For the record, I just bought and flashed Ubuntu Touch on a Meizu Pro
5 - very possible, and not that hard to do. Cheers,
Hi Mitchell now thats good news. I scanned xda a while back and read
there was still problems doing that. Could you point me to some details?
On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 5:22 AM, Mitchell Reese
<dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
For the record, I just bought and flashed Ubuntu Touch on a Meizu
Pro 5 - very possible, and not that hard to do. Cheers,
M
On 12/09/16 13:14, Mathijs Veen wrote:
Well I am not quite that pessimistic Bob,
I am just saying if no oems are doing a new Ubuntu phone any
time soon, you would need a relatively current reference
device that is stable. Just to tide every one over till that
time does come again. Say an N5 or N6. I congratulate you on
getting your hands on an MX5. I was just a week too late on
that one. Completely surprised at such a limited run. I would
take it of your hands if you' re ditching it :)
It wasn’t my intention to bash the project to death at all. I
do actually believe in the possibility of breaking into the
status quo. If the proposition is good enough. And I still
believe UT can be that. I recently did a live head-to-head on
comparison with a hp windows continuum phone. And Ubuntu won
on some major points hands down. Convergence is pretty awsum
already and the design is as good as any phone I have owned.
But i think Canonical can't afford to lose the base of users
it has now. So they need a reliable device coming from somewhere.
On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Bob Summerwill
<bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
Great summary, Mathijs,
I have been using first a Meizu MX4 and then a Meizu MX5 Pro
successfully here in Vancouver, Canada as my daily driver.
But in the absence of real devices, there is little point
in the
project continuing. It would just be a drain of limited
funding
for Canonical, who have plenty of other important projects
which
need their focus.
It is indeed a bitter pill to swallow, but unlike other open
source projects which can continue indefinitely as long as
there
are people with itches to scratch, for Ubuntu Touch and other
mobile OSes there is a real co-dependency between
hardware and
specific software. You aren't making software which can
run on any
x86 chip, as is the case for much of the desktop world.
Without supported hardware, it is pointless.
Well, you could
support the emulators indefinitely, but that isn't
producing any
real value in itself.
The same situation has already led to the demise of MeeGo,
Firefox
OS and a trial-by-fire for Sailfish OS. And the zombie
state of
Windows Phone, for that matter. Blackberry OS is on
death's door
as well. You need to achieve critical mass, or you die.
Withdrawing to just tablets is another option, because it
removes
the whole wireless modem stack and carriers from the picture.
On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Mathijs Veen
<mathijsv33n@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:mathijsv33n@xxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:mathijsv33n@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:mathijsv33n@xxxxxxxxx>>>
wrote:
Hi
(Jo-Erlend, I think you are missing the point: There
aren't
any phones for new user to get. But worse: there are
no phones
for active users/developers to replace theirs if
broken. There
haven’t been for quite some time. That's bad
because it is
really hampering community involvement, let alone
growing it).
If I may boil the discussion down:
The last Ubuntu phone that went to market (in
very limited
numbers and for a very short time) was in back in April.
Today, virtually no one in this thread is expecting
another
official Ubuntu device any time soon.
No one knows this for sure but quite a bitter pill if
true.
Question is: what do we do now?
The thread provides a few options:
1) A Canonical phone.
I would say the least likely, if not a daydream. Most
of the
reasons for that have been listed above. Canonical
just isn't
a hardware company.
2) Return to the Nexus line again as reference devices.
This could work to keep the project -and especially
community
involvement- alive in the short term. But Canonical
would have
to pick some of the current Nexus models to enable and
maintain again. Without that -ie having to muddle on
with the
N4- will soon have most ppl jump ship. As per a lot of
previous comments and also my own experience: the N4
is just a
little too underpowered for convergence over the wire
and will
never support wireless convergence anyway. The N4 is
the only
Nexus reference device left and it is
hopelessly outdated.
Also they are indeed ridiculously prone to breakage.
3) A community port
I have been following the ubports project basically
since it
started and especially Marius has been doing a massive
job.
