ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Krzysztof Tataradziński <ktatar156@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Simon,
thanks for replay! It explained many things to me. If someone could
explain to me even the last part of my message:

"I've got also some question about getting cash for apps. How devs can
gain money except selling their products in store? Are there some
micro-payments implemented? Ads showing? Is there similar thing to
Google Ads services? Or can devs use Google Adsense/Adwords in Ubuntu
to gain money?"

Simon, from your message I deduced, that it's little too early to talk
about that, right?

2015-06-29 9:10 GMT+02:00 sturmflut <sturmflut@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Hey Krzysztof,
>
> as the creator of the list you linked to I would like to share some of
> my thoughts. The following things may sound a bit negative, but we have
> to be honest to ourselves.
>
> Number 1: I don't think we have a real lack of developers, there are
> plenty of people out there who want to develop for the platform. The
> problem is that the whole Ubuntu ecosystem is currently not fully
> functional, buggy, unstable and doesn't offer enough support for developers.
>
> I would like to give several examples for this (please forgive me for
> not adding a link to the many matching bug reports, I can provide them
> on request):
>
> - You can't even build a simple audio recorder because the
> implementation stops working after a random number of record calls.
>
> - All GPS apps stop working after a while because the GPS subsystem is
> buggy. You can't have two apps using the GPS at the same time. Most GPS
> apps need to run in the background or keep the screen on, which is not
> possible. You can't even build a GPS Status app that shows you all the
> info about your receiver, because the API is there, but the
> implementation is missing. The sports tracker app you want can currently
> not be built.
>
> - All Instant Messenger apps need to run in the background. The only way
> to do this would be to tap into the Telepathy service on the phone, for
> which there is no documentation, and AFAIK not even the Telegram client
> currently does this.
>
> - People want to call their friends over the Internet, but there is no
> VoIP service/API.
>
> - Push notifications can only be delivered via a server that's hosted by
> Canonical. You have to change all your own server-side code to use this
> service. The service is currently highly unstable, I only get about half
> of the Telegram notifications I am supposed to receive.
>
> - Up until OTA-4 the ubuntu-html5-app-launcher was still based on
> QtWebKit, not on Oxide, which resulted in very poor performance. It was
> so slow that I couldn't even run a simple game, which forced me to come
> up with undocumented workarounds. I can see many HTML5 developers giving
> up because the "standard" way to run their apps on our devices doesn't
> seem to perform good enough for them, and not everybody has the time to
> find out what's the problem.
>
> So before we can even think about running campaigns for more apps, we
> have to get the platform to a state that actually allows those
> developers to ship great apps with full functionality without having to
> resort to the Open Store. Otherwise they'll be just frustrated and leave.
>
> I know that 95 percent of the problems I mentioned are being solved
> right now, but it will still take a lot of time until they are part of
> an OTA update.
>
>
>
>
> Number 2: App development has to be sustainable. You can throw money at
> developers, and you might get some great apps ported. But there are
> several challenges:
>
> - It will not scale. There are too many apps out there we need.
>
> - It will look like Ubuntu can only get more apps if we pay developers.
> That's a very bad message.
>
> - There will not be enough money for anything major, developer time is
> insanely expensive.
>
> - Many services have closed APIs and do not allow independent clients,
> e.g. WhatsApp. We can crowdfund a decent WhatsApp client port, but it
> will never be the same as an official one and WhatsApp will actively try
> to shut it down.
>
> - Where is the motivation to keep developing further, once the developer
> has got the money?
>
>
> I think the solution is more like the following:
>
> - Make the platform as attractive as possible.
>
> - Show developers that they can make actual money on Ubuntu. This means
> that we users will also have to be willing to pay for apps.
>
> - Keep asking all the major app developers and service providers to ship
> for Ubuntu. Talk to them on social media, open threads on their forums,
> send e-mails. Even if they decline, other users and the media will see
> that Ubuntu is getting traction.
>
> - Spend your money wisely. Don't just pay somebody to port your
> favourite app, talk to the actual developers and ask them what they
> would need to offer long-term support for Ubuntu. In many cases it will
> not be cash, but support.
>
> - Invest as much time as you can on supporting developers. Join the IRC
> channels, the mailing lists, help writing documentation. Provide starter
> templates for as many different app types as possible.
>
> - If you can, fork an existing project and try to port it for Ubuntu.
> Just start and ask for help, you might quickly find other people who
> will help you.
>
>
> I invest a significant amount of my time on all of this, and I slowly
> see the seeds growing. For example we spent months getting libSDL2 to
> work, and suddenly somebody ported Neverball and Neverputt.
>
> cheers,
> Simon