canonical/mir
Oct 2024 – Oct 2025
13 Months active
Languages Used
C++CMakeDebian packagingMarkdownCShellYAMLcmake
Technical Skills
Graphics RenderingSystem ProgrammingWayland ProtocolABI ManagementBuild SystemBuild Systems
Alan Griffiths
PROFILE
Alan Griffiths
Alan contributed to the canonical/mir repository by engineering core features and stability improvements for the Mir display server, focusing on runtime configurability, input handling, and platform compatibility. He modernized buffer and window management, refactored the rendering and decoration subsystems, and introduced locale-aware keyboard configuration using C++ and D-Bus integration. Alan enhanced accessibility, documentation, and build reliability, while maintaining ABI stability and streamlining packaging for cross-platform deployments. His work included modularizing configuration with IniFile parsing, improving test coverage, and cleaning up legacy APIs. These efforts resulted in a more maintainable, robust codebase that supports evolving requirements and downstream integration.
Overall Statistics
Feature vs Bugs
53%Features
Repository Contributions
231Total
Bugs
57
Commits
231
Features
65
Lines of code
17,340
Activity Months13
Work History
October 2025
4 Commits • 3 Features
Oct 1, 2025In October 2025, canonical/mir delivered targeted API stabilization, platform-facing documentation improvements, and build-system hygiene enhancements. The work focused on strengthening API clarity, reducing maintenance risk, and improving driver compatibility, while keeping dependencies lean and the build reproducible. The changes lay a solid foundation for future features and more reliable driver accommodations across Mir-based composites.
4 Commits • 3 Features
Oct 1, 2025In October 2025, canonical/mir delivered targeted API stabilization, platform-facing documentation improvements, and build-system hygiene enhancements. The work focused on strengthening API clarity, reducing maintenance risk, and improving driver compatibility, while keeping dependencies lean and the build reproducible. The changes lay a solid foundation for future features and more reliable driver accommodations across Mir-based composites.
October 2025
September 2025
6 Commits • 3 Features
Sep 1, 2025September 2025 monthly summary for canonical/mir. Focused on delivering packaging/build reliability, documentation clarity, and CI stabilization, with a clear path to smoother downstream integration. Highlights include: 1) Packaging and Build System Enhancements: fixed packaging reliability by correctly locating and linking libinput and libdisplay-info, and added xkbcommon to mircommon's pkgconfig dependencies to ensure builds across distributions. Commits: 8dd8620b6bfabd6b2c14e6008d7f51cbf13314a4; 128ca8d0e01b98ca5c8e43d04187641e42391b38. 2) Documentation Improvements: improved user-facing docs and inline comments for environment variable usage, Miral API wording, and input configuration. Commits: bc07bc242f69d4d2ced8070dd3fbad4e21421c87; 56e3290001a66b3efbb0884426825ff9f9ba32c4; 23cbf55de90d98d6c20c99c7579d08c15375dd8a. 3) CI/Test Configuration Improvements: stabilized CI/testing by disabling unreliable WLCS tests on riscv64 in Debian rules. Commit: af21605b1ba57574a7faacc35ee37f9a5776660f. 4) Major bugs fixed: packaging/build-related issues and header relocation problems, resolved packaging bugs reported in external packaging discussions (e.g., #miriway:matrix.org). 5) Technologies/skills demonstrated: pkg-config and dependency management, cross-distro packaging reliability, CI/test stabilization, documentation discipline.
September 2025
6 Commits • 3 Features
Sep 1, 2025September 2025 monthly summary for canonical/mir. Focused on delivering packaging/build reliability, documentation clarity, and CI stabilization, with a clear path to smoother downstream integration. Highlights include: 1) Packaging and Build System Enhancements: fixed packaging reliability by correctly locating and linking libinput and libdisplay-info, and added xkbcommon to mircommon's pkgconfig dependencies to ensure builds across distributions. Commits: 8dd8620b6bfabd6b2c14e6008d7f51cbf13314a4; 128ca8d0e01b98ca5c8e43d04187641e42391b38. 2) Documentation Improvements: improved user-facing docs and inline comments for environment variable usage, Miral API wording, and input configuration. Commits: bc07bc242f69d4d2ced8070dd3fbad4e21421c87; 56e3290001a66b3efbb0884426825ff9f9ba32c4; 23cbf55de90d98d6c20c99c7579d08c15375dd8a. 3) CI/Test Configuration Improvements: stabilized CI/testing by disabling unreliable WLCS tests on riscv64 in Debian rules. Commit: af21605b1ba57574a7faacc35ee37f9a5776660f. 4) Major bugs fixed: packaging/build-related issues and header relocation problems, resolved packaging bugs reported in external packaging discussions (e.g., #miriway:matrix.org). 5) Technologies/skills demonstrated: pkg-config and dependency management, cross-distro packaging reliability, CI/test stabilization, documentation discipline.
