The feature is explicit sync, which is a brand new graphics stack API that would fix some issues with nvidia rendering under Wayland.
It’s not a big deal, canonical basically said ‘this isn’t a bug fix or security patch, it’s not getting backported into our LTS release’ - so if you want it you have to install GNOME/mutter from source, switch operating systems, or just wait a few months for the next Ubuntu release
Ubuntu previously was excepting Gnome point releases from major testing on the grounds that Gnome’s point releases are all big fixes and thus don’t require Ubuntu’s major testing process. Gnome shipped a new major feature in a point release and so Ubuntu said “oops, guess we gotta test their point releases after all”. Practically, it means Gnome point releases take longer to get into Ubuntu than they previously did (but are more tested for bugs).
ELI5?
GNOME said this update is a minor bug fix (point release)
Canonical said this is actually a major feature update, and doesn’t want to backport it into its LTS repositories
OK… ELI3? Why is this a big deal, and what is the feature/bug fix?
The feature is explicit sync, which is a brand new graphics stack API that would fix some issues with nvidia rendering under Wayland.
It’s not a big deal, canonical basically said ‘this isn’t a bug fix or security patch, it’s not getting backported into our LTS release’ - so if you want it you have to install GNOME/mutter from source, switch operating systems, or just wait a few months for the next Ubuntu release
Ubuntu previously was excepting Gnome point releases from major testing on the grounds that Gnome’s point releases are all big fixes and thus don’t require Ubuntu’s major testing process. Gnome shipped a new major feature in a point release and so Ubuntu said “oops, guess we gotta test their point releases after all”. Practically, it means Gnome point releases take longer to get into Ubuntu than they previously did (but are more tested for bugs).