ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[David Planella <david.planella@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Oliver Propst <oliver.propst@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> On Thu, 2014-07-17 at 13:35 +0100, Alan Pope wrote:
> > Hi Oliver,
> Hi Alan thanks for your detailed reply I think its shows that
> Canonical actually cares about the community and welcomes input.
>
> > On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Oliver Propst <oliver.propst@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > > As of now the the newest device that is officially supported is still
> > > the soon two years old Nexus 4, is not about time to consider support a
> > > newer device?
> > >
> >
> > We are already working on new devices, those that will ship from BQ
> > and Meizu later in the year. It makes little sense for us to divert
> > attention to do the hardware bring-up of another 3rd party device
> > (with little or no help from the manufacturer / SoC vendor) when we
> > have these two devices being worked on, closely with the
> > manufacturers.
> >
> > They will be available for people to buy soon, no doubt.
> Yeah that sounds great, I hope the bootloader will be open
> (I'm afraid it will be not, this have also been an issue with
> some FirefoxOS deceives released on the market).
>
>
> > > I find the wiki [1] very scare of details on how to get involved, it
> > > seems not to be any real effort from Canonical to create a community
> > > around Ubuntu Phone in the same way with the Ubuntu operating system or
> > > maybe more relevant for Ubuntu touch, FirefoxOS.
> > >
> >
> > I find this feedback very interesting. Building a community is
> > something we're constantly working on, if we're missing something, I'm
> > keen to hear about it.
> I think its much about communication, personally I feel the wiki more
> less list some list some facts and is not really encourages community
> participation.
>
>
Hi Oliver,

Thanks so much, not only for the interest in Ubuntu, but also for the
feedback. It is much appreciated.

I initially wanted to reply to your original e-mail, but I saw others did a
great job already at addressing all the points.

One thing that I still wanted to mention, while acknowledging that we could
do a better job at keeping the wiki up to date, is that the wiki is just
one of many entry points to contributing to Ubuntu. While there is
currently a big focus on the first ever phone release to hit the market,
there is always an ongoing effort to engage with the community.

If you are looking for a central place that can better reflect the many
ways to contribute, this is perhaps the best one:
http://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/


> Some things I think would be great to have are a FAQ about Ubuntu
> PhoneOS and presentation material the community can use, Mozilla provide
> both [1] [2].
>
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Firefox_OS_FAQ
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/ReMo/Tools_and_Resources/Slide_decks
>
>
While we have an FAQ in the wiki [1], we tend to use Ask Ubuntu to grow a
dynamic list of questions and answers [2]

The presentation material is also something we've been working in the
Community team [3], including preparing reusable presentation material.
This last cycle, our LoCo teams have organized 6 developer events across
Europe, Asia and North and South America [4]. But reading the Mozilla page,
I can see a few things we could learn from there too.


> > We have frequent hack days, conduct our discussions in open irc
> > channels and mailing lists such as this one, and the code is all
> > available on launchpad. I spend personally spend a significant portion
> > of my day working with community people on Ubuntu, and I know many
> > others do too.
> Thats great. I think also important to document releases so its
> easy for developers to get info about the progress of the platform.
>
> > > Mozilla for example have a program where community members and
> > > developers can get testing devices[2] [3], is there any plans for for
> > > similar initiative around Ubuntu Phones?
> >
> > We have already shipped a bunch of Nexus 4's running Ubuntu to various
> > developers all around the world who we selected and are hacking on the
> > platform and apps. We also have a community fund where people who are
> > keen on helping, but have no device can apply for funding for one, and
> > we've sent devices to some people who have applied.
> Ok.
>
> > >  When Mozilla launch FirefoxOS
> > > in new markets they tend to work very closely with the local community
> > > [4], I don’t get the impression that Canonical are doing any real
> > > efforts in area, (not yet at least).
> > >
> >
> > Well, there's a significant difference here. We haven't shipped any
> > retail devices yet and the platform isn't finished. You're talking
> > about Mozilla with a finished device from a manufacturer, setting
> > aside budget to buy some of those and send them to people. We can't do
> > that yet.
> Ok understand, with that said I guess its good to have in mind that to
> launch a mobile platform requires significant investments (I'm sure you
> are all aware of that),
>
> > While *we* are all developing on Nexus devices (which incidentally you
> > can't buy in retail anymore) the devices we'd expect developers and
> > users to actually use are those that will ship from BQ and Meizu later
> > this year, and devices from other manufacturers next year and beyond.
> > We're immensely proud that some early pioneering developers have
> > actually gone out of their way to flash the daily images on devices,
> > or port to new devices, but that doesn't work for everyone.  Most
> > developers want a reliable inexpensive device they can buy with the
> > software pre-installed, ready to hack on. We're not there yet, but
> > will be _very_ soon.
> I guess the bootloader can be a concern for developers. Mozilla
> partnered with a manufacture to create a reference devices [3]
> specifically that would target the needs of developer (such as open
> bootloader and ensure that Mozilla could redistribute binaries).
>
> 3
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developer_phone_guide/Flame
>

I myself was not aware of the bootloader affecting the way binaries are
distributed, and I'm sure others in the list would like to learn about it
as well. Could you expand a bit on that?

Thanks!

Cheers,
David.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/FAQ
[2] http://askubuntu.com/questions/tagged/ubuntu-touch
[3] http://davidplanella.org/announcing-first-ubuntu-app-dev-schools/
[4] http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/global/2677/