MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste

anybody with some knowledge about the internals of the copy/paste system ?

I believe the reporter has just discovered how X's clipboard mechanism works;
there is no persistent store. When you click 'copy', the source window simply
announces that it is claiming the CLIPBOARD selection (others to claim include
PRIMARY and SECONDARY). When you click 'paste', that window is queried for the
contents of the selection. If the window[0] does not exist, it cannot be
queried, and thus you cannot paste.

[0]: Not window as such, but connection to the X server. As soon as that
instance has no connection, it's out.

I confirm this general issue

I confirm this issue as well.

From Daniel Stone answer I understand that this is no bug but the common behaviour of the X clipboard?

Still I (perhaps not only me as I see that this "bug" is reported more than once (see #36165) ) find this behaviour quite strange.

Perhaps I will get used to it but does anybody know if there is a workaround for this issue?

Thanks in advance...

Ubuntu QA guy Simon Law puts it like this:

"Thank you for your report.

This behaviour has always been the case and is a design feature of X11.

You are describing SELECTION and PRIMARY buffers. They were separate and have semantics that are both supported by major X applications. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future, even though more and more applications prefer exposing the PRIMARY buffer in their menu systems."

glipper is a good solution/work around:
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/Glipper

Thanks Marcel :-)

I'll try

FWIW, even windows works this way (as in, once the source window is closed, the data is lost).

Having glipper as a dep would solve this though.

Why should it work this way? Ok, it saves memory, but out of 1GB or so, a few bytes of text isn't going to do much. I think this bug should be confirmed and marked as wishlist

No, windows does not work this way - I just tested it.

Well in the grand scheme of things, how windows works is pretty irrelevant. This is ubuntu, which should work in the way that works best, not just the same way as windows.

I agree on that and I've never said it should work this way just because Windows does.
I was just replying to Sarah Hobbs' comment.

i also have this problem (Bug #11334)

is it possible to solve this problem on Ubuntu 8.04 ?

This would have to be my number 1 "bug" in Ubuntu, I run into it several times a day and is at the top of my wishlist to Santa. I understand it's not bug, it's in fact working perfectly, it's just restrictive and a little frustrating.

This bug definitely is valid, and confirmed by several people. It should probably be wishlist rather than medium though.

I have this bug too!

1960 called and want their copy&paste system back.

Windows 3.11 could do this 15+ years ago.

This bug pisses me off! Fix it!

This is an important bug, and its been 3-4 years since its been reported, and you still haven't fixed it.
Other operating systems have had the functionality for like 20 years.

Really? 3-4 years? Why has it not been fixed after so long a time?

Because probably nobody has the knowledge, time or is not interested to work on it? Comments like you're posting recently doesn't help at all, if you want to help to get this fixed you can work on a patch and submit it to the report, but please stop commenting with no useful information. thanks in advance.

I think there are case where it is very important to retain copy buffer : Have you ever tried to create a filter with a header in evolution ?
A natural way would be :
- Show source message
- Select and copy desired header
- Close window
- Go to Edit > Filters > New >
- Paste
Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because of what has been said above... I have to keep the window open, and once filter is created, go back to find it in order to close it...

But I thought selection buffer (X-managed) was different from copy-paste (WM managed)... but even CTRL-C doesn't retain clipboard...

It is my #1 wishlist/bugfix as I run into it very often... Worst, it seems to me that even if selection buffer worked that way, copy-paste used to behave as expected... maybe in my days of using windowmaker ?

Thanks for working so hard for us !

Found this from : http://www.vergenet.net/~conrad/software/xsel/
cut --
Make the selection contents persist in memory

Normally the X selection only exists as long as the program it was selected in is running. Further, some buggy applications tend to forget their selection text after a little while. If you run:

xsel --keep

after selecting some important text, xsel will copy the text into its own memory so you can paste it elsewhere even if the original program exits or crashes.
-- cut
If a simple/old program can do this, couldn't this be integrated in gnome window manager ??

Thanks

I also noticed that. And my god how it is annoying.

I can fix it if I use Glipper or Klipper (preferred) on KDE. Installing one of these makes everything better.

Hi this bug kills me especially when i copy things from firefox, especially when i want to copy a link fro mfirefox and close it to re-open it (because of flash bugs).

Please this is not a wishlist bug, this seems moderate, i cant believe this bug was reported two years ago and it still isnt fixed...

Sorry i just re-read and noticed its not an actual bug and why its a wishlist. This is a BIG wishlist, it gets quite annoying.. I understand how linux is meant to work, but when you work in an OS thats aiming to be a real alternative to MS and OSX, it would really help to get copy and paste to work even better! :)

I disagree that this bug should be rated as a WISHLIST bug. My opinion is that it should be rated as a CRITICAL bug.

This is a design bug!

It is darn hard to recommend this os when there are silly bugs such as this listed as features?!?

I also lost some data after hard work because of this bug. Beginners and advanced uses assume on a very basic functional level that this bug is not there. Hence the data loss risk while working is too high.

Please increase the importance and release a fix soon..

i'd like to have this thing addressed, too. this "bug" can be very frustrating for users switching from windows and it's by far more convenient for beginner/intermediate/power-users to have this functionality, too. i can think of no use case where the current behavior brings an advantage.
i see that X is not something very dynamic and the X clipboard will probably not be changed soon. but (as suggested) glipper provides the needed functionality (and a whole lot more). i'd suggest to get glipper maintained, included in main and shipped installed with the default setup.

Just because X has behaved this way forever doesn't make this user friendly behaviour.

Besides - it doesn't require new code - just include glipper by default and add it to the panel.

I've been using Linux for a while and it's still annoying when clipboard data is lost... I added glipper but it's buried in synaptic and then you have to add it to the panel (not even in add/remove... not that any user would know to look there)

nota bene: parcellite should be preferred over glipper (unmaintained) right now.

Can this please be fixed?

On Tue, 2008-12-30 at 12:38 +0000, Patrick Roberts wrote:
> Can this please be fixed?
>

Comments like that don't help in any way to speed up the bug fixing
process.

See my comment here for a much longer comment:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/21202/comments/37

Sorry for kicking this thread with that previous comment, but in my opinion it's ridiculous there's still no working copy/paste function in Linux, after all those years. In my opinion it's way more important to have a working copy/paste function, instead of (for instance) some new way to notificate users. The current notifications already work, copy/paste doesn't work like it has to work. Let's first fix all of those bugs, instead of adding new features and improving thing that already work without problems.

YAC - Yet Another Confirmation

... and yes, this bug is rather annoying one.

I think the problem is that the copy "buffer" if you want to call it like that is saved somewhere in the current program memory. When the program is closed the "buffer" is erased so there is no source to copy it from.

A possible fix would be allocating some memory for copy. But than again this might prove to be a really bad security flaw.

Please correct me if I am wrong. I just THINK this is how it works.

Yesterday my father wanted to log on to a website. He didn't know the password anymore, so he looked up this password in Evolution, copied the password, closed Evolution and tried to paste the password in Firefox. The paste function was greyed out and my father thought he had clicked on the wrong button, instead of the copy button. He opened Evolution again, copied the password from the e-mail, closed Evolution and tried to paste the password in Firefox. Again he was unable to paste the password and he really had no clue what was going on.

As I said before a working copy and paste function is one of the basic features of an operating system. This is something that has to work... always. A lot of people have lost already lost their work, because this basic function of an operating system still doesn't work. There are a lot of stories of people who type a long reply in an text editor and after more than one hour of work copy this reply, close the editor and try to paste it in Firefox to reply on a forum. All of the work is gone and there's no way to get it back. More than one hour of work is gone.

People don't want to loose hours of work, only because a basic feature of an operating system doesn't work. This is one of the reasons people go back to Windows or buy a Mac. On these operating systems copy / paste works the way it should work and they won't loose their work, because they closed the source.

If you want to be taken seriously, than implement a copy / paste function that works the way it should work. Otherwise people will always look at Ubuntu as an half-baked, amaturistic operating system.

It can't be that hard to implement, because Desktop Data Manager already makes it work the way it should. Take the source code of this application, take out all unneeded featues (screenshot utility and download manager) and implement it in Ubuntu. Problem solved.

@comment 6:
in true unix history of having one tool to do one thing right i do not necessarily think it is a workaround to have a program dedicated to managing the clipboard.

however i think solid copy&paste is a feature everyone can expect to work out of the box. and because i think it is highly unlikely to get this supported in X directly anytime soon i think the right thing to do is to include a clipboard manager (be it glipper or parcellite) in the default distribution. maybe in a modified version to show no task list icon (and thus only exposing the basic "copy and paste just works"-behavior but not the advanced history&co options).

somewhere i read a complain against clipboard manager where it blocks a feature in gimp that responds differently to paste-requests from different applications (thus exporting all pixel data when pasting to a third party application and doing some internal speed-optimized pointer logic when simply pasting to a different layer within gimp). this is a valid point but it nowhere justifies to ship such a broken copy&paste for most use cases. and if this behavior is so critical gimp may just provide two copy-methods one for the data and one for the pointer -- and export the more sane one to the ctrl-c shortcut.

--> we should really try to get a clipboard manager in the default distribution for karmic. the importance of this bug should be raised to... at least something above "normal" imho.

@Michael Nagel:
I've tried Glipper, Parcellite and Desktop Data Manager. In my opinion Glipper and Percellite just don't work. Both of them only support text, I've had problems with these applications not starting when booting the system, after installing these applications the copy / paste function of OpenOffice.org stopped working properly.

I'm using Desktop Data Manager for months now and I haven't had any problems. It not only supports text, but also images. I haven't had any problems with this application. It always starts and copy / paste just works, always.

"maybe in a modified version to show no task list icon (and thus only exposing the basic "copy and paste just works"-behavior but not the advanced history&co options)."

I'd really like to see a stripped down version of Desktop Data Manager to be included in the default distribution.

