Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android [LWN.net]

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:31 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]

It seems most people rather have proprietary software on phones than open-but-not-perfect stuff. I can't explain the hostility to things like this in any other way.

I might be an openSUSE guy in many ways but I am very happy with this, applaud Canonicals move and hope they are successful. If we get a proper, reasonably open linux desktop on millions of systems, WTF are we doing if we go and bash on the company doing it just because they're not doing it EXACTLY how we want it?!?

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 14:25 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Interesting, Jos...where have you seen hostility? Hopefully not in my article; I just dedicated a feature slot to this on a moment's notice because I thought it was interesting. I did raise some concerns - this wasn't meant to be free advertising for Canonical - and I still think there is some validity to those concerns. But I wasn't hostile.

Looking around, I've not seen a whole lot of others being hostile either. What unhappiness exists is mostly of the "I wish I could actually try this," which is a very different thing.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 17:43 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]

Karim seems rather unhappy with the idea of per-unit royalties, at least... And Canonical has taken quite a beating over a number of other things. Indeed, on LWN the tone is usual civil (unlike on many other forums or compared to what you hear from people in person) but it still feels to me that people often bang harder on those who try but aren't 'perfect enough' than on those not even bothering... Did android not get a severe verbal beating?

And no, it's surely not LWN.net which is unfriendly - your reporting is usually very balanced.

... maybe I just read more negativity in Karmi's comment than there was :D

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 18:48 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

FWIW:
1) I'm not LWN (nor represent them in any way).
2) there's no reason we all have to agree.

I'm surprised by the per-unit royalties and my first gut reaction is to say that they won't get any grass-roots support because of that.

I think it's a very cool technical hack for sure.

However, I still don't see where the demand is coming for this. Maybe as a white-label desktop for handset manufacturers. But, unless I'm missing somethning, the "Ubuntu" branding has ZERO value in the mainstream market. If it were "windows" or "macos" it would've been an entirely different story.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 2:08 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link]

I doubt that there is a demand for "Ubuntu". Clearly though, Canonical thinks there might be some excitement about the ability to have a "portable desktop" embedded in their phone.

Why not beat the Windows and Mac teams to satisfying that demand if you think it is there?

At the very least, they might raise their profile and history as a credible supplier to the kinds of companies that might enable Ubuntu TV or whatever consumer vision they pursue next.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 2:48 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

well, since Android is running a linux kernel, it's a lot easier to add in a linux-based userspace like Ubuntu than it would be to add Windows or Mac userspaces.

now, nothing stops Apple from doing a similar thing with their idevices, or Microsoft doing something similar with their windows phone offering.

but Android has a much broader manufacturing base to do this sort of thing with.

So no, I don't think there is a demand for "Ubuntu", but I don't think it matters.

RedHat is no longer interested in the desktop (at least on a commercial basis) and there really aren't that many companies competing with Canonical for this sort of thing, so who else is going to put the effort in to this sort of OS market?

Hostility?

Posted Feb 25, 2012 20:40 UTC (Sat) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Who else?
Google that's who else.

Any cloud heavy desktop experience is fully inside of Google's long term plan. ChromeOS is not the last best hope for Google. They will keep plugging away at cracking open the cloud heavy desktop concept and turning it into a real market. If an Ubuntu branded dock accessible desktop experience layered over an Android kernel ends up gaining traction, Google would be incredibly stupid not to followup with a competing technology as part of Android itself. And Google is not stupid.

If Canonical gets any traction with that it at all in the short term with any OEM shipping an Android phone, its just going to lead to Google rolling competing functionality into a future Android version. Given a choice between Canonical and Google to provide feature enhancements to Android phones... who is going to win OEM mindshare a year out from now?
Any environment UI layered over an Android kernel is pretty much well inside any forecastable functionality vector for Android itself. I'd actually a little shocked if Google and OEMs weren't already talking about something similar to this for the next gen of stupidly powerful phone hardware. I'm pretty sure Google could get a more traditional linux desktop up and running if their was a market interest in it. Canonical just needs to prove to them there is interest, and then Google will steal the OEMs back. Canonical's parasitic desktop offering is in a very precarious situation. Betting that Google can't out compete you on their own phone seems a pretty risky bet to me. Maybe Canonical is at the point in the gambling addiction where they need to take bigger risks because they need to score big to win back their mounting losses.

