[andy]

Canonical has today publicly confirmed that they are working on a new cross-platform displayer server for Ubuntu.
Called ***8216;Mir***8216;, the X Window Server replacement is tasked with ***8217;enabling development of the next generation Unity***8217;. Which, in yet another about-turn, is to be rebuilt in Qt/QML.
Why Mir?

When Mark Shuttleworth set out his grand goal of Ubuntu being ***8216;convergent***8217; - running across mobiles, tablets, desktops and TVs ***8211; he also threw down a series of technical hurdles that would first have to be overcome. One of the steppest to clear was always going to be the choice of display server ***8211; the the part of the system that draws the UI, and user interaction with it, on screen.
Currently Ubuntu uses X.
X is efficient at doing what it does but it has a problem: it is built upon code that***8217;s almost 30 years old. A mature code-base brings with it legacy support for features and functions that are no longer needed on modern desktops, much less phones and tablets.
Intending to address this is Wayland ***8211; a relatively new display protocol that integrates features (like compositing) directly into the display server rather than adding them on as an afterthought.
The choice facing Canonical was to adapt one of these existing display server technologies/protocols to work across form factors, but compromise on vision, or create their own one from scratch.
Canonical chose the latter. Mir has been built specifically to meet their own aims and goals

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/c...-wayland-not-x

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec#Efficiency