"--> we should really try to get a clipboard manager in the default distribution for karmic. the importance of this bug should be raised to... at least something above "normal" imho."

I completely agree.

I agree. but this is more of a workaround. the copy paste thing should just
work! maybe include it in the next dist. karmic may be promising :P

I had a conversation with Philipp Kern recently and he basically shares our opinion. To get it in the default release we should:

- collect all known/possible regressions (like c&p of binary data, some magic gimp seems to do, ...)
- find someone from the official canonical team to support this

probably a blueprint summing up the reason why this change is needed together with these two points is the way to go.

"This bug is an Epic Fail, because it's 2009 and still we do not *fully* support trivial things like copy/paste."

I couldn't agree more. I always say: "How can we ever solve bug number one if Ubuntu (or more general "Linux") can't even remember an image I placed on the clipboard two seconds ago?"

"Fortunately this works well in KDE."

Is this true? I know KDE includes Klipper (KDE-version of Glipper) by default. Glipper only supports text. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume KDE's copy and paste function also supports text only. So, if you're running Firefox and you copy a picture (for instance the launchpad logo on the top of this page), you close Firefox, start The GIMP and try to paste the logo from the clipboard the clipboard is empty.

I don't use KDE, so I don't know how it works exactly. I only know Klipper is included by default and I assume in KDE you're left with the same functionality as when running GNOME with Glipper installed. This still isn't a WORKING copy and paste function, but it's a HALF WORKING workaround.

I cannot reproduce this bug in 9.04. Can someone else reproduce that in Jaunty, and if so, what are the steps?

I'm not going to explain how to reproduce this bug again. I've done this before for about 452 times. How many times do I have to explain how to reproduce this bug? I can't imagine people keep on asking how to reproduce this bug. Are people really that dumb? This bug is the easiest bug ever to reproduce.

For one of the explanations I wrote see:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/21202/comments/37

By the way: Why was LimCores tag deleted? He was completely right. I have to agree with him. Still having such broken copy and paste functionality after all those years while thousands of people keep on losing data IS an epic fail. This bugs importance has to be raised to the highest possible setting. Having an working copy and paste functionality is one the base components of an operating system.

No, Glipper is NOT a solution as it's full of bugs and only supports text.

Actually I think Patrick is completely right. This is an Epic fail. I'm now used to it (nearly 20 years of X practising), but newcomers will laugh and flee!

But IMHO I think the issue is with the way X selection works. Either gnome / put_your_wm_here drops Xsel and uses its own, dropping copy/paste support for any non-compliant application (not even imaginable I think), or Xorg developpers fix this and find a way to store the content (not only the source) on disk/ram as soon as Xselection is filled (both primary and secondary selection, please).

"Fix it in X, it gets fixed for everybody" (and drop glipper !)

PS : Not only you loose your Xsel when you close the program, but also when it hangs or freezes (which happens a lot with gnome apps! no flame here ;)

Not really a papercut in my opinion, that's a design issue and not something that will be tweaking in a day

As a workaround, http://parcellite.sourceforge.net/ seems to be solving this just fine somehow, while even giving the expanded functionality of being able to go in history of clipboard (so you can ctrl+c, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, ctrl+v) while being very lightweight (4.7mb for me atm with indicator-applet 6.1 with 1 app connected to it).

^ pardon the bad sentence there.

Parcellite doesn't support images, sounds, some scene copied from a videofile, et cetera. It only supports text. Last time I tried Parcellite it was very unstable. We don't need half baked workarounds. We don't want to install an application for every desktop environment (Glipper or Parcellite for GNOME, Klipper for KDE).

Like Guilhem says:
"Fix it in X, it gets fixed for everybody" (and drop glipper !)

There shouldn't be workarounds for every single desktop environment out there. It needs to be fixed at the core.

The amount of discussion and divergent opinions expressed on this bug help show that this bug is well beyond the complexity of a paper cut.

Could anyone explain me something : X does not remember the content of the selection, only the source. But why can't command line software like xsel or xclip output the content of the CLIPBOARD selection if it is binary ? see this :
a) select some text ("clipboard" for example), then CTRL-C :
xsel : clipboard
xsel -b : clipboard
b) right-click on an image in firefox for example the launchpad logo at the top of this page and CTRL-C :
xsel : [nothing]
xsel -b : [nothing]

what the heck ? what is xsel for if it only handles text? From the Lenny package description : "XSel is a command-line program for getting and setting the contents of the X selection.". It does not specify "text only".

Do firefox and gimp and openoffice and opera and [put your software here] use Xselection when copy/pasting images (or binary data) ?

1. Ubuntu: Open Firefox. Copy the URL. Close Firefox. Open OOWriter : Can't paste url
   Windows : Open Firefox. Copy the URL. Close Firefox. Open OOWriter : Url pasted !

2. Open Firefox under Windows. Copy the URL. Close Firefox. Open OOWriter in a virtual machine(Sun Virtual Box) (UBUNTU9.4)
    One can paste the URL ! :-)

This not only happens to me with the text (now i use parcellite). It even happens by copying files between nautilus tabs!

@David Siegel, I don't think that the amount of discussion should be a factor on whether this is a papercut or not, nor do I believe that there are "divergent opinions" on this bug - everyone is pretty much saying the same thing - copy/paste in linux is laughably broken and has been for many years. The only divergence of opinion I'm seeing on this bug discussion is whether glipper/parcelite/etc are suitable workarounds. The common message seems to be that they are not, so this is still a papercut for nearly every user of linux, let alone Ubuntu.

Sure, perhaps this entails too much work for a papercut, but your stated reasons for changing its status are (I think) invalid.

I once read an article, "why not to use klipper", I was using it. Now I just got used to not close the program. What about: http://svenfoo.geekheim.de/2005/06/18/why-klipper-is-bad/

i felt we had established that "just do not close the program" is not an acceptable solution!

gimp enthusiasts hate klipper because it leeches everything it can get. if they were for a pragmatic solution they would not offer that much date but just an internal pointer. or klipper simply special-cases this scenario and everything would just work.

condemning klipper because there seems to be the golden bullet solution of integrating something into x does not take us anywhere.

one should elaborate a plan of how to get the x-solution because it is the right thing! but it will take its time to specify, implement and distribute. for the transition time we should use a program like klipper because there are just a few showstoppers to fix until it can be used as a decent quality workaround.

so i definitely suggest the following two-step approach:
1. use klipper to get things working in near future. pragmatically fix showstoppers as with gimp and problems with binary data. this could be done within weeks.
2. enhance the x server to make things "just work". this will take months to plan and coordinate and with implementation and release this could be more than a year. so an transitional solution as proposed in step 1 makes sense.

I'm glad I'm not the only this has effected. Why is this taking so long to fix? Could it be because traditional linux users don't want to lose the clipboard integration that they put into the terminal emulator? I'd bet so. This is unacceptable. Here's a write up of a frustrated linux user who tried to use the clipboard in linux from http://elliotth.blogspot.com/2008/08/desktop-linux-suckage-clipboard.html.

Desktop Linux suckage: the clipboard

X11's equivalent of the clipboard has been broken since I first used X11, back in 1993. 15 years later, things are still as bad as ever they were.

They say hard cases make bad law, and terminal emulators make very hard UI cases. Unfortunately, nerds being nerds, a terminal emulator tends to be the first application written for any Unix GUI. There are two main problems caused by starting with the terminal emulator and generalizing to the other 99% of applications. The more fundamental problem is that terminal emulators expect that most keystrokes can be passed through to the pseudo terminal, including the keystrokes that every other application on your system uses as keyboard equivalents for menu actions.

The X11-specific problem is that XTerm conditioned many long-term Unix users to use the selection instead of the clipboard. (If you're not an X11 user, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about here. Don't worry; we'll get to it.)

The big problem with the X11 clipboard is actually nothing to do with terminal emulators, except in so far as if they'd actually written some real apps instead of guessing what they might be and how they might behave, they probably wouldn't have crippled the clipboard in the way they did.

The easy one first, though. Mac OS uses a modifier key for menu actions (the "command" key) that didn't exist on traditional terminals, cleverly side-stepping the problem. PuTTY on Windows basically does without; a not unreasonable solution. GNOME Terminal uses control and shift (instead of just the "control" key). Terminator uses alt, which used to be popular on Unix, but fell out of favor in Linux times, thanks (I've always assumed) to the influx of Windows users.

As for the second problem, you may or may not know that Mac OS actually has multiple "pasteboards" (as usual, even their terminology is different). Mac OS hides them well enough that real people neither know nor care. Real people using Linux, even if they only use Firefox, get screwed by the old "selection" versus "clipboard" nonsense. Basically, in addition to the usual clipboard with its explicit "copy" and "paste" actions, there's a "selection". To set it you just select some text. To paste it, you press the middle button. (These days, the scroll wheel.) To paste it over existing text (such as in your web browser's location bar)... well, you can't do that. It's roughly that mistake that screws people over.

I see this catch people out at least once a week, and that's amongst X11 users savvy enough to simply shrug, mutter something along the lines of "bloody clipboard", and try again more carefully. As long Linux has no Steve Jobs to stand up and say "this is hurting us, so out it goes", I don't see this gettin...

I already read it a few months ago, but it's a great article. That guy knows what he's talking about and I couldn't agree more.

I know, this sucks. Normally on Windows platform source could be copied every though it's already closed. So when I'm on Linux, I have to be extra aware and extra careful by leaving the window of the copied source opened before pasting.

Remember "The clipboard contains a huge object, do you want to leave it?" message box when MS Office is closed?
Why not to do the same?!
If clipping text is not that big, then copy to "system buffer" w/o confirmation. If it's quite big (10/100/1000 Mb) - then ask.

The other workaround is to insert a special program (glipper or anything else) into a basic distribution.

