ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Thomas Voß <thomas.voss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Thomas Voß <thomas.voss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 4:38 PM, Roberto Colistete Jr.
> <roberto.colistete@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Em 14-08-2013 08:18, Zisu Andrei escreveu:
>>
>>> Scott, careful, we might end up on the bad side of things, as developers
>>> would want their app to be running all the time so he will abuse this, and
>>> we end up having all the things running all the time and the enduser gets
>>> bad performance, battery life and overall bad experience.
>>
>>
>>     Well, Ubuntu Touch is said by Canonical to enable convergence of
>> devices, e.g., a smartphone which becomes a PC by connecting a monitor (by
>> cable), mouse and keyboard (by Bluetooth).
>>
>
> Sure, see my comment on adjusting the lifecycle policy below.
>
>>     Let us remember that a notebook user with Linux, Mac OS and Windows has
>> real multitasking. The user is responsible for opening and closing
>> softwares, if some open software has heavy load and waste battery life fast
>> as hell, it is up to the user decide if it will remain open or be closed.
>> Sometimes the user really needs to run a 6 thread calculation for 30 minutes
>> on a quad-core notebook. Conclusion : user has freedom.
>>
>
> Again: We can dynamically switch to a different lifecycle policy if
> the phone is docked or charging.
> A phone is a different form factor and usage scenario than a normal
> desktop PC and thus, the lifecycle policy is different, too. In the
> end, we want the Ubuntu Touch to be used by people who potentially
> don't even own a laptop or a desktop computer.
>
>>     So, all of a sudden, desktop and notebook users when switch to a
>> smartphone can't be responsible anymore to decide which softwares should
>> remain open or be closed ?
>>
>
> That's an interesting way to put it: Let's phrase it this way: Users
> do not need to care, the state of an app is completely transparent to
> them.
>
>>     Psion Epoc 32 users (from 11-16 years ago) have real preemptive
>> multitasking on pocket computers with 16MB of RAM, some users have devices
>> which lasted 5 years without rebooting, without the system closing softwares
>> by itself. Even also using my Psion Revo+ for developing
>> (editing/compiling/testing) on device, it remained 2 years without
>> rebooting. Not a bad experience at all.
>>
>
> Well, we are doing preemptive multi-tasking, too. We just reserve the
> right to aggressively take away resources from non-focused
> applications.
>

Quoting from the wikipedia article, the Psion Epoc 32 took a similar
approach we are taking:

EPOC32 was a pre-emptive multitasking, single user operating system
with memory protection, which encourages the application developer to
separate their program into an engine and an interface.

where we will open up general service/engine deployment in version 2
of the lifecycle.

HTH,

  Thomas

>>     IMHO, It is a joke to have in 2013 quad core & 2GB RAM smartphones with
>> not real multitasking.
>>
>>     I can say that a lot of future Ubuntu Touch users expect to have almost
>> all features of Ubuntu for PC's, including real multitasking. They are fed
>> up of Android, iOS and Windows Phone limitations. So don't let Ubuntu Touch
>> repeat these limitations.
>>
>>
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