August 2025
19 Commits • 3 Features
Aug 1, 20252025-08 Monthly Summary for canonical/mir focused on delivering automatic locale-aware keyboard layout configuration, modernization of EDID handling, accessibility improvements, and robustness/packaging enhancements. The work improves internationalization UX, reliability, and maintainability while enabling smoother builds and faster iteration for Mir deployments.
19 Commits • 3 Features
Aug 1, 20252025-08 Monthly Summary for canonical/mir focused on delivering automatic locale-aware keyboard layout configuration, modernization of EDID handling, accessibility improvements, and robustness/packaging enhancements. The work improves internationalization UX, reliability, and maintainability while enabling smoother builds and faster iteration for Mir deployments.
August 2025
July 2025
34 Commits • 7 Features
Jul 1, 2025July 2025 monthly summary for canonical/mir. Focused on stabilizing the MIR platform, hardening build and CI, and modernizing the API surface. Delivered a unified MIR platform interface, ABI stabilization for MirAL, and a cleanup of deprecated APIs and legacy components, contributing to lower maintenance burden and safer release cycles. The changes enable faster feature delivery with clearer ownership and enhanced platform compatibility.
July 2025
34 Commits • 7 Features
Jul 1, 2025July 2025 monthly summary for canonical/mir. Focused on stabilizing the MIR platform, hardening build and CI, and modernizing the API surface. Delivered a unified MIR platform interface, ABI stabilization for MirAL, and a cleanup of deprecated APIs and legacy components, contributing to lower maintenance burden and safer release cycles. The changes enable faster feature delivery with clearer ownership and enhanced platform compatibility.
June 2025
52 Commits • 26 Features
Jun 1, 2025June 2025 performance summary for canonical/mir focusing on delivering features that improve runtime configurability, stability, and test coverage, while laying a scalable foundation for IniFile-based configuration and cross-platform packaging. Key initiatives included exposing the cursor renderable to the compositor for more accurate rendering and visibility control; initiating and modularizing live_config handling in miral with dedicated InputConfiguration, CursorScale, and OutputFilter components; and advancing IniFile core skeleton and parsing capabilities to support richer configuration data types and defaults.
52 Commits • 26 Features
Jun 1, 2025June 2025 performance summary for canonical/mir focusing on delivering features that improve runtime configurability, stability, and test coverage, while laying a scalable foundation for IniFile-based configuration and cross-platform packaging. Key initiatives included exposing the cursor renderable to the compositor for more accurate rendering and visibility control; initiating and modularizing live_config handling in miral with dedicated InputConfiguration, CursorScale, and OutputFilter components; and advancing IniFile core skeleton and parsing capabilities to support richer configuration data types and defaults.
June 2025
May 2025
13 Commits • 4 Features
May 1, 2025In May 2025, the canonical/mir project delivered stability and usability improvements across rendering, configuration, and testing infrastructure. The work strengthens client compatibility, reduces misconfiguration, and accelerates feedback through more reliable CI. Key outcomes include protocol upgrades, simplified server configuration, robust test practices, standardized demo configuration, and precise versioning hygiene.
May 2025
13 Commits • 4 Features
May 1, 2025In May 2025, the canonical/mir project delivered stability and usability improvements across rendering, configuration, and testing infrastructure. The work strengthens client compatibility, reduces misconfiguration, and accelerates feedback through more reliable CI. Key outcomes include protocol upgrades, simplified server configuration, robust test practices, standardized demo configuration, and precise versioning hygiene.
April 2025
11 Commits • 3 Features
Apr 1, 20252025-04 Monthly Work Summary for canonical/mir: Key features delivered include gesture termination improvements in miroil, accessibility and input handling enhancements via MouseKeyPointer, and comprehensive code maintenance and refactoring to improve build times and code clarity. Major bugs fixed include reducing input deadlocks by running mouse-keys logic in a spawned task on the main loop and addressing a race condition by avoiding updates to the composite event filter on the input thread. Overall impact: improved gesture reliability and accessibility, faster builds, and reduced concurrency risk. Technologies demonstrated: async/task execution patterns, server configuration integration, upstream changelog coordination, and code hygiene improvements for CI readiness.