This issue really affects me too, and I bump in it not only when source window is closed, but also when it's suspended (by "kill -SIGSTOP" or "Ctrl-Z")

Actually the way windows and OS X does it is if its text, its copied to the clipboard. If it's something larger like part of a graphic like photoshop does, they monitor the source. If the source is closed, that question pops up asking if the user wants to keep it in the clipboard. If they click yes, then it gets copied to the clipboard. If they click no, it simply is closed without anything further. If it's a file, its location is remembered only in the clipboard and that it is to be copied or cut no matter if the source window is open or not.

But fixing it in glipper is NOT the answer. That is a bandaid solution. It needs to be fixed in the Xorg layer where it is implemented in the first place, so that it is fixed for all DE's like gnome and kde.

I've merged some other bugs about the same problem into this one as duplicates, but I'm worried about it not copying the packages that are affected or upstream bugs. Do I need to manually move all those things to this bug, too?

This is something that needs to be implemented in each individual program, not system-wide?

Firefox : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311340
Thunderbird : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=221183
Sunbird : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=412782
OpenOffice : http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=63092
Evolution : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=258374
GIMP | GTK+ : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510230
Gnucash : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510205

Previous discussions:

http://elliotth.blogspot.com/2008/08/desktop-linux-suckage-clipboard.html
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-hate-copy-and-paste.html
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3118/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/16966/

After I reported a copy and paste related bug [Bug 417758] i was notified
that it was a duplicate of Bug 11334.

I read the report and thread for Bug 11334 and notified the person who
contacted me that my problem was NOT the same as one reported in 11334.

to reiterate and clarify:

Either:

 Bug 417758 is NOT a duplicate of Bug 11334.

Or:

 Bug 11334 does not describe the full scope of the problem.

Explanation:

The problem described in Bug 11334 is that if the user selects and copies
in one window, closes the source window, and the tries to paste into
another window the paste will fail.

The problem I reported in Bug 417758 is that if the user selects and copies
in one window and tries to paste into another window the paste fails even
if the source window remains open and the selection is intact. While the
problem is frequent it is also intermittent and reproducing it is a hit or
miss affair.

Please note that the thread for Bug 11334 attributes the problem to native
X-Window behavior, which could explain the problem described in 11334 but
DOES NOT EXPLAIN the problem described in Bug 417758.

These may be two different problems or Bug 11334 may be more extensive than
previously realized.

Please also note that I spent several frustrating hours last weekend on
correspondence regarding Ubuntu bugs including this issue and this will be
my last communication on the matter. I have found the correspondence i
received dismissive, condescending, and indicative of poor practice. (That
is, you are not reading the bug reports thoroughly.) I refuse to put any
more time into this.

IMHO the way this bug has been treated illustrates some of reasons Ubuntu
continues to have significant usability issues.

============
Eric Fluger

On Sat, 29 Aug 2009, Endolith wrote:

> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:27:57 -0000
> From: Endolith <email address hidden>
> Reply-To: Bug 11334 <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 11334] Re: Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed
> before the paste
>
> Previous discussions:
>
> http://elliotth.blogspot.com/2008/08/desktop-linux-suckage-clipboard.html
> http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-hate-copy-and-paste.html
> http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3118/
> http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/16966/
>
> --
> Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts: Invalid
> Status in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
>
> This bug is an Epic Fail, because it's 2009 and still we do not *fully* support trivial things like copy/paste.
>
> Fortunately this works well in KDE.
>
>
> This -could- be the underlying cause of bug #7986.
> This is a general issue that seems to be independant of any individual program.
> Pick any text field that supports copying, copy some text. Paste into any other
> text field. It works. Close the source window or program. Paste now does
> nothing. The example I just verified this with is gedit to gedit. Also occurs
> with openoffice to gedit.
>
> In some cases, like OpenOffice and ...

The design of the clipboard isn't rocket science here. Implement it according to the way Windows does it. If an application wants to use the selection method of copy and pasting, then it takes over the ctrl+c ctrl+x ctrl+v shortcuts since it's most likely a terminal application. But most other applications are not and the selection method should therefore be disabled in the main clipboard implementation.

You may think you save time using the selection method, but it is NOT intuitive. And we wonder why at the beginning of every year someone announces that this year will be the year of the linux desktop and yet it fails to come true. This is why. Users expect stuff to be working properly and this is an example of something not working properly and the developers not caring enough because it works the way they want it to work and that's what matters to them. It doesn't matter to them that to most end users, it is broken and not working.

ericf: if you do not close the source of the of the copy before pasting -- and nevertheless experience problems -- your problem is different from the bug discussed here and should be processed separately.
i mark it as no longer being a duplicate of this bug.

@pyrates
If it isn't rocket science for you, why don't you write a patch to fix it?
Most Ubuntu developers aren't paid for their work, they do it voluntarily.
And the number of Ubuntu devs isn't infinite.
Comments such as yours won't help fixing this bug.

Here's a workaround for firefox:

sudo apt-get install xclip

Edit /usr/lib/firefox-3.5.2/firefox.sh (or equivalent)
Put this line after #!/bin/sh :

python /home/$USER/clipwrap.py &

# Save this (for example) to /home/$USER/clipwrap.py

#Copy from the clipboard:
import os
import time
s = ''

while True:
    curs = os.popen('xclip -selection c -o').read()
    if len(curs)>0:
        s=curs
    else:
        wcl = os.popen('ps ax|grep firefox|grep -v grep|wc -l').read()
        if wcl[0]=='0':
            break
    time.sleep(.15)

os.popen('echo \"%s\" | xclip -selection c' % s)
#EOF

#Limitations are that it only works with firefox, and if anything else in ps ax matches firefox, it won't detect when firefox ends. Yeah, this could be better, but it's a proof of concept right now. This wrapper also only starts if something is on the clipboard to begin with. And you can adjust the sleep. Right now it wakes up every 150ms. That's bad for laptops or low-power machines. This needs to be fixed higher up on the "source chain". I'll try to make a better workaround too.

Oh umm another limitation is that it will only copy text, not html metadata in the clipboard. Same as ClipMan I think.

People on xdg mailing list were discussing about this back in '03. the thread is rather long... I always said it was a misconception in Xwin...

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2003-August/000607.html

thank you for reclassifying bug # 417758.

IMHO it should not have taken hours of correspondence culminating in a
tantrum to get the matter attended to, but is appreciated none the less.

also IMHO...

a distribution targeting ordinary users would benefit from a consistent
stream of feedback from such users.

the current structure and atmosphere of the bug reporting system(s) are not
very inviting to ordinary users. this may be necessary as bugs reports
must be vetted and classified before bugs can be fixed.

if the experience of filing bug reports cannot be improved, perhaps it's
time to create a problem reporting system for ordinary, non-technical users
that is friendlier and less rigorous.

BTW:

if i have thoughts on the future of the clip board where would i send them
or post them?

============
Eric Fluger

On Sat, 29 Aug 2009, Michael Nagel wrote:

> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:01:20 -0000
> From: Michael Nagel <email address hidden>
> Reply-To: Bug 11334 <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 11334] Re: Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed
> before the paste
>
> ericf: if you do not close the source of the of the copy before pasting
> -- and nevertheless experience problems -- your problem is different from
> the bug discussed here and should be processed separately. i mark it as
> no longer being a duplicate of this bug.
>
> --
> Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts: Invalid
> Status in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> This bug is an Epic Fail, because it's 2009 and still we do not *fully* support trivial things like copy/paste.
>
> Fortunately this works well in KDE.
>
> This -could- be the underlying cause of bug #7986.
> This is a general issue that seems to be independant of any individual program.
> Pick any text field that supports copying, copy some text. Paste into any other
> text field. It works. Close the source window or program. Paste now does
> nothing. The example I just verified this with is gedit to gedit. Also occurs
> with openoffice to gedit.
>
> In some cases, like OpenOffice and Firefox, simply closing the source window
> won't cause the problem. It only happens if the entire program is closed down.
>
> When I copy (Ctrl + C, or right click and "Copy") text from somewhere and after that close the program where it is, the clipboard gets empty.
>
> This bug will happen in any application that doesn't comply with the clipboard specification from FreeDesktop.
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/ClipboardManager
>
> Actual Status :
>
> Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird (Xulrunner) : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311340
> OpenOffice : http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=63092
> Evolution : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=258374
> GIMP | GTK+ : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510230
> Gnucash : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510205
>
> Pidgin : Fixed
> Inkscape : Fixed
> Gedit : Fixed
> Most Gnome apps, Fixed
>
>

ericf : Bug reports are used to fix bugs, therefore ordinary users can only help by providing informations to developers so they can fix these bugs. Discussions on bug reports make things more difficult for developers as it makes important informations hard to find. For that reason, launchpad should never be used to discuss in order to keep it doing a good work. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ has been created to get user feedback. Thanks for your comprehension.

pyrates wrote on 2009-08-29:
"The design of the clipboard isn't...

...it is broken and not working."

I couldn't agree more!

Przemysław Kulczycki wrote on 2009-08-29:
"@pyrates
If it isn't rocket science for you, why don't you write a patch to fix it?"

Could people please STOP posting such comments? You people talk like everyone in the world knows how to program.

I also understand exactly how copy/paste works nowadays, how it should work and where it needs to be fixed. For me it also isn't rocket science. Does this mean I'm able to fix this problem? No, because I don't know how to program. Sure, I can do "Hello world" and some simple calculations, but that's all. When seeing the source code of other programs I don't understand anything. When do people start to realize not everyone knows how to program and how to fix bugs?

Przemysław Kulczycki wrote on 2009-08-29:
"Most Ubuntu developers aren't paid for their work, they do it voluntarily.
And the number of Ubuntu devs isn't infinite."

And that's the main problem of open source. Someone has an idea, starts to write some code and releases a bèta version. A lot doesn't work as it should work, but instead of first fixing those bugs, the developer starts integrating some new features. He has some cool ideas and he wants to implement them. True, what's more fun: fixing bug or adding cool new features? So the developer keeps on adding new features, but after years of development those bugs from the first build aren't even fixed.

