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Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

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Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#371

Post by ZenoArrow »

pjmlp wrote: post #247
ZenoArrow wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"How can anyone invest time developing for them?" What alternative do you suggest? I suggested they were the best remaining option for an open-source mobile OS now that Ubuntu were dropping out of the race. What other options are there? Sailfish? Anything else?

There are no alternatives. This ideology of open-source mobile OS goes back to Openmoko. None of them managed to sell enough devices to keep a profitable business.

>"None of them managed to sell enough devices to keep a profitable business."

Nokia managed it with the N900 and the N9, the only reason they didn't continue is they lost their bottle and sold out to Microsoft.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#372

Post by LoSboccacc »

sdm wrote: post #214
AtticusTheGreat wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who applauds this pivot, I never saw much value in the whole convergence idea. Why would I want my laptop and phone to be the same device? This seems to follow the misguided idea in software that if two ideas are similar, just make a single generic idea that solves both problems. But then you get into leaky abstractions and have to make lots of sacrifices to get it working well for both use cases.

Portability and duplication. I don't want to have to lug a phone and laptop everywhere. They both can do the same thing and increasing have the same amount of power. You have different interfaces for how you interact with them: on the go or at a desk. But you can just pick up and go somewhere else and pick up without missing a beat.

And who brings the dock in that somewhere else you're going? How's leaving a dock everywhere better than leaving a laptop or even a chromebook everywhere?

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#373

Post by ZenoArrow »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #264
ZenoArrow wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"How can anyone invest time developing for them?" What alternative do you suggest? I suggested they were the best remaining option for an open-source mobile OS now that Ubuntu were dropping out of the race. What other options are there? Sailfish? Anything else?

What he said. On top of it, maybe next failed attempt can try building on one of these for a stronger foundation: https://github.com/ExpressOS/expressos http://genode.org/

Tizen is an alternative, whether you like it or not is another matter.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#374

Post by LoSboccacc »

WorldMaker wrote: post #259
javajosh wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Application convergence already happens via the browser; this takes much wind out of the sails of OS convergence. However, it also means that browser focused OSes, ChromeBook and FireFoxOS, will probably be the ones to win, in the end.

Or WebView-based cross-platform toolkits will win, in the end. (Electron, Cordova, React Native) Given FirefoxOS is also retired and ChromeOS seems to be in the process of being replaced by or merged with Android, I figure the cross-platform toolkits are more likely to win than the browser OSes.

They share the browser limited performance and bring a load of issues with them, they're at best a way to work around browser -> sensor access and bypass the appstores barrier.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#375

Post by pvdebbe »

brendaningram wrote: post #314

Disclaimer: I don't use Gnome or Unity, I'm an i3 guy. I understand that choice in the Linux world is very important, but I also think that choice (taken to extremes) can be crippling. My opinion is that we have too many desktop environments, and too many distros. If we imagine a hypothetical scenario where in June 2010 Ubuntu committed to Gnome as the DE, imagine how much progress would have been made with Gnome in…

As I see it, you are talking more about exposure than choice. I agree having GNOME on the spotlights will draw people to it and stuff will get fixed and possibly better. Never liked Unity but didn't use it ever either.

And having defaults doesn't imply a lack of choice IMO. It is still easy to change DEs on a vanilla Ubuntu as it should be. I don't bother with the variants, I just install vanilla Ubuntu and install my DE of choice in place.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#376

Post by pjmlp »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #371
pjmlp wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no alternatives. This ideology of open-source mobile OS goes back to Openmoko. None of them managed to sell enough devices to keep a profitable business.

>"None of them managed to sell enough devices to keep a profitable business." Nokia managed it with the N900 and the N9, the only reason they didn't continue is they lost their bottle and sold out to Microsoft.

If you were fine with "open source" on those Nokia devices, you should be happy with "open source" on Android.

Also as a former employee I can tell they didn't sell that much units, specially when compared with Symbian devices.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#377

Post by jhasse »

ajross wrote: post #280
jhasse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LineageOS + F-Droid

Exactly. There absolutely is an open source Android experience (at the level of the applications and API -- drivers are a different story) for those who want it. It really doesn't suck, and it's a clean migration from the commercial environments (which is to say, you don't really need F-Droid as almost all this stuff is in the Play Store already). Open source on Android is in pretty good shape on the whole, which is…

The Play Store is closed source though.

Re: Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, Rather Than Phone and Convergence

#380

Post by jhasse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #313
jhasse wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name these advantages over Flatpak?

Flatpak is designed for desktop and relies on that environment, snap is designed for both server and desktop use.

For servers there's docker which works great already. We'll see.
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