11 Commits • 3 Features
Apr 1, 20252025-04 Monthly Work Summary for canonical/mir: Key features delivered include gesture termination improvements in miroil, accessibility and input handling enhancements via MouseKeyPointer, and comprehensive code maintenance and refactoring to improve build times and code clarity. Major bugs fixed include reducing input deadlocks by running mouse-keys logic in a spawned task on the main loop and addressing a race condition by avoiding updates to the composite event filter on the input thread. Overall impact: improved gesture reliability and accessibility, faster builds, and reduced concurrency risk. Technologies demonstrated: async/task execution patterns, server configuration integration, upstream changelog coordination, and code hygiene improvements for CI readiness.
April 2025
March 2025
23 Commits • 6 Features
Mar 1, 2025March 2025 performance summary for canonical/mir focused on stability, API hygiene, and cross-platform reliability, with targeted feature work and substantial bug fixes across the Mir server. The team delivered API cleanliness improvements, safer lifetime management, and improved shutdown behavior, resulting in lower risk during production teardown and easier contributor onboarding. The changes also enhance test fidelity for GL/WL components and pave the way for safer API evolution across platforms. Key outcomes include safer resource lifetimes, more predictable shutdown, improved cross-platform build stability, and clearer API ownership.
March 2025
23 Commits • 6 Features
Mar 1, 2025March 2025 performance summary for canonical/mir focused on stability, API hygiene, and cross-platform reliability, with targeted feature work and substantial bug fixes across the Mir server. The team delivered API cleanliness improvements, safer lifetime management, and improved shutdown behavior, resulting in lower risk during production teardown and easier contributor onboarding. The changes also enhance test fidelity for GL/WL components and pave the way for safer API evolution across platforms. Key outcomes include safer resource lifetimes, more predictable shutdown, improved cross-platform build stability, and clearer API ownership.
February 2025
20 Commits • 4 Features
Feb 1, 2025February 2025 (canonical/mir) delivered stability and UX improvements across input handling, rendering, and windowing, plus targeted platform updates and build cleanup. Key work included extracting InputConfigFile and expanding input event documentation and examples, with improved naming, deprecation notes, and relaxed checks that reduce ambiguity for developers and improve end-user behavior. Cursor and activation fixes standardized cursor naming, fixed activation token handling, deduplicated defaults, and added correct corner cursors to prevent misrendering. Windowing safety enhancements added pre-use buffer size checks and adjusted unmapped windows for SSDs, reducing edge-case crashes on constrained devices. Rendering updates broaden font coverage and placement options for decoration text, improving visual quality across configurations. Build system cleanup removed obsolete scripts while MirOIL updates for post-new Platform API QtMir and a platform ABI bump strengthen cross-version compatibility. These efforts reduce runtime crashes, improve consistency and maintainability, and deliver clearer platform support for multi-seat and high-DPI deployments.
20 Commits • 4 Features
Feb 1, 2025February 2025 (canonical/mir) delivered stability and UX improvements across input handling, rendering, and windowing, plus targeted platform updates and build cleanup. Key work included extracting InputConfigFile and expanding input event documentation and examples, with improved naming, deprecation notes, and relaxed checks that reduce ambiguity for developers and improve end-user behavior. Cursor and activation fixes standardized cursor naming, fixed activation token handling, deduplicated defaults, and added correct corner cursors to prevent misrendering. Windowing safety enhancements added pre-use buffer size checks and adjusted unmapped windows for SSDs, reducing edge-case crashes on constrained devices. Rendering updates broaden font coverage and placement options for decoration text, improving visual quality across configurations. Build system cleanup removed obsolete scripts while MirOIL updates for post-new Platform API QtMir and a platform ABI bump strengthen cross-version compatibility. These efforts reduce runtime crashes, improve consistency and maintainability, and deliver clearer platform support for multi-seat and high-DPI deployments.
February 2025
January 2025
19 Commits • 1 Features
Jan 1, 2025January 2025: major refactor and modernization of the decoration subsystem and rendering architecture. Centralized window size and decoration handling into the DecorationStrategy, introduced buffer formats, unified Button types, and encapsulated rendering/window state management. Delivered stability and resource management improvements, including fixing a VirtualInputDevice keyboard leak on TextInputV3 destruction and skipping problematic simple-framebuffer devices at startup. Corrected Debian packaging dependencies to ensure proper deployment. Overall: stronger UI reliability, improved rendering performance, and easier maintenance with cleaner interfaces and clearer responsibilities.