Then the original developer doesn't want to go on developing his software, so he just stops. Some othet people pick up the code and start adding their cool new features, which also have some bugs. Those bugs also need to be fixed, but adding new features is more fun, so new features are added. It doesn't matter if people are complaining about those bugs, because the developers aren't paid, so they can do what they want: adding new features.

Ubuntu (actually Linux in general) has so many bugs that aren't fixed after all those years. No way you should see such thing in a commercial product like Windows or Mac OS, but in a free operating system like Ubuntu (Linux in general) this is possible. It's possible to not fix those bugs, even if they exist for more than ten years. What Ubuntu (or Linux in general) really needs are more paid developers, a bunch of paid professionals. Only then will there be "a year of the Linux desktop".

Przemysław Kulczycki wrote on 2009-08-29:
"Comments such as yours won't help fixing this bug."

The developers don't want to fix this bug, so it doesn't matter which comments are posted. All of them don't help fixing this bug. The only way to help fix this bug, is giving a professional programmer a whole lot of money if he fixes this bug.

P.S. After all those years this bug is still on the wishlist. Ridiculous! This isn't a wishlist, this is a bug of the highest priority as people are frustrated, because they constantly loose their work. Why do you think the market share of Linux grows so slowly? They try it, loose their work, because of this ridiculous 1980's-style copy/paste method and go back to Windows or buy a Mac.

This is a bug of th...

Patrick,

while I also would like to see this big fixed I have to point out that your
rant is wrong on all counts.

Software in general has bugs that sometimes goes back years without getting
fixed. Proprietary software has the very same problem. To sell updates it
needs new features. So updates get rushed out with old bugs and plenty new
features. If you look around you'll easily find many examples of this.

Many open source programmers *are* paid - by IBM, Novell, Red Hat,
Canonical, Intel and many other corporations with an interest in Linux.

I also find this bug annoying - but it is not of the "highest priority" IMHO
- especially as a workaround has been available for years: glipper/klipper.

And lastly I can't agree that this is the reason why not more people use
desktop Linux. The primary reasons are that people can't pick a game in a
shop and be reasonably certain that their shiny new shrink wrap game works
right away. Similar for legacy apps in corporations. And most people still
don't even know that it exists. I put Ubuntu UNR on my sisters Netbook. Just
yesterrday a neighbour of hers easily browsed around on it with Firefox (by
now everybody knows Firefox :-) ). He later asked me if that was Vista
because he never saw this version of windows before. I told him it's Ubuntu
Linux - he said he never heard of it. And that's what most people (outside
of our geek circles) would say. There's no big TV ad campaigns for Linux -
nor is it prominently displayed in shops with retailers pushing it. And
regular folks out there don't read computer magazines, Wired or slashdot.
Linux grows slowly because it's expanding through a) geeks installing it on
their families/friends computers after those were overrun by windows malware
and a Mac was too expensive or b) by goverrnments trying to get more safety,
less costs or often just avoiding closed software from big american
copmanies they don't trust.

I would very much like to see this bug fixed, but installing k/glipper or
keeping the source app open while you copy/paste is not terribly difficult.
Some day a GSoC project or somebody from IBM/et al will fix it.

Some day its gonna be fixed? It's been 16 years. I can tell you what prevents me from using Linux is bugs exactly like this where the developer thinks its fine but 99% of users do not think it's fine. it's a bug. Fix it already. I don't care if its gonna take a lot of work, I'd like it fixed. Making excuses doesn't make up for the fact it's a bug, and a major one at that due to a design decision made in 1993.

I can tell you I won't be using linux until the developers behind it start taking it seriously by fixing major design problems just like this. Audio and video is another one and just being able to install a driver/module in linux is another one. What good is open source software if it doesn't work correctly?

The discussions on this bug report are becoming irrevelant and turning into personal attacks.
This bug report has the relevant information, just needs some attention from developers . There is no need to add a comment here which does not provide *useful* information to fix this bug.

To maintain a respectful atmosphere, please follow the code of conduct - http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct/ . Bug reports are handled by humans, the majority of whom are volunteers, so please bear this in mind.
Thanks!

Added as MASTER bug for easy tracking. This bug should be against clipboard as i recall.

On 08/31/2009 04:56 AM, pyrates wrote:
> Some day its gonna be fixed? It's been 16 years. I can tell you what
> prevents me from using Linux is bugs exactly like this where the
> developer thinks its fine but 99% of users do not think it's fine. it's
> a bug. Fix it already. I don't care if its gonna take a lot of work,
> I'd like it fixed. Making excuses doesn't make up for the fact it's a
> bug, and a major one at that due to a design decision made in 1993.
>
> I can tell you I won't be using linux until the developers behind it
> start taking it seriously by fixing major design problems just like
> this. Audio and video is another one and just being able to install a
> driver/module in linux is another one. What good is open source
> software if it doesn't work correctly?
>
as said by someone above if you cant wait or you want it fixed
right away please provide a patch to fix it. If you can not
fix it yourself or choose not to than it has to wait for
someone to patch it.
You do know Ubuntu hasn't been around since 1993.
Since you saw this on other versions of Linux most likely is
due to upstream, please ask them to fix it if you can not

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from Unforgiven III

Olaf wrote 6 hours ago:
"I also find this bug annoying - but it is not of the "highest priority" IMHO - especially as a workaround has been available for years: glipper/klipper."

I've said this many times: Glipper is not a solution and not even a good workaround. Glipper is unstable, 1 in 10 times when starting the system, Glipper doesn't start and Glipper only supports text. Copy an in image in Firefox (for example the Launchpad logo), close Firefox, start The GIMP, try to paste the image... impossible, even when using Glipper.

Olaf wrote 6 hours ago:
"I would very much like to see this bug fixed, but installing k/glipper or keeping the source app open while you copy/paste is not terribly difficult. Some day a GSoC project or somebody from IBM/et al will fix it."

As I said, Glipper isn't a solution nor a good workaround. True, keeping the source opened is the best workaround and I do this, but everytime I have to remember to not close the source before pasting. This is just so 1980's. It's completely ridiculous we have to keep the source opened in the year 2009!!! You can't expect new users to know they've to keep the source open to be able to paste. New users will everytime loose their work, because they don't understand what's going on under the hood. Ubuntu never says: "You've copied something, so you've got the keep the source open to be able to paste it somewhere else. Closing this window will loose the contents of the clipboard." How does a new user know he has to keep the source open. He always closed the source and then pasted the contents of the clipboard somewhere else when he was using Windows. This is the way a clipboard should work! Keeping the source open is completely ridiculous! We're living in the year 2009, not in the 1980's.

People are used to the way copy/paste works on Windows (which is the only good way to implement copy/paste) and when using Linux they have no clue what's going on. They keep on loosing their work and they haven't got a single clue they have to keep the source open. When I started using Linux, I've lost my work so many times and people are still losing their work, every day. Therfore this bug has to be marked as a bug of the HIGHEST PRIORITY, not as wishlist. Please, someone, change this to HIGHEST PRIORITY!

Everyone seems to say that osx behaves "correctly", but osx uses Xorg right ? Look at this page [http://www.x.org/wiki/XDarwin_Clipboard]
Couldn't it be an solution over there ?

Let me explain my idea of how it could work :
a) 100K web page (with images) gets copied in firefox
b) the clipboard acquires right away all the TARGETs the source (firefox) supports (text/plain, text/html, image/jpg, ...)
c) the clipboard copies everything on ram or on disk
d) you can quit the source, everything is in the clipboard, with exactly the same TARGETs...

Is this feasible ??

OK if it is a large page/image, ask the user before mmap'ing 1Gb to ram but for nowadays what does it cost to keep 100K of html, the same content but for text, and another tabular data version for spreadsheet etc.

Howdy,

"I also find this bug annoying - but it is not of the "highest priority"
> IMHO - especially as a workaround has been available for years:
> glipper/klipper."
>
> I've said this many times: Glipper is not a solution and not even a good
> workaround. Glipper is unstable, 1 in 10 times when starting the system,
> Glipper doesn't start and Glipper only supports text. Copy an in image
> in Firefox (for example the Launchpad logo), close Firefox, start The
> GIMP, try to paste the image... impossible, even when using Glipper.
>

We're in total agreement about the solution and that glipper is not it. The
solution - of course - is to integrate proper clipboard management into the
DEs (Gnome, KDE, etc...).

I never had that instability though - glipper starts fine here - never
noticed that it didn't.

I admit that graphics are a problem. I rarely copy graphics that way (and if
>I do the source app stays opern for other reasons anyway) - so I didn't
suffer from that. But I get that it sucks if you do that a lot.

>
> Olaf wrote 6 hours ago:
> "I would very much like to see this bug fixed, but installing k/glipper or
> keeping the source app open while you copy/paste is not terribly difficult.
> Some day a GSoC project or somebody from IBM/et al will fix it."
>
> As I said, Glipper isn't a solution nor a good workaround. True, keeping
> the source opened is the best workaround and I do this, but everytime I
> have to remember to not close the source before pasting. This is just so
> 1980's. It's completely ridiculous we have to keep the source opened in
>

Again - we're not in disagreement about the goal. Only a very few very crazy
people would argue otherwise.
Yes - it would be way better if the clipboard would work as you and I and
practically everybody else and his sisters grandpa expects it to.

> the year 2009!!! You can't expect new users to know they've to keep the
> source open to be able to paste. New users will everytime loose their
> work, because they don't understand what's going on under the hood
>

Most users hardly ever use the clipboard that way. Heck - many users hardly
know how to use the clipboard.
It's already a challenge to train people not to use spaces as layout in word
processing apps.