However: the number of different devices has, imho, been
spread out too wide and funding has been far too thin.
The only way I believe this could possibly work is this:
Assuming we get indication that 1 and 2 are not going to
happen, we have to organise some kind of community
vote where
we decide on one, or at most two, devices that are
going to be
ported for ut for the coming 1.5-2 years. We focus and
rally
for funding and community time and knowlegde on that
phone and
stick with it. We get people to see that spreading all
that
porting effort over all those devices (see
https://devices.ubports.com/#/) isnt going to get us a stable
UT phone for the short and mid term. Let us call it a
community reference device.
And I wont mind adding that I agree with some in this
thread
that the Fairphone2 should be a strong candidate for
this. But
that is for a separate discussion.
Some final personal thoughts.
I have tried to be as involved as my time and knowledge
allowed me since very early on in the project. I first
flashed
a Galaxy Nexus (remember Maguro guys?) in October
2013. I have
been using, discussing, promoting, testing, bug
reporting and
even doing a limited bit of programming for UT
ever since.
Most of you all have similar stories. And I still
believe in
the project. Actually, today more then ever.
But this is the first time I am thoroughly
worried for the
future of the Ubuntu converged desktop/phone/tablet.
Sure, Ubuntu core and Unity8 will continue but will
obviously
will take very different routes than if there were well
maintained real-world devices around that developers
and early
adopters could use. For one thing: who's gonna build
apps for
a system that doesn't have any actual phones?
One last reason I am worried: Because during this, and
some
other mail-threads and other channel discussions
lately, there
has been almost dead silence from the Ubuntu Community
Management on this.
I know they are in a difficult position in this
because it is
probably impossible for them to come out and say: yeah
guys,
regrettably there aren't going to be any new devices
on the
market any time soon. Nevertheless, If that is the
case one
would think that working with this community to bridge
some
bad times with either a new official reference
device or a
focused, mutual effort from Canonical and community
developers
on a port could be the best course to take to keep
this thing
alive.
So (still operating on the sad assumption that no new
device
will appear on the market any time soon) : If none of the
above scenarios get any traction, I will -with pain in my
heart- be forced to say goodbye to Ubuntu touch as the
phone I
have been using for the past 3 years. Just because
there isn't
any.
Cheers
Mathijs
On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 12:45 AM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
<joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
Why are you even asking if Meizu of Bq has lost
interest?
Do you know something I don't? The point was to
produce a
small number of phones for people who really want
it and
knows why. Developers and enthusiasts. This was
announced
as the strategy from the very beginning, long
before there
were any phones to be bought. Ubuntu for
phones hasn't
been announced as ready for mainstream and it
isn't. Now
we have quite a few people using Ubuntu on phones and
providing feedback and software, building
a community.
That takes time. Hopefully, more
developers and Ubuntu
enthusiasts want the phone when they see
feedback from
existing users. Then it might be time for another
small
batch of phones, expanding the community and
increasing
the guerilla marketing.
One of the worst things that could happen, was if
curious
people got the impression that it was ready for
mainstream
and got one, only to be disappointed and then running
around on social media talking about how bad it
is. People
who really understand the project, however, knows
it's a
WIP and they're not so put off by its limitations.
These
are good ambassadors.
There's lots of stuff that must be done. For
instance, it
would make sense to switch Ubuntu for phones to Snap
rather than Click. And of course, the big USP for
Ubuntu
for phones, is it's ability to function as a
desktop as
well. But that doesn't really work yet. For now,
Ubuntu
for phones is better off being a geeky thing.
What's the hurry?
On 8 September 2016 at 05:58, mark
<j.m.holmes@xxxxxx <mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx>
<mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx
<mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx>>> wrote:
If Meizu and bq have lost interest in the
platform,
and are really not planning to build new
phones then,
perhaps enthusiasts - of which there
seem to be no
shortage - should go down the
Fairphone route, and
crowd-source a small run of devices, designed for
Ubuntu and produced by an OEM. I don't know
what the
run of the Meizu or bq phones amounted to, but
surely
say ~20,000 high-spec Ubuntu phones
could be sold?
m
On 07/09/16 17:53, Mitchell Reese wrote:
On Thursday, 8 September 2016 4:47:42 AM
AEST, Bob
Summerwill <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
<mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Are OEMs not queuing up to
ship devices running
Touch?