January 2025
19 Commits • 1 Features
Jan 1, 2025January 2025: major refactor and modernization of the decoration subsystem and rendering architecture. Centralized window size and decoration handling into the DecorationStrategy, introduced buffer formats, unified Button types, and encapsulated rendering/window state management. Delivered stability and resource management improvements, including fixing a VirtualInputDevice keyboard leak on TextInputV3 destruction and skipping problematic simple-framebuffer devices at startup. Corrected Debian packaging dependencies to ensure proper deployment. Overall: stronger UI reliability, improved rendering performance, and easier maintenance with cleaner interfaces and clearer responsibilities.
December 2024
16 Commits • 2 Features
Dec 1, 2024December 2024 — Mir project delivered critical release-readiness and a major rendering-system overhaul. Release management: updated MirServer ABI for the 2.18/2.19 release cycle (ABI bumps to 61 and 62) with corrected release notes and changelog entries to ensure packaging accuracy and downstream compatibility. Rendering and decoration overhaul: large-scale refactor introducing RendererImpl, RendererStrategy, ButtonPlacementStrategy, and DecorationStrategy; extracted RendererImpl into its own translation unit; enhanced type-safety, buffer validation, and modernized APIs to support future UI improvements. Minor maintenance included judicious use of std::filesystem and defensive coding. Impact: reduced release risk, improved maintainability, and laid the groundwork for faster, safer feature delivery in the UI.
16 Commits • 2 Features
Dec 1, 2024December 2024 — Mir project delivered critical release-readiness and a major rendering-system overhaul. Release management: updated MirServer ABI for the 2.18/2.19 release cycle (ABI bumps to 61 and 62) with corrected release notes and changelog entries to ensure packaging accuracy and downstream compatibility. Rendering and decoration overhaul: large-scale refactor introducing RendererImpl, RendererStrategy, ButtonPlacementStrategy, and DecorationStrategy; extracted RendererImpl into its own translation unit; enhanced type-safety, buffer validation, and modernized APIs to support future UI improvements. Minor maintenance included judicious use of std::filesystem and defensive coding. Impact: reduced release risk, improved maintainability, and laid the groundwork for faster, safer feature delivery in the UI.
December 2024
November 2024
13 Commits • 3 Features
Nov 1, 2024November 2024 (2024-11) focused on hardening the windowing stack across X11 and Wayland, improving user experience in kiosk scenarios, and completing release hygiene for 2.19.0. Key outcomes include robust aspect ratio handling, vmware-view compatibility fixes, safer configure/set_size handling in Wayland, a refactor of attached window placement for maintainability, and a formal ABI/version bump with symbol map refresh to support the upgrade.
November 2024
13 Commits • 3 Features
Nov 1, 2024November 2024 (2024-11) focused on hardening the windowing stack across X11 and Wayland, improving user experience in kiosk scenarios, and completing release hygiene for 2.19.0. Key outcomes include robust aspect ratio handling, vmware-view compatibility fixes, safer configure/set_size handling in Wayland, a refactor of attached window placement for maintainability, and a formal ABI/version bump with symbol map refresh to support the upgrade.
October 2024
1 Commits
Oct 1, 2024Month: 2024-10 — Canonical Mir: Primary focus on stabilizing window sizing handling by fixing a zero-dimension bug. The patch prevents update logic from assigning zero width or height to window specifications, addressing rendering/layout issues observed under Wayland. Impact includes improved rendering stability and fewer visual glitches for clients, with safer, more robust window geometry handling.
1 Commits
Oct 1, 2024Month: 2024-10 — Canonical Mir: Primary focus on stabilizing window sizing handling by fixing a zero-dimension bug. The patch prevents update logic from assigning zero width or height to window specifications, addressing rendering/layout issues observed under Wayland. Impact includes improved rendering stability and fewer visual glitches for clients, with safer, more robust window geometry handling.
October 2024
Activity
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Quality Metrics
Correctness92.4%
Maintainability93.2%
Architecture90.6%
Performance87.8%
AI Usage20.2%
Skills & Technologies
Programming Languages
CC++CMakeDebianDebian packagingDebian packaging formatGLSLMarkdownPythonShell
Technical Skills
ABI ManagementABI VersioningAPI DesignAPI DevelopmentAPI IntegrationAccessibilityBug FixBug FixingBuild SystemBuild System (CMake)Build System ConfigurationBuild System ManagementBuild System OptimizationBuild SystemsBuild Systems (CMake)
Repositories Contributed To
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