> Ubuntu never says: "You've copied something, so you've got the keep the
> source open to be able to paste it somewhere else. Closing this window
> will loose the contents of the clipboard." How does a new user know he
> has to keep the source open. He always closed the source and then pasted
>

I agree that he doesn't. But there's a high chance s/he didn't close the
first app anyway.

> the contents of the clipboard somewhere else when he was using Windows.
> This is the way a clipboard should work! Keeping the source open is
> completely ridiculous! We're living in the year 2009, not in the 1980's.
>

You don't have to convince me - I'm pre-convinced. ;-)
We're in total 100% agreement about the solution.

>
> People are used to the way copy/paste works on Windows (which is the
> only good way to implement copy/paste) and when using Linux they have no
> clue what's going on. They keep on loosing their work and they haven't
> got...

Apologies. The message above was not meant to go to the bug.

I say it should be fixed in the X.org layer. Otherwise you have DE's reinventing the wheel here when they shouldn't have to. Here is how it should be working:

1. Copy or cut something into the clipboard.
2. It copies directly into ram without needing the original app open after it's done.
3. If it is too large, put a message that it is unable to copy that large amount. It can test this by estimating how much memory it is going to take up.
4. When you close that app it stays there.
5. An app can set a flag that checks if its still in memory when exiting, then upon closing the app, the Xorg layer of the clipboard will warn the user that the app is leaving this in memory and asks the user if they want to clear it upon exiting the app. It can pause the exiting of the app to do this. This way we don't have to have a hard coded value. It is up to the app to correctly set this flag such as audio/video/image editing apps.
6. When the user has made up their mind of what they want to do, then the app finishes exiting.

The API needs the following features:

1. Estimation of how large the object is going to be in memory so that it doesn't take up all the users memory. A good percentage I think is 90% here.
2. A flag that is set that when the app has exited, X.org is to ask the user if they want to keep the clipboard contents in memory or delete them. When the user has answered this, then the app in question is allowed to continue exiting.
3. Confirmation that the object has been copied into the clipboard or if it hasn't, the reason why which goes to point 1.
4. When you cut an object, only delete the original if you paste the new object.
5. Object type that is copied into the clipboard. This is so that we can identify the object that is in clipboard and possibly identify which app would be appropriate to be able to use it in.

To expand on this object type, we can have 5 basic types:

1. Text
2. Raw Audio
3. Raw Video
4. Raw Images
5. A file

Just an idea here, what do the rest of you think?

Oh yeah and I almost forgot, remove the selection copy method. If an individual app wants to do it fine, but don't make it system wide by default. This way those who use terminal apps who want selection can still keep it. Then it doesn't interfere with any other app.

Putty on windows works this way, so it can be done.

pyrates : This is a bug report, ideas are counterproductive here. It is more appropriate to brainstorm on http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com which was created for that purpose. As repeated before, there is already a specification for clipboard which is good for old and new clipboard methods, the bug is simply that most software does not implement it correctly so re-inventing another specification is probably not likely to bring a solution to the problem.

Olaf wrote 21 hours ago:
"Though - come on - it shouldn't take too many losses to remember this behaviour."

How does a normal user know why the contents of his clipboard are lost? How does this user know he has to keep the source open? We know why this happens, but people on Launchpad aren't the average user.

My dad had forgotten his password for some website, so he clicked the "I forgot my password" link retrieve a new password. He opened Evolution, copied the password, closed Evolution and tried to paste his password in Firefox. Ofcourse this didn't work, so he though he didn't click on "Copy". He opened Evoltion for a second time, made sure he copied the new password and closed Evolution to paste the password in Firefox. After several tries he gave up. He really didn't know what was going on and he was almost going nuts.

He's an average user. How will he ever know he has to keep the source open? I use Google to get to know what's going on, but the average user doesn't do this. The average user just gives up and takes the telephone to call the person who installed Ubuntu and tells him he want Windows back, because Ubuntu doesn't work.

My dad doesn't search on Google. What should he enter in Googles search bar? He doesn't know what a clipboard is, he only knows: Right click and select "Copy" to copy and select "Paste" to paste. If this doesn't work, then he gives up. He doesn't know which words to enter to find a website which explains how copy/paste works in Linux and if he does find this website, he doesn't understand it, because he doesn't know English.

Olaf wrote 21 hours ago:
"I'm not saying it's good the way it is - but it's not the worst problem ever. And there's plenty of things with higher prority. On my personal list - remembering size and position of closed apps - so they open in the same position with the same size next time I open them - instead of "smart" placement that gnome devs prefered - would be a way higher priority in my book."

I don't know a single bug that should have a higher priority. The bug you're speaking of is, in my opinion, absolutely not a bug of high priority. The copy/paste bug causes many users to loose their work, every day. The size/position bug doesn't cause people to loose their work. Everything just works: The windows just open. The only thing you have to do, is drag and drop the window to the location to want it to be and make the window bigger or smaller. That only takes a second or maybe a few seconds, but that's all. In my opinion a low priority. The copy/paste bug causes people to loose their work. Every day people loose work, only because of this bug. A bug which causes so many people to loose their work just has to be a bug of the highest priority.

Olaf wrote 21 hours ago:
"Google is collecting ideas every year for GSoC projects. Write a proposal and submit it. Fair chance a student will be paid by google fixing this."

Ok, were can I do this? I can't find a page to submit ideas.

pyrates wrote 16 hours ago:
"Just an idea here, what do the rest of you think?"

Perfect.

pyrates wrote 16 hours ago:
"Oh yeah and I almost forgot, remove the selection copy method."

True, copy/paste with...

Well said Patrick. So now it comes down to this:

Fix it. We as end users expect this to be working the way windows and OS X have implemented it. If it's not gonna be fixed to that specification, then I won't even think of using it. There's a reason why software companies can sell software and have the public buy it. Because if it is not usable to the end user, the end user isn't gonna use it. And that company will then go out of business. What incentive here does linux have?

As for just explaining it to the end user such as me why it doesn't work isn't a fix. If you have to explain how to do something, it's not designed correctly. If you wonder why OS X is the way it is, it is because they look at how you do something in it and they question it, how can we make this easier? This is the way Linux should be headed. Knowing there is a work around is not fixing it, it is avoiding it.

@pyrates :
For goodness sake! This is a bug report! Kindly do not spam this bug report with your rants !

Simply constantly stating "If it's not gonna be fixed to that specification, then I won't even think of using it."
Is not scarring anyone and i really dont understand why you think that statements is going to force a change!

As already stated several times , If you have such a huge passion for this and are capable of fixing it ,
- fix it or
- wait patiently for a volunteer to fix it or
- else *Pls do not use linux* .

There are several members subscribed to this report to know about the progress of the bug and not your empty threats or rants.
Thanks!

@mac_v
To maintain a respectful atmosphere, please follow the code of conduct - http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct/ . Bug reporters and commenters are also humans, so please bear this in mind. :)

I haven't read all the comments here, but if this were my bug, I would "solve" it by just shipping a clipboard manager with the default install (Fedora does this I imagine and I know the KDE install comes with klipper by default). The behavior as-is is NOTABUG (using bugzilla notation here, not yelling) since this is how X works. If this is to be fixed for everywhere, it should go to X developers.

Just my two cents.

I'm a very technical guy, but I have work to do and not much time to do it in.
I don't want to lose time googling on how to get the copy-paste working.
Most users don't even start googling.
If you need to google to get it working, it doesn't work!

Please fix this. And I mean: I install Ubuntu and copy-paste works as expected. I don't care how.

As a sidenote, my mood currently agrees with everyone posting stuff like this:
... I cannot for one moment understand that something as primary as this didn't get fixed in the 5 year (five!! years!!!) this issue has been alive. It really causes me to slap somebody and resort to the "Linux is for techies out of touch with reality" tirade...
I really can't even begin to grasp why this isn't on top of the priority list. This makes me think very bad things about the decision makers at Canonical... Seriously frustrated...

This has been reported to Mozilla a while ago but i do not have bug handy, When i get to my mozilla bug email folder i will see if it is there, but you can find it by searching Mozilla bugzilla. I will try to find it but may have better luck if someone else did as well since i can not be here a lot at this time

DieterVDW : While I understand your frustration (that we all share, I think), your comment here isn't helping much as bug reports should be used to work on technical aspects of bugs, not to discuss. Upstream bugs are listed in the bug description (including the mozilla/xulrunner one which currently have a very promising patch for review). I can't say if Canonical can or can't fix this problem, but apparently that this problem is out of reach for Canonical as it depends on all upstream projects that use clipboard so I doubt that this has anything to do with Canonical, but I might be wrong. Nevertheless, we should only comment here to provide relevant informations about the bug and/or potential fixes.

The bug numbers for upstream are listed in the description of this bug. Not sure why there aren't bug tasks, but maybe it was so people aren't flooded for the stuff they don't want to follow. You can see the status of the upstream bugs on the right side of the bug in the section Remote Bug Watches.

Two weeks ago a friend of mine was using the GIMP to choose a nice color. When he found a color he liked, he copied the hexcode of the color, closed the GIMP and wanted to paste the color in KompoZer. As you can guess this was impossible. It happened a few times to him and he really didn't know what was going on.

A few days ago my father wanted to logon to a website, but he forgot his password. He clicked on the link called "Send me my password", he opened Evolution, copied the password, closed Evolution and wanted to paste the password in Firefox. You all know this is impossible. A few months ago I already told my dad this was impossible, but he forgot, so this time he again tried to use the copy/paste function the Windows way. Again he was confused and didn't know what was happening.

mac_v wrote on 2009-09-02:
"As already stated several times , If you have such a huge passion for this and are capable of fixing it ,
- fix it or
- wait patiently for a volunteer to fix it or
- else *Pls do not use linux* ."

