Future of the Ubuntu SDK
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Afternoon all!
As an app developer I thought I would get the ball rolling on this conversation.
What's the plans with support for the Ubuntu SDK? (well mainly the ubuntu-ui-toolkit) Is UBPorts going to take this under it's umbrella or the yunit crew? Both projects are going to rely on it so i'm curious to know where this is going to end up
The developer story for click apps has been really bad for some time now. Which is one of the reasons I gave up working on click apps in favour of snaps, as Canonical seemed uninterested in fixing the current issues developers faced, and i could no longer build my app as a click package for touch. (well i could if I built on device but for a ~2hour build on a bq e4.5 it was not worth the effort)
Is there plans to make developing and packaging click apps enjoyable again? I really think this needs to be a big focus of whoever takes the sdk on as the platform is useless if it's not attractive to developers and easy for them to get going.
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I've only just noticed you still plan to move to snaps (yay!) so my question about developing with click is probably moot, but the rest still stands
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That's something we still have to think about. Imho it would be a very bad idea to deprecate the ubuntu-ui-toolkit, because a) it looks good and b) we shouldn't break the available apps (both core and on the store)...
As of improving clicks or moving to snaps quickly: We'll have to talk about that. The move to snaps is not very far down the pipe, so it won't be happening very soon and we'd break compatibility with a lot of older devices... Tricky.
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@NeoTheThird said in Future of the Ubuntu SDK:
That's something we still have to think about. Imho it would be a very bad idea to deprecate the ubuntu-ui-toolkit, because a) it looks good and b) we shouldn't break the available apps (both core and on the store)...
Can we even do that? In the Yunit GH Issue Tracker John brought up an important point: https://github.com/yunit-io/yunit/issues/17#issuecomment-292772023
It's likely that we cannot make use of Ubuntu's likeness without infringing on their IP, and a new SDK would have to be made.
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Let's talk to them before rushing into a new design. They might even allow us to use it... We'll see.
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@mixedCase well a fork of unity8 is always going to include the ubuntu-ui-toolkit seeing as it consists of those components.
Unity8 is GPL (so is the ubuntu-ui-toolkit) so a fork is allowed and it's obviously going to look like what came out of canonical. If canonical is no longer investing in any of it I highly doubt they will be interested in pursuing legal battles. IMO I think at this point they would be happier seeing it isn't going to waste. I also think it's way too early to be worrying about IP issues and think those bridges should be crossed only when they need to be as long as the GPL is respected in the meantime.
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@DanChapman I think we need to speak with them soon. It is hard to get in touch with the right person though, shall we aim for Mr. Shuttleworth on Google+ maybe? xD
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@Flohack First step would be to get in touch with the Ubuntu Community Council. Schedule a meeting with them, they are a friendly bunch and Mark is on the board
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@DanChapman said in Future of the Ubuntu SDK:
@Flohack First step would be to get in touch with the Ubuntu Community Council. Schedule a meeting with them, they are a friendly bunch and Mark is on the board
@Community Its meeting time
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It's probably not a problem, and if it is we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. See the following:
