Should Ubuntu Phone Rebase To Android?

[mark45]

I think the picture from the article is from Blade (1998), but I don't recall clown vampires in there.

[Luke]

This would be a bad idea, especially given efforts by Google to close all their top-level Android apps and require OEM's to either take all or none of the apps and sign contracts not to produce "incompatable" meaning non-approved versions of Android. Any OEM using Android as the basis of an Ubuntu Phone would risk being cut off by Google, while a current Ubuntu phone probably would not count as it has no relationship to Android except SurfaceFlinger, which Ubuntu hopes to replace with mir anyway. Any phone developed by Ubuntu should use open, not closed top level apps. Google is abandoning their original open apps one after another and replacing them with closed Google Play crap. An open Ubuntu Phone is something unique: a few sliders in "privacy" moved, and all malicious tracking requires using backdoors in the baseband radio or firmware exploits. In both Google and iPhone a lot of the tracking is done by top-level, closed apps. It stands to reason that a non-Android Ubuntu phone would be harder to track and send a lot less data to commerical servers with the right privacy settings. There is one thing that Ubuntu should copy from both Apple and Google though: default local device encryption to lock out both thieves and law enforcement efforts to snuff out political dissent. I love hearing the FBI whine about being unable to recover files locally, apparently their online tracking is not good enough to win in court.

[Luke]

Bad idea: Google is seeking to move as many apps as possible to being closed and on Google Play. Not one of those closed apps can be trusted and all are intended to make money for Google. If any OEM makes an "incompatable" Android fork Google will immediately deny them access to the Play Store and the closed apps, while an Ubuntu phone based on a traditional Linux distro with X, Wayland, or Mir and no relationship to Google would not violate the contract in question. Somehow the use of SurfaceFlinger has yet to raise this issue, but a whole distro on top of Android would be another matter. Like Amazon, such an OEM would need their own mapping service, etc for ALL of their phones, not just the Ubuntu one. No OEM that currently makes Android phone will risk crossing Google this way, Ironic, given that some say Google first wrote Android out of fears that Apple would lock out Google Search.

[sunnystormy]

...it doesnt have to be Samsung, it can be Sony or any other famous brand. I am not saying they will launch an Ubuntu phone but that such a thing would give a huge boost to any alternative mobile operating system, though it is much more important to obtain the favor of various telecoms, as market has shown that people buy other brands as well including Chinese brands, getting your phones in the stores of telecoms gives you the opportunity to reach a lot of people.

In an ideal world, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Go go open-source!

If we're to get traction on a GNU/Linux phone for the US, though, we may have to Kickstart it...

[Cerberus]

In an ideal world, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Go go open-source!

If we're to get traction on a GNU/Linux phone for the US, though, we may have to Kickstart it...

I believe it was said that an Ubuntu Touch phone for the US market will be announced this summer.

[hubick]

Forget Ubuntu Phone, *all* of Ubuntu should just rebase to Android, along with every other Linux distro.

The whole GNU/Linux ecosystem is far too full of neckbeards in love with the outdated C language and arcane tools like vi. If you want an open source desktop to actually be a success, maybe move forward finally and get with a modern language like Java coupled with a capable IDE like Eclipse.

That's why Android has 1.5 MILLION apps, and the much older GNU/Linux is a declining niche. It hurts because it's true.

[totex71]

The "problem" with Sailfish etc is the fact many people look upon such OSes as Android clones, "oh it runs Android applications and looks like Android I dont need that when I have real thing already in my smartphone". Geeks will appreciate the innards of Sailfish but average users wont, they will see it as Android clone, and average users make up for vast majority of smartphone buyers which is why Ubuntu Touch is doing it right with their own UI paradigm, scopes and convergence, they may fail of course but it is something new people wont associate with Android, I showed my Ubuntu phone to Android users and they were intrigued by the new UI, scopes, gestures etc. When I showed them videos of convergence demos they said they will seriously consider buying a converged phone once the convergence becomes available, of course they also said they need WhatsApp and Viber but I am sure Canonical is aware of that and is working with those companies to bring their applications to Ubuntu Touch, there is a hint somewhere online that Canonical is in talks with WhatsApp and Dropbox to bring their services to Ubuntu Touch.

You can never look at it as a clone when you choose wether you want to install android support from the market or not, the phone is completly free of android stuff from stock. Also it has pkcon package manager, and you can also install zypper package manager and all the good linux stuff from the repos directly from the terminal. Sailfish is its own and definently not a clone. It also have 2 native whatsapp clients. Trust me they have done an amazing job!.
You can't base opinions out of what people see if they havent try'd it yet. And im sure most people will find Sailfish OS's gesture based UI much quicker and handy to use than on Android or Ios. Have you even try'd Sailfish OS??
Are you also saying that sailfish dosen't do it "right" with their own UI and stuff? how come? they already have lots of native apps and the android support is for if theres something you need that isent available natively yet. how freaking awesome is that!? You did mention clone so may i ask you if you even know how linux works? you know if a program is compiled on one distro it can easily be modify'd to work on another distro because its also linux. I don't see how that makes it into a clone that they have something similar to wine on linux... is linux a clone of windows now because of wine? :P

[andre30correia]

one ubuntu phone here and it's good enought for web, calls, sms, take photos and read news in scope, i don't play games in phone why i need 1 million of them? the only app i miss its whatsapp but

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Canonical-Working-to-Add-Whatsapp-and-Dropbox-as-Services-and-Not-Apps-483172.shtml

[Delgarde]

I agree with you. IMO Canonical would have been better off if they targeted a SmartTV OS or a MediaCenter OS... Something they can sell to Samsung, Phillips, LG, etc to come preinstalled. Then the only real apps they need are the important that come preinstalled. It would be much easier for to start from that and then expand into the SmartPhone OS market later after apps come.

But why would any of those companies care about Canonical's offering? Android is already there, already free to use, and already a relatively mature product. Why would any of those companies look at what Canonical are doing, and say "we'll use that instead of Android"?

[chithanh]

Companies won't do this by themselves. Only if there is customer demand, ie. the mobile carriers want it.

The only exception is that there seems to be an unspecific desire for a third big player in mobile (obviously excluding Windows Phone which is only artificially kept alive because Microsoft is pumping billions into it, and strong-arming manufacturers to pre-install it on their smartphones). But as long as Google treats manufacturers and carriers well enough, it will be difficult for them to justify any expense towards helping Tizen/Sailfish/Ubuntu/FirefoxOS/whatever into that position.