Is it strange we have such a huge passion for this? The Linux way of using copy/paste just is a big, epic fail.
- Not everyone is a programmer;
- We've waiting for a fix since the first release of a graphical interface for Linux, but the progress is still ZERO!!! In all of those years there has been absolutely NO PROGRESS AT ALL and I doubt it ever be fixed.
- True, that's the best solution and that's why I'm going to sell all of my PC's and my laptop. I'm going to buy a few iMacs and MacBooks, because Linux just doesn't work. The market share of Linux is still an epic fail and do you know why? Because of these kind of stupid bugs which keep on bothering people, while there's absolutely no progress in fixing these bugs. The market share of Linux is incredebly low and that's exactly as it needs to be. An operating system which has such bugs since it's first release doesn't even deserve a good market share. Good to see your advice to not use Linux. I've already stopped to advice people to use Linux months ago. I give the advice to use Mac OS, as this works as expected.

DieterVDW wrote on 2009-11-13:
"I really can't even begin to grasp why this isn't on top of the priority list. This makes me think very bad things about the decision makers at Canonical... Seriously frustrated..."

Absolutely true.

The hyperbole this issue creates is fascinating.

First, I agree that the clipboard being so forgetful after an app closes is
an issue.
But some people here make it sound like it's comparable to critical security
issues, or major features missing.

It's not of the highest priority because there really are much higher
priorities. I really believe most people prefer speed and hardware support
and reducing reggressions as high priority issues.

And anybody switching to Mac or back to Windows and expecting 0 issues is up
for a rude awakening. All platforms have their silly issues. I get annoyed
every time my mousescroll doesn't scroll an underlying control - which
happens a lot on Windows - and never on Gnome, where the window doesn't even
have to have focus for the scroll to work.
And I recently did some tech support for a Mac user where not only where
some speed and file sharing issues - but it was easy - googling - to find
many other Mac users having the same problem. And don't get me started on
Apple clinging to the fantasy that 1 mouse button is enough.

But if having to paste first and close the first app later is too much
effort and this really is a fatal issue in anybodies opinion - then - yes -
pick a platform where the issues are a better fit for your preferences. None
of them is perfect. Pick whatever hurts you least.

Is there some good reason why Parcellite (or some other tool) isn't just included by default to work around this?

Well, it looks like some nice developer has volunteered his time to the Mozilla suite to fix this bug (iirc), and progress is being made to fix this for Firefox.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311340

Also, please, less whining, and more contributing.

I wish this would get fixed in the Xorg layer instead. Fixing it on a per application basis takes more time then it should need to. And fixing it at the DE layer is a mere bandaid solution, meaning when it finally is fixed in the Xorg layer, the fix in the DE layer won't matter.

Olaf wrote 49 minutes ago:
"I really believe most people prefer speed and hardware support
and reducing reggressions as high priority issues."

The most important is to have an operating system you can trust, an operating system which is reliable, an operating system that doesn't forget something you told him only one second ago.

Olaf wrote 49 minutes ago:
"But if having to paste first and close the first app later is too much
effort and this really is a fatal issue in anybodies opinion - then - yes -
pick a platform where the issues are a better fit for your preferences."

It's not that keeping the application open is much effort, but you have to remember to keep an application open everytime you want to perfom a copy/paste. If you forget to keep the application open ALL WORK IS LOST. Besides that, how do people know they have to keep the source open? It isn't mentioned anywhere. According to http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8 92.52% is running Windows and 5.27% is running Mac OS. That's 97.79% of all desktops in the world on which you don't have to remember to keep the source open. Because of this no one expects everything is lost after closing the source. How do you expect those switching from Windows or Mac OS to know they have to keep the source open? Almost everyone in the world will just close the source before pasting, because they expect it to work and they really have no clue what's going on if the option to paste is greyed out. They absolutely have no idea what's going on. How do you expect those people to know they have to keep the source open?

Keeping the source open is a strange way to copy/paste anyway. Just make it work as everyone expects it to work, The way it works on Windows and Mac OS is the abvious way for copy/paste to work.

Jackflap wrote 36 minutes ago:
"Well, it looks like some nice developer has volunteered his time to the Mozilla suite to fix this bug (iirc), and progress is being made to fix this for Firefox.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311340"

That's useless. It needs to be fixed in X, so it will work in every application and in every desktop environment. Now it'll be fixed in Firefox, but what happens when using the GIMP? Yes, copy/paste doesn't work. There are thousands of applications that can be installed, so it needs to be fixed in all of those applications. Do you think the developers of all of those applications will implement the clipboard specification from FreeDesktop? It's taking ages for a big application like Firefox to implement this copy/paste function, so how long do you think it will take for every application to implement this? Answer: it will never happen. There are too many applications and new applications keep on coming and almost none of these applications uses the clipboard specification from FreeDesktop.

Besides that, it will only work in Gnome. How about the other desktop environments and how about running KDE-applications in Gnome? As I said for about 30 times before: This is the wrong way to fix this bug. It needs to be fixed in X. After fixing X copy/paste will work in every applications in every desktop environment.

Olaf wrote 2 hours ago:
"It's not of the highest priority because there really are much higher priorities."

This problem have been reported more than 5 years ago. I think that this improvement should have been priorised over many other new features that are less important.

Yes it's not a major security problem, but it's so old that it start to cause frustration.

Endolith wrote 2 hours ago:
"Is there some good reason why Parcellite (or some other tool) isn't just included by default to work around this?"

It has been asked in the previous --and old-- comments. It seem to be cause that there software are not as versatile ( can't copy/paste some type of content )

Olaf wrote 2 hours ago:
"It's not of the highest priority because there really are much higher
priorities."

That's the point of discussion.
You think some new weird feature is a high prio.
I think (as most of distributors do) usability is the highest prio ever.

2009/11/20, FMaz <email address hidden>:
> Olaf wrote 2 hours ago:
> "It's not of the highest priority because there really are much higher
> priorities."
>
>
> This problem have been reported more than 5 years ago. I think that this
> improvement should have been priorised over many other new features that are
> less important.
>
> Yes it's not a major security problem, but it's so old that it start to
> cause frustration.
>
>
> Endolith wrote 2 hours ago:
> "Is there some good reason why Parcellite (or some other tool) isn't just
> included by default to work around this?"
>
> It has been asked in the previous --and old-- comments. It seem to be
> cause that there software are not as versatile ( can't copy/paste some
> type of content )
>
> --
> MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Serge Vinogradov
<email address hidden>
<email address hidden>
ICQ: 269813255

Patrick Roberts wrote:
> That's useless. It needs to be fixed in X, so it will
> work in every application and in every desktop
> environment.

Question: Is there a bug registered on the X bug tracker? If so, could we add it as an upstream bug report?

I dont think so. So I submitted a bug report:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25220

Anyone want to add to it, feel free.

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. However, a paper cut should be a small usability issue that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. So this bug can't be addressed as part of this project.

For further information about papercuts criteria, please read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut.

Don't worry though, this bug has been marked as "Invalid" only in the papercuts project.

It can easily be fixed by installing a clipboard manager by default

@Endolith:
Adding a new package to the default install is not a papercut task.
Kindly bring up the discussion for adding the package by default , in the desktop mailing list.

Good news guys!

This guy from Red Hat, called Martin Stránský, just fixed this bug in upstream Firefox! The mozilla devs merged the patch into the "mozilla1.9.3" branch (current hg master) which means that it will probably go out in Firefox 3.7

Firefox 3.7 won't be ready in time for Lucid though (see schedule here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Roadmap ) but there is always the possibility that someone (you?) will work with Alexander Sack and the rest of the Mozilla Ubuntu team to get this backported to the Firefox version in Lucid.

If someone is interested, the specific patch that fixed this bug looked like this:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/270a70535807

We still need a more generic fix that handles all X.org apps of course.

Tracking Upstream xorg request

I'm not a programmer, so how was this fixed in firefox? What clipboard manager was it integrated with? Does that limit it to a certain DE then since this wasn't fixed in Xorg? Did they remove anything like the selection clipboard that uses the middle mouse button?

pyrates : Xulrunner (Firefox) only fixed their clipboard code to comply with the specification, which is mentionned in the bug description. That only means that Firefox and other applications that rely on xulrunner (thunderbird, sunbird) will have clipboard working correctly, while other applications that still don't implement the specification correctly will continue to have problems. Primary clipboard (middle mouse button) won't stop to work in xulrunner.

Sadly chromium/Google chrome also appear to have this bug...

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=32291

This is crazy, this bug has 45 people that take time to go to LP and click affects-me-too,
it has a dozen of duplicates,
it is one of most reported bug I seen, and yet it is just Wishlist priority?!

Ubuntu fails to provide most basic functionality expected from a desktop since windows 3.11...

For 5 years now! Wow.

That's so true...

I think a bug should be raised of priority when it start to flood the bug
tracker database with tons of duplicates & complains.

Actually, my nightmare are about me, learning C+ at a suffisent level to
submit a patch. IMO, that should also be considered as a good reason to
increase the bug priority.

2010/2/9 LimCore <email address hidden>

> This is crazy, this bug has 45 people that take time to go to LP and click
> affects-me-too,
> it has a dozen of duplicates,
> it is one of most reported bug I seen, and yet it is just Wishlist
> priority?!
>
> Ubuntu fails to provide most basic functionality expected from a desktop
> since windows 3.11...
>
> For 5 years now! Wow.
>
> --
> MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

WISHLIST - it turns out this is not a problem, even a bug marked just "Wishlist" will be worked on in case as this one (lots of duplicates and reporters etc).

According to guys at IRC ##ubuntu-bugs @ irc.freenet.org

Btw, and despite "epic fail" being removed from description, ubuntu devels also say that
"no one is disagreeing with you that it sucks" ;)

Imho this should be as one of "one hundred paper cuts".
If not, then please comment why not, thanks

The addition or removal of a package is not a paper cut. "Replace F-Spot with Solang" is not a paper cut, neither is "Install simple-ccsm by default."
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut ; Sorry my bad

I'm not sure why this doesn't count as a papercut.