I suspect that the answer to
that is "no".
If, as seems likely, both BQ and Meizu
have no
immediate plans to ship
further Ubuntu Touch devices then that
likely means
that it is not
economically beneficial to them to do
so. That
certainly isn't an
appealing market for other OEMs to
join. Canonical would likely be
pouring their money down the drain
with such a device.
Mozilla went through a very similar
journey with
Firefox OS, though with
way more devices and way more
traction. They ended
up giving up on the
device side, and focusing on just
community ports,
and on application of
the OS to new (non-mobile) markets.
Mobile is a tough, tough market to
compete with.
Commodity Android
devices are very, very compelling to
the mass
market. Mobile Linux is a
really niche. See the troubles Jolla
have
experienced too. Even
Samsung are struggling to make any
kind of impact
with Tizen - though that
likely has more to do with their own
internal
politics than any lack of
resourcing or ability to sell large
volumes.
My personal feeling is that mobile is
now "mature",
and uninteresting, like
the PC market. Who really cares if
you have an
ASUS or an Acer or a HP or
whatever. They have razor-thin
markets and little
differentiation. I
think that is where mobile is getting
to be, with
Android as the Windows,
and iOS as the Mac. So iOS is
premium and
profitable, "because Apple",
but Android is the de-facto standard,
commodity and
unprofitable. That
is a really unappealing place to try
to build a
third platform.
Android has utterly skewed
manufacturing too, to my
understanding, so that
if you want to get a SoC now, you are
going to get
Android bootloaders and
drivers on it. As blobs. And
you're just going
to have to suck that up.
Want X11 drivers? No way.
Tizen is the only mobile Linux which
hasn't just
made the pragmatic choice
of avoiding the issue by using
Hybris. For
everybody else, Android has
become the de-facto HAL :-)
So yeah... I have an MX5 Pro as my
daily driver and
love it. MX4 before
that. But I don't have much hope of
any future
Ubuntu Touch mobile
devices. I think we're likely
walking dead, but
just haven't stopped
walking yet.
So maybe Jolla and Tizen are the "last
men standing"
in this space? For
mobile profile, at least. Tablets are
a different
story. Ditto IoT and
Ubuntu Snappy Core.
On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 10:49 AM, mark
<j.m.holmes@xxxxxx
<mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx>> <mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx
<mailto:j.m.holmes@xxxxxx>> wrote:
+1
The same thought had crossed my
mind. Touch seems
to be reaching the point
of maturity where something of the
Edge's specs
might come to fruition. It
would be a winner, imho.
Are OEMs not queuing up to ship
devices running Touch?
m
On 07/09/16 14:32, Art wrote:
Question.......
I read all the comments, and I am
now curious.....
What is to stop Canonical from
releasing their own
branded phones right
now?? Just because the current
'offering' isn't
Canonical branded, Is there
anything that prevents them from
selling a
Canonical branded phone later
on??
After all, now we know that a
linux based phone
actually works, what is to
stop Canonical (or even myself)
from seeking out an
independent phone OEM,
buying them in bulk and rebranding
them, complete
with the linux software
already installed?
Great list all, I hope to see the
linux phone
succeed! It's about time we
take back control of our own
phones and block all
the 'features' that rob
us of our privacy!!
Art
On 09/05/2016 10:49 AM, Krzysztof
Tataradziński wrote:
Hi
Did anyone from Canonical
considered to 'simply'
develop phone themselves
alone, order it in factory and
sell with Canonical
brand?
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Hmmm. Disagree - thanfully. Otherwise,
whats the
point? Similar arguments when Microsoft
was still a
thing - why compete?
The thing about Ubuntu is it's also a
desktop system
- and has the potential to be much more.
Will be
interesting to see where this goes, but
I'm backing
Canonical.
M
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