And let's be honest about the timescales here. This is going to take a year+ to really see traction as a deliverable. Is any OEM going to stand by Canonical for the year+ to gain traction without also badgering Google and encourging them to field a competing offering? OEMs are pretty shrewd when it comes to cost control, they have to be to make any money selling devices.

And we haven't even seen developer models for hardware with this feature yet. Well other than last year's Motorola Atrix concept and its weird lapdock idea and man even I totally missed that thing when it was first announced. Oh yes that was Ubuntu powered OEM dockable desktop interface offering. And it went mostly unnoticed. The fact that we are here nearly a year later talking about what looks like the same underlying integration that we didn't find interesting last year says some remarkable things, about the market and probably about the contractual relationship between Motorola and Canonical concerning the Atrix. Are we ready for this concept this year? Or is this still more visionary than what the market is ready to actually put on retail shelves at a pricepoint people will pay for?

-jef

Hostility?

Posted Feb 25, 2012 20:53 UTC (Sat) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

ChromeOS side-by-side with Android? I can see that. Interesting idea. And yes, that might actually have some legs.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 26, 2012 0:56 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

I think that Google is far more interested in the capability existing then in writing/controlling it themselves.

They started Chrome because Firefox wasn't doing a good job, the competition has caused Firefox to shape up significantly

they started Chrome OS because nobody else was working on an OS that would fit a similar niche, If Canonical does a good job with something like this, I don't see any reason for Google to try to crush it, I think it would be more likely that Google would instead try to support it. Google gets almost the same the benefit without having to do all the engineering, and more importantly, the support work.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 28, 2012 21:05 UTC (Tue) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

No, Google started Chrome project to have a platform they can control and improve upon.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:55 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]

> Canonical thinks there might be some excitement about the ability to have
> a "portable desktop" embedded in their phone.

I have wanted this for a couple of years, simply for the portability factor. I love my netbook but it is something I need a bag to carry. A phone I can just put in my pocket and dock it when I need to.

Now, this doesn't help me when I want to work on the bus, but this plus a pico projector and roll-up keyboard just might. :)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 12:00 UTC (Wed) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]

Well, firstly, that's not true - the openness of Android is one of the big selling points for Android handset manufacturers because they know the code can't be taken away from them, and they're able to hack their own stuff into and onto it however they wish, so even looking at this as a business pitch to OEMs, not to us, openness is something of value to the intended audience.

Secondly, even if that weren't the case, it would cost nothing to add a sentence to the end of the press release saying that the code would be open - it doesn't have to be the focus, it doesn't have to be a problem, but if you choose to leave it out entirely people are going to wonder why. In the case of Canonical, they know this, so it looks all the more strongly as though that omission must have been deliberate, and with a reason behind it.

Product deliveries and free software contributions

Posted Feb 22, 2012 16:36 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

I think you're right, but the target audience is what probably still explains the delta to expectations. I'd say the existing brand image of Ubuntu comes bundled with enough of freedom and openness so that it's enough to emphasize the other values in the press release. Ie. openness is something that is a pre-condition for making it possible to do some stuff, but it in itself is of no value to the target audience (or anyone) if there not something else of value as well. The word 'free' is mentioned in the the About Canonical section, though.

In the web material on the other hand it's clearly said the code is GPLv2/GPLv3, although with the doubt-causing "generally" word, unless the per-device fees mentioned earlier already made people to run away since they didn't realize it's related to using the trademark, not a software license fee.

But also in the more general case that there would be some proprietary parts somewhere, I welcome all products that bring more of the free software infrastructure to the new sectors like mobile area, to power us to create 100% free products as well like Spark.

This is related to the other discussions in the past like Jon is probably referring to as well. There seems to be a subgroup of people who are vocal about something not being 100% free software, while they are not actually that interested in free as in freedom software but getting companies to serve just them gratis. Likewise here, I don't think we can require Canonical to serve us CyanogenMod images to various devices unless there is a business case there, but if we get code that enables us to integrate Ubuntu to CyanogenMod or Replicant ourselves, then that's a huge service. What I applauded before (https://lwn.net/Articles/467725/) was Corbet's Android 4.0 release article (https://lwn.net/Articles/467464/). It highlighted both the good and the bad of Android. We should more often concentrate on the good and not only the bad that comes from our need to be ever vigilant. And actually mostly now the reaction to Ubuntu for Android has been exactly that, "cool stuff" reaction.

And yes the discussion has digressed pretty far, I wonder if that's good or bad. It's bad in the sense that it gets confusing to understand what's related directly to the article at hand, but good in the sense that wider issues get discussed.