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Mir Is Back To Running On Phones, Thanks To UBports

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  • Mir Is Back To Running On Phones, Thanks To UBports

    Phoronix: Mir Is Back To Running On Phones, Thanks To UBports

    While Canonical divested from their Linux smartphone plans, they continue maintaining the Mir display server as any regular Phoronix reader should know. Mir continues to be developed with Wayland functionality for IoT and desktop use-cases but the

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Great to see the progress the Ubports crew are making. Props also to the Mir developers who are doing a great job documenting and disseminating their work; https://community.ubuntu.com/c/mir

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    • #3
      Originally posted by phoronix View Post
      Mir continues to be developed with Wayland functionality for IoT and desktop use-cases but the Mir news,
      So it can't be used by the guys who write news about Mir.

      (actually HTML typo since a large portion of text is gone)

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      • #4
        Originally posted by tildearrow View Post
        (actually HTML typo since a large portion of text is gone)
        Michael : the HTML typo is still there.


        And overall regarding the whole UBPort thing : it's an interesting effort at providing an alternative to Android and iOS (the same reason I personally run Sailfish), but somebody should definitely consider starting to pour resources into Andbox if we want any of those alternatives to have any chance at attracting a more widespread attention.

        (In my opinion, one of the reasons why Microsoft (knowingly) failed, and while Jolla still miraculously managed to survive).

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        • #5
          Originally posted by DrYak View Post

          Michael : the HTML typo is still there.


          And overall regarding the whole UBPort thing : it's an interesting effort at providing an alternative to Android and iOS (the same reason I personally run Sailfish), but somebody should definitely consider starting to pour resources into Andbox if we want any of those alternatives to have any chance at attracting a more widespread attention.

          (In my opinion, one of the reasons why Microsoft (knowingly) failed, and while Jolla still miraculously managed to survive).
          Weird comparison. Microsoft has to be dominant player or not be a player at all. That's the benefit of being small; you're allowed to be niche. And why does everything have to be dominant and mainstream anyway? That just eliminates the opportunity to be good.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by jo-erlend View Post
            And why does everything have to be dominant and mainstream anyway?
            Networking effect.

            A niche platform has few users, and therefore few commercial companies are interested in developing native apps for it. So there are few official apps except for what the small community of users are making on their spare time.

            And then come the problems :

            - you would want to use this niche platform because you like what it proposes.

            - but you need some apps (e.g.: your bank insist that you use their own home-grown two-factor authentication, but they only make apps for iOS and Android, and never for whatever tiny niche OS your use).

            - you also need to chat with your friend. But they are all on some proprietary chat system (e.g.: whatsapp) because all their own friends are on it and they are not interested into install some weird bizarre opensource app (Matrix, Openwhisper, etc.) just to be able to chat with you. That proprietary chat system only has apps for the main ecosystems (Facebook is developping WhatsApp only for iOS and Android, and they have started to drop support for some older OS like Symbian) and is utterly aggressive against any attempt of 3rd party client (Facebook lawyers seem extremely trigger happy with Cease and desist letters)

            etc.

            Basically, if you want to use your smartphone for anything more than Voice+SMS+Email, you need app support, but nobody is going to write apps for you while you're only in a small niche.

            Compatibility layers (like potentially Andbox for lots of linux systems, like Myriad's Alien-Dalvik currently on Sailfish, etc.) help bridge this gap by tapping into the dominant ecosystem for most of the currently missing apps.



            Microsoft is an example of a developer who didn't manage to get a significant position in the smartphone field, and among other, the fact that few apps are ported to their OS is among the reasons why they didn't manage to secure a 3rd position after Android and iOS but are currently slowly disappearing.

            Microsoft actually knew this, and they even tried to make an Android compatibility layer. They just failed at this task, and WSL (aka Bash on Windows) is actually a descendent of whatever they managed to salvage out of this failed attempt.



            If you want your OS to succeed, you need manufacturer to deploy it on their devices. But if manufacturer are to consider your OS, there needs to be user demand for that OS. And (most) users currently are only interested into smartphone where they can run all their usual apps. If they miss their apps, they won't be interested in your OS.

            Jolla's Sailfish is a counter example of this: they marketed their system as "something new you can test, but you won't be missing those Android apps you really need", which is one of the reasons I think why they aren't completely dead yet.