"trivially fixable usability bug that the average user would encounter in default installation of Ubuntu or Kubuntu Desktop Edition"

Isn't it trivially fixable by installing one of the workarounds by default?

On 09.02.2010 22:41, Endolith wrote:
> I'm not sure why this doesn't count as a papercut.
>
> "trivially fixable usability bug that the average user would encounter
> in default installation of Ubuntu or Kubuntu Desktop Edition"
>
> Isn't it trivially fixable by installing one of the workarounds by
> default?
>
A workaround is not a fix ;)
And to fix all the Applications, that do not handle the clipboard the
way the specification from FreeDesktop proposes, seems not to be trivial.

Maybe we need another project like "The Great Clipboard Fixing Galore
Project"..

Could someone explain why this isn't one of the first bugs to fix in hundred paper cuts where perfectly fits?
Could someone tell us when this bug will be fixed?

Many thanks

Installing glipper or parcellite by default is not a fix, if we did that, then we wouldn't have solved the problem that the specification itself was designed to solve.

And the real reason this bug is not a papercut because it is not trivial. If it was trivial then someone would have fixed it already.

Every bug comes down to a cost-benefit balance. If the cost of fixing it is more than just living with it for every person, IT DOESN'T GET DONE.

A lot of you are asking stupid questions.. "why isnt it fixed, blah blah blah, whine whine". Well it's simple, in the same way that the cost of you learning how to program, studying the spec and implementing a fix isn't worth your time (or money), then for exactly the same reason no other dev has done it either.

Until someone has the necessary experience, time, or motivation to fix this, it will just sit waiting. The occasional reminder on the bug report is fine, but please, the best thing you can do is start learning to code and maybe a few years down the line you'll be able to write the patch yourself if it's so important to you.

LimCore wrote on 2010-02-09:
"This is crazy, this bug has 45 people that take time to go to LP and click affects-me-too,
it has a dozen of duplicates,
it is one of most reported bug I seen, and yet it is just Wishlist priority?!

Ubuntu fails to provide most basic functionality expected from a desktop since windows 3.11...

For 5 years now! Wow."

Yes, it really is an epic fail. :D Those developers really don't get it.

Endolith wrote on 2010-02-09:
"Isn't it trivially fixable by installing one of the workarounds by default?"

No, it isn't. How many times do I have to say it isn't? Those applications are NOT a fix. They're a workaround which somtimes works. Those applications also cause a lot of problems. I've tested all of them and there's none which really works. It just needs to be fixed in X, so there's a system wide clipboard which works for EVERY APPLICATION in EVERY DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT in EVERY DISTRIBUTION and for EVERY KIND OF CONTENT (like text, images, sound, a part of a video). Not like this will ever happen, because developers are as cocky and stubborn as can be, so don't a working clipboard in Linux in the upcoming 15 years.

You want an operating system which has a clipboard (one of the most basic features of an operating system)? Then just don't use Linux, because Linux doesn't have a working clipboard. We all know a working clipboard is something every operating system has to support. Every serious operating system in the world has one since it's first release, because a clipboard is so important. Everyone knows it's completely ridiculous to release an operating system without a working clipboard. I think developers of Linux don't cosider Linux a serious operating system, because after all those years it still doesn't work in Linux.

Look at this screenshot:
http://www.computerhovel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/s10.jpg
That's Mac OS as it was released in 1984. Let me repeat that: NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR!!! What do you see? Do you see the "Clipboard File"? Now it's 2010. Yes, it's TWO THOUSAND AND TEN!!! That's TWENTY SIX years later and Linux still doesn't have a clipboard which works.

Really, what an epic fail! Developers, what's your goal? You want Linux to be only used in CLI mode on servers or do you want Linux to also be used on desktops? If you want Linux to be not only used in CLI mode, then create something usefull, instead of this kind of amateuristic piece of... [insert some word or words you like to use when swearing].

Bartolomeo Nicolotti wrote on 2010-02-10:
"Could someone tell us when this bug will be fixed?"

What do you think of the answer: "Never" of "Certainly not before 2025"? In all those years Linux've never had a working clipboard, so don't think there'll a working clipboard in the near future.

Jackflap wrote on 2010-02-10:
"Well it's simple, in the same way that the cost of you learning how to program, studying the spec and implementing a fix isn't worth your time (or money), then for exactly the same reason no other dev has done it either.

Until someone has the necessary experience, time, or motivation to fix this, it will just sit waiting. The occasional reminder on the bug report is fine, but ...

Look it's open-source. It's an open-source development model. That's how it works.

Why do you have to rant and rave on a technical bugtracker about a development model that clearly doesnt satisfy your expectations?

Perhaps open-source just isn't for you.

Way to go @Tralalalala !

This is what happens when developers with no monetary incentives are put in charge of features in linux. And before someone comes in with IBM paying developers to work on linux, virtually none of it is in the desktop. It's all command line based because IBM makes their money doing service for servers, not desktops.

I've always posed the question with open source software but linux in general, if it wasn't free and you had to pay for a license to use it just like windows, in fact the same exact price per license, would you use it instead of windows? Or what if instead of windows, you could use Mac OS X for the same price per license, would you choose linux over it as a desktop?

If you can answer yes to any of this, I'd sure like to know why :)

And choosing it because it's open source is not a valid excuse. Don't involve politics or beliefs in your decision.

I do agree that this bug is an epic fail.
I do agree with the comment saying that we are users, not developpers.
(On this, I would also add that is really hard to join the developper
community, it's not user friendly at all.)

But I must disagree about the comment comparing Linux to Mac OS.
When people are not paid to do something, their are differences. The
difference is even bigger if the projet doesn't have the support of
the market ( we must do our own drivers for some material)

The work involved in linux is bigger because other OS doesn't
have to do this work... and their employe are motivated by their
pay.

That said, clipboard is an Epic failure and should be the priority #1 for
any future version, really.

--
---------------------------------------------
Francois Mazerolle, webmaster
---------------------------------------------
www.cybercity2034.com

I'd like to also add that putting in something like this isn't usually by a motivated developer. It's by a developer whose told by his boss or manager to implement this feature. This is why windows and mac os x has a proper clipboard. The developers have to implement it or they're fired. Despite what some people may think, Microsoft and Apple are motivated by features that their customers want. But they're also motivated to provide basic features that they know their customers will just expect them to implement, such as the clipboard.

@Jackflap:

No matter the development model, by it's nature, the project tend to a goal:
Be an operating system.

Having no real clipboard that really works is a failure to this goal.

2010/2/19 Jackflap <email address hidden>

> Look it's open-source. It's an open-source development model. That's how
> it works.
>
> Why do you have to rant and rave on a technical bugtracker about a
> development model that clearly doesnt satisfy your expectations?
>
> Perhaps open-source just isn't for you.
>
> --
> MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

--
---------------------------------------------
Francois Mazerolle, webmaster
---------------------------------------------
www.cybercity2034.com

@jackflap

If you're motivated to use linux because the sole reason is that its open source, that's fine for you. It's not for the rest of the world.

And clearly you had no counter points to what was mentioned since all you can say is that open source isn't for him.

[off_topic]
I just notice that I've Nominated this bug for Lucid... Now that I see that I'm the only one who have done that, I'm asking myself if I really know that nominations are (as it's not explained, or hidden somewhere that I'm unable to find)

Do nominations are votes for the distribution we would like the bug to be fixed ?
[/off_topic]

I didn't even read his post cuz he's just ranting.

This is not the place to rant. If ranting actually got any results, then I would be ranting myself.

The reason I use Ubuntu is because despite the (admittedly) really shitty bus like this one, I still prefer it to Windows and Mac OS X is too expensive.

Not only that, but the fact that it's open-source inherently means that you can never be locked-in, and that's the killer feature for me. It may be shit, and these bugs may be fail, but at least I have the option to use something else if I ever do get annoyed enough.

Don't get me wrong, these bugs are bad, but Ubuntu has a lot of great things going for it too. I'm really enjoying the lightweightedness and the super fast startup. I love VLC, and MythTV and the fact I've been able to customize the shit out of it.

I also firmly believe that one day this bug will actually be fixed..

On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 16:47 +0000, Jackflap wrote:
> Look it's open-source. It's an open-source development model. That's how
> it works.

Is it really every-man-for-himself in Ubuntu? Doesn't
Shuttleworth set priorities for each release? Isn't
there a paid Canonical development staff? Don't
they get together and put more priority on some
things than on others?

I ask in all seriousness... I'd like to know how,
if at all, this launchpad bug system interacts
with the way the core development team sets
priorities.

--
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
gpg D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541 0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

Dan Connolly : Developers regularly read bugs. When they can fix the bug, they assign the bug to themself and generally, it doesn't take a week before we get a update. Each Ubuntu release has blueprints, which are discussed in UDS with the ubuntu concil. Anyone can contribute and participate. However since ubuntu is a distribution, if this is not a mistake, the problem here doesn't seem to be the distribution but a software included in that distribution, namely xserver-xorg.

Of course Ubuntu could work together with xserver-xorg developer to find a solution, however, according to comments, this is not simply a bug fix, but a change in the clipboard specification. Therefore, I really doubt that ubuntu is the right place to ask this.

Users in this bug report complains that this bug exist since years and years and years, but if you look at freedesktop bug in xserver-xorg attached to this ubuntu bug report, it was reported 2009-11-21. Unless another older bug exist, apparently nobody complained at the right place since the beginning.

How intuitive that bug system is for casual users
In 5 years, no one has been able to report this bug to the right place. :(

Dan,

Interesting question.

As we probably all know, Canonical have been pushing a usability drive, which is led by Mark Shuttleworth.

This has produced the FUSA applet (which was developed for 8.10), the notification area overhaul (included in 9.04), the theme updates (9.10) and we have the MeMenu and some other stuff due out with Lucid.

These initiatives seem to be directed by Mark Shuttleworth and he decides what is prioritized and focused on in every release. I would assume that he will eventually come round to addressing the clipboard at some point. Perhaps it's worth bringing it to his attention.

