
Yes — X, the primary X Window tech that has powered all *nix graphics since the beginning.
Instead, Shuttleworth wants to move to the Wayland system — which in my mind is an interesting move. Wayland is new (not a bad thing) and lacks the stability and maturity of X. That said it also lacks the decades-old baggage that comes with X.
“We’re confident we’ll be able to retain the ability to run X
applications in a compatibility mode, so this is not a transition that
needs to reset the world of desktop free software,” Shuttleworth blogged.
With the move to Wayland, I personally believe that Ubuntu will face new challenges in trying to get enterprise software certifications. It’s just, yet-another innovative (but not battle-hardened) technology that will make conservative types very nervous.