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            • #7
              Originally posted by DrYak View Post

              Networking effect.

              A niche platform has few users, and therefore few commercial companies are interested in developing native apps for it. So there are few official apps except for what the small community of users are making on their spare time.

              And then come the problems :

              - you would want to use this niche platform because you like what it proposes.

              - but you need some apps (e.g.: your bank insist that you use their own home-grown two-factor authentication, but they only make apps for iOS and Android, and never for whatever tiny niche OS your use).

              - you also need to chat with your friend. But they are all on some proprietary chat system (e.g.: whatsapp) because all their own friends are on it and they are not interested into install some weird bizarre opensource app ...

              Basically, if you want to use your smartphone for anything more than Voice+SMS+Email, you need app support, but nobody is going to write apps for you while you're only in a small niche.

              Compatibility layers (like potentially Andbox for lots of linux systems, like Myriad's Alien-Dalvik currently on Sailfish, etc.) help bridge this gap by tapping into the dominant ecosystem for most of the currently missing apps.

              If you want your OS to succeed, you need manufacturer to deploy it on their devices.
              That sounds like a very circular argument to me. You can't make a niche product, because that means you can't be mainstream, which is required in order to not be niche.

              I'm a Linux user and I have been for more than twenty years. I have always had more than email. What has changed that it is now impossible for people to use Free Software? There has never ever been more Linux users than now.

              You use the example of a bank that requires the use of proprietary software in order to use their services. I'm currently in that specific situation, because banks in Norway require that phones are not rooted if you want to use their payment system. I'm not going to submit to that regime, so I say no thank you.

              I don't use proprietary services like the ones you describe. Believe it or not, I still have friends even if I don't use WhatsApp or Skype or Facebook to talk to them. The fact that you argue this kind of power as a reason to design a system, is why you would never ever want to use any system I prefer to use. That's ok. We are supposed to live in a moderately free society.

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              • #8
                jo-erlend

                If you don't spend some effort to attract a significant user base, you won't get a sufficient community of hackers that could help maintain and develop your platform (and you won't gain enough interest in 3rd party developpers neither)

                Basically, you'll end-up with a "smartphone" which just a Raspberry Pi and a few custom chips, running some gentoo that you compiled your self, and that barely works. And you can't ask for help to get it work better, because the "whole community" is just 5 other users, of which not all share the same problems as you (so they don't even have an idea) and don't have the resources (time, knowledge) to help you solve the problems they understand.

                I prefer to use platforms with a moderately larger community than that (it's a personal choice, I know)


                Bank : In my case I was lucky to be able to solve it with a combination of some banks and procedure also working with dedicated hardware (which has the bonus of not being connected unlike a smartphone app) and the remaining being compatible with my android layer on my Sailfish X.


                Chat : in the past half-decade, I've been on and off Whatsapp (depending on the company playing whack-a-mole with the 3rd party implementations. Like MojoWhatsUp or Mitakulu or WhatsUp. Or my smartphone having an android layer for the official app). My social circle happens to heavily depend on WhatsApp, they organize nearly everything through that.
                My ability to follow news, join events, etc. depended on a couple of close dedicated friends relaying the relevant information during the periods I wasn't on the network. Not everyone was happy to constantly need to jump through hoops just to placate my weird choice of phones.
                I'm observing that other friends running into smartphone problems (i.e.: needing to fall back to a feature phone while their phone gets repaired) can similarly get left behind.
                Yes, you could say that my circle of friends are dumb. But it's a kind of dumbness that is rather widespread here around.
                Seems to me that the whole society here around is gone dumb and completely forgotten the fact that you don't need to restrict yourself to a single company when communicating.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by DrYak View Post
                  jo-erlend

                  If you don't spend some effort to attract a significant user base, you won't get a sufficient community of hackers that could help maintain and develop your platform (and you won't gain enough interest in 3rd party developpers neither)

                  That's my point. If nobody is allowed any access, then how can you possibly build a user base? I mean, we have many systems that can run on the hardware, including Sailfish, Ubuntu Phone and Android. I don't understand why the new OS must be finished with complete set of apps before we can get the hardware, which would also allow some enthusiasts to get involved if that's what they want. If it is known that nobody will get involved, then I'm not sure I know what the purpose of the project is.

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