Most of the discussion seems to happen within the Ayatana project, so that may be a good place to start if you're interested in making some noise :)

Jackflap : As said previously, Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth are not in charge of xserver-xorg development. Ubuntu is a distribution. Canonical can contribute to bugfixes to upstream projects such as xserver-xorg, but drastic changes of concept needs to be done by the upstream projects themselves, by qualified developers.

If people start to pollute Ayatana discussions with this unrelated issue, there will be no benefit either for Ayatana and this bug report. Instead, invite every people who suffer from this bug to click the "Affect me too" button. That will give visibility to this bug to Canonical.

If this bug is not fixed yet, it's because it is not a easy bug, not because xserver-xorg or Canonical is not aware of this issue. However as long as you only refer to ubuntu bug report, xserver-xorg developers don't get any attention to this issue. And anyway, a bug report is not the right place to discuss, it only makes thing more difficult for developers as bug reports are polluted, therefore we should not be surprise that they stop using it, and work silently.

FUSA applet, notifications, simplescan, upstart are Canonical projects, not xserver-xorg.

FMaz : Linking a bug report can be done with two click, and launchpad has a good documentation. That only means that in 5 years, nobody took care to open and link a bug at xserver-xorg, users and developers.

"Linking a bug report can be done with two click, and launchpad
has a good documentation. "

Personnaly, I didn't even know that. Maybe it's easy when you know how to
do, but the interface is not intuitive for doing so.

Users will not read pages of documentation to report a bug. They already
must do an extra action over their regular work to report a bug, reading a
documentation should not be an obligation if the interface was good.

As for my question with the nominate for release, I really think I have done
something wrong with this, and I still don't know what exactly it is, and
how to remove it.

Lauchpad have a really bad user interace for the normal user (maybe
fonctionnal for debuggers, but NOT intuitive for users), but this point is
off the topic.

2010/2/19 Saïvann Carignan <email address hidden>

> Jackflap : As said previously, Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth are not
> in charge of xserver-xorg development. Ubuntu is a distribution.
> Canonical can contribute to bugfixes to upstream projects such as
> xserver-xorg, but drastic changes of concept needs to be done by the
> upstream projects themselves, by qualified developers.
>
> If people start to pollute Ayatana discussions with this unrelated
> issue, there will be no benefit either for Ayatana and this bug report.
> Instead, invite every people who suffer from this bug to click the
> "Affect me too" button. That will give visibility to this bug to
> Canonical.
>
> If this bug is not fixed yet, it's because it is not a easy bug, not
> because xserver-xorg or Canonical is not aware of this issue. However as
> long as you only refer to ubuntu bug report, xserver-xorg developers
> don't get any attention to this issue. And anyway, a bug report is not
> the right place to discuss, it only makes thing more difficult for
> developers as bug reports are polluted, therefore we should not be
> surprise that they stop using it, and work silently.
>
> FUSA applet, notifications, simplescan, upstart are Canonical projects,
> not xserver-xorg.
>
> FMaz : Linking a bug report can be done with two click, and launchpad
> has a good documentation. That only means that in 5 years, nobody took
> care to open and link a bug at xserver-xorg, users and developers.
>
> --
> MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/11334
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

--
---------------------------------------------
Francois Mazerolle, webmaster
---------------------------------------------
www.cybercity2034.com

If the xorg team refuses to implement the clipboard properly, and another group wants to fix it, fork it. You can do that. Or they can start from scratch like google did with Android because they saw that in order to fix stuff like implementing the clipbard properly, they had to replace xorg completely. If Ubuntu wants to follow that so that the clipboard works properly, I'm all for it.

As for Ubuntu calling it a linux distribution, they should rethink that strategy. Stop focusing on the fluff and start focusing on the essentials.

@Flapjack

So you've confirmed that you use linux because it's open source. Thank you for your bias.

Saïvann : It's not only up to xserver-xorg to fix this. There is an independent Freedesktop specification outlining how the clipboard works. It says clearly that all applications, when quitting should export the clipboard contents to the global clipboard.

xserver-xorg actually adheres to the specification properly. It's actually everything else which are behaving incorrectly (a couple of them actually already work properly). So I wouldn't say that it's up to xserver-xorg to break the spec and fix this.

If anything, maybe the spec should be improved, then xserver-xorg will be obliged to fix the behaviour. However I never felt technically comfortable enough to start a discussion on the Freedesktop mailing list since I don't feel I understand the underlying issues well enough.

That being said, if the Canonical usability decided to focus on the clipboard for a release, the absolute bare-minimum that they would do would be to correct the behaviour of all applications installed by default. This would be a massive improvement already. They would probably also work with the Freedesktop spec in order to improve it (as they did with the notification area and are doing with the application indicators). Who knows, with any luck they could improve the clipboard beyond how it is implemented in Windows/Mac.

One thing that stands out to me, is that there are no launchpad bugs for each independent application linked to this one. Someone should really go and find/submit the related bugs and link them to this one.

You are correct in your statement, if you just read the bug description,
there is almost no mention about xserver-xorg. The idea that the
specification should change (which means modifying xserver-xorg
behavior) only appears in last comments. Some users speaks like if this
has always been THE solution.

However, at the very first beginning, there was already a specification
so any apps that is closed can register it's clipboard content, so the
clipboard don't get lost once this application is closed.

However, most developers and users don't like this specification,
because it's not how clipboard works on windows and Mac for instance.
Added to the difficulty level to fix this, the reticence of upstream
developers is one of the first reason why this bug still exist and is
still annoying.

Therefore even if everybody claims to have THE solution, it's more
basically a war between two opinions :

1. All applications should comply with clipboard specification.
2. Xserver-xorg should improve and clean up his clipboard (and drop.. or
dratically change his "Selection" methods, that many developers love and
used since the beginning of xserver-xorg so it won't interfere with the
basic features of clipboard.)

Each of these idea is insane, as it requires a lot of work, because
xserver-xorg is not a brand new project, the quantity of people and
projects that relies on it is montruous.

Of course, as you said, if one day xserver-xorg decide to attack idea
#2, they will work with freedesktop to create a new specification.

However your last statement is wrong, there is a bug report for many
applications concerning this, you can all find a list of fixed and
unfixed bug reports in the launchpad bug description. I actually was the
one who managed to merge a ton of bugs all about this issue 1 year ago,
and after reading them all, I found reference to the specification in
one of them, and therefore I made sure that every important projects
(such as evolution, firefox, etc.) was aware of this, by opening a bug
report in their bug tracking system, and adding a reference to this in
the launchpad bug report description.

And of course anybody can report this bug to any other upstream project
that is not already listed in the description. That means searching for
the bug tracking system of the said application on Google, subscribe
there, search if the bug is not already reported, and if not, report a
new bug, and finally, take the address of the bug and add it to the
launchpad bug description.

Unfortunately, once I made that for all the most important projects, the
bug almost got only users complaining, but nobody wiling to take a few
minutes to verify if they could improve the bug report by adding their
own applications if they also have the bug. The description almost
didn't change for more than one year.

However if you look at the bug description, you'll notice that it's
fixed in most GNOME applications, and all future xulrunner applications
(firefox, thunderbird, sunbird, etc.).

I'm not expert enough to have my opinion on what should be done. Idea #1
and #2 seems to both have many good and bad sides.

Saïvann

On 2010-02-2...

Saïvann Carignan wrote 19 hours ago:
"Developers regularly read bugs. When they can fix the bug, they assign the bug to themself and generally, it doesn't take a week before we get a update."

That's the best joke I've ever heard. None of the bugs I've commented on has ever been fixed. Bugs which are several years old still got the status "New". This Bug reporting system is just a fail. You're only talking to other users who experience the samen bugs, but you never see a developer.

Saïvann Carignan wrote 19 hours ago:
"Users in this bug report complains that this bug exist since years and years and years, but if you look at freedesktop bug in xserver-xorg attached to this ubuntu bug report, it was reported 2009-11-21. Unless another older bug exist, apparently nobody complained at the right place since the beginning."

They know about the crappy clipboard for years:
http://www.x.org/wiki/XDC2007Notes#BartMassey.3ACutandPaste
That's from the X Developer's Conference of 2007.

Besides that:
How can you expect the average user to know which developer develops each part of Ubuntu and where to find the particularly bug tracking system of that developer and to create an account at all of those bug tracking systems?

For example:
Someone encounters the bug of this bug report, he encounters a bug in Rhythmbox, he encounters a bug in OpenOffice.org and he encounters a bug in The GIMP. This means the user has to know the developers of X are the one to blame for the non-functional clipboard and he has to search for the bug tracking system of X. Then he has to create an account, he has to search if the bug is already reported and if the bug isn't already reported he has to report the bug for himself and has to answer difficult questions, like "Product". Look at the bug report at this location:
http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25220

Look at the drop down menu behind "Product". It goes from "accountsservice" to "Xtests", there are so many products in this list, I'm not even going to count all of them and all of those products've got weird names, like "xesam", "scim", "roadster", "libasyncns" or "exempi". How in the name of [actually I really don't care in the name of who] will the average user ever be able to find the product which belongs to the behavior of the clipboard? That's just impossible. Only a very small amount of users will be able to report such kind of bugs.

The user's also got a problem with Rhythmbox, so there we go again: He has to know who's the developer of this application, search for the bug tracking system of this developer, create an account, serach if the bug already exists and report the bug. Then he also has to do this for the bug in OperOffice.org and the bug in The GIMP. You can't expect this from the average user. It's way too much hassle, it costs way too much time and it's way too difficult for the average user. It's way too technical. The average user doesn't understand this.

The average user installs Ubuntu and for the user Ubuntu is the operating system, so if he encounters any bugs, Ubuntus Launchpad is the place to report these bugs. The user doesn't know (and really doesn't want to know) who developed wh...