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@kugiigi What did I do now???
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@mrlen
Click on the link next to their name and you'll see what they're referring to.Now as a moderator here, I moved the thread to "off topic" because as @C0n57an71n explained this is not what the General category was intended for.
We are open to discussion, but rambling about theories is not a discussion.
Consider this a warning, unfounded accusations are not tolerated here. We want to keep this community friendly and about Ubuntu Touch.I will keep the thread open thanks to @Emphrath and the last messages but please keep in mind that words can hurt and theories must be proven.
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@kugiigi Oh, I got what you are referring to now.
I was just mucking around. I don't sincerely believe this forum is infiltrated by Canonical staff that are bent on making sure UTouch doesn't succeed. Well, not fully -- lol.
I was just upset with C0n57an71n for being a bossy boots. To just cut me down and tell me what I was saying wasn't even worth discussing. That kind of thing really irked me.
In any case, I DO genuinely believe someone told Canonical to quit working in Ubuntu Touch.
Call that "unorganised discussion", call it an "unfounded accusation", call it "rambling" .. call me "stupid" or "manichean" .. whatever -- I genuinely believe (at this point) that Canonical dropped UT for reasons other than "it's not financially viable".
Because look at Sailfish OS. They're making a profit. Look at Fairphone and Pinephone. Look at Purism. They're all still trying. Look at the AOSP community.
Look at how privacy conscious people are becoming.
There's definitely money to be made in open source Linux OS.
Look at the strides Linux has made in the past 10 years. It's the OS of the future (in general), imho.
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@mrlen You cannot compare the UT project and Sailfish OS. Sailfish was developped by people who knew both the cellphone market and the actual hardware, had ties with hardware production, and, most importantly had an actual business plan, with only paid employees, aiming at only a few phones of the same brand (Sony) and able to actually make their own phone (jolla phone) !!! None of this has ever been reachable by Canonical, nor was it their goal. They wanted to make something that would progressively come from convergence with computer UI (unity), that could eventually run on a vast diversity of hardware (just like Linux Desktop does), with the help of the Debian community all the while essentially hoping that two things would happen: actors of the market would eventually disclose hardware drivers, and they would manage to get the leverage necessary to build an assembly chain for their phones. That could have worked, it didn't and that's it. Just watch the absolute pain Purism has gone through to set up assembly in China, and again, that should give you perspective. On a side note: if someone had purposefuly stopped the UT process at the time, why did this all-powerful entity hasn't stopped all the other successful (yet less ambitious) alternatives to happen ? Why were the people of Ubports even able to get the source code ? That makes no sense to me.
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@emphrath I don't have the answers. I can't figure out why a lot of stupid things happen in this world -- yet, they happen. I can't figure out why a lot of people think they way they do -- yet, there they are, baffling any semblance of logic and reason; and in NUMBERS. Hoards, even.
We can discuss semantics endlessly, but at the end of the day, Canonical has hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and access to countless programmers that are willing to (and do) work for nothing. Yet, they couldn't even get UT to a point where even ONE basic app for each task/project would work? *Kind of like what Apple did.
I'm just not buying it. I know I'm sounding like a broken record at this point -- so I won't keep repeating myself. I personally believe a crowd funding campaign for $250k would get UT over the line to a point where it would be adopted by hundreds of thousands of more people -- which would generate the interest (and the money) to add more stuff. Purism did a crowdfunding campaign.
I know there are some limitations like an old kernel, etc. But still. It's just sad to see such a great project shining so brightly, but (as it appears to me) .. fading out the back door.
Ubuntu Touch is the BEST "idea". The most promising Idea. At the end of the day, it could probably even be programmed to run android apps, like Sailfish can. Like Linux runs Windows stuff with wine.
UT is like 95% the way there. What a waste. What a shame.
And SHAME ON CANONICAL as far as I'm concerned -- and I don't care what their excuse is. They have the money to get this over the line.
None of you have convinced me that Canonical didn't start out right, but got overtaken by monopolistic greed. It also makes me think twice about Ubuntu in general actually.
I'm not trying to start any trouble or accuse anyone. I'm just saying my thoughts. I could be wrong..
..bit something doesn't smell right.
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One last thing. Kudos to everyone that continues to try to develop UT. You're all awesome. I know you're doing it on the smell of an oily rag -- which is more than I can say for Canonical. I truly hope someone with money comes along and props UT back up to where it should have been. There's still hope. Maybe all this effort needs is a decent marketing company behind it.
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@mrlen do you know the partnership between UBports and Volla Team ? See https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/volla-phone-free-your-mind-protect-your-privacy#/
The UBports installer will eventually allow Volla OS, UT and Sailfish OS to be interchanged.
Volla OS currently works well and allows to run Androïd apps. UT on the Volla is in development phase and is working more or less well currently. -
@domubpkm wow, nice! Wait! I see the light...
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@mrlen you might find this interview with Mark helpful (from this time mark, but ofc its also worth listening tothe full thing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDHL3youjIY&feature=youtu.be&t=1840
I think it explains a lot how much personal interest Mark had into the phone project, but at the same time saw the problem that squeezing it into the market would cost more money and more resources than they had back then.
I dont believe there is any conspiracy going on, but just listen to his words, he even quotes that he loves UBports
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@flohack He seems quite genuine. But now his passion is to be creative with light bulbs and speakers that have an IP address? If he's that hard up for something to do, he should get back to Ubuntu Touch.
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@mrlen said in Powers that be holding alternatives back | Conspiracy?:
I can't figure out why a lot of people think they way they do
Hi, I think that's just you being young.
Everyone is selfish in some way even the most generous people, that's just how we work.
And everyone has a different goal, a different motivation to do things.When someone act in a strange way according to you it's more probably because you don't share the same goals in live and so you made different choices.
A company is a very strange entity and it's hard for the average joe to understand how it works.
Big companies seem to spend millions, even billions in stupid things that won't work or with people unfit to the task. On can see this if they look closer to one of those projects.
But the overall result is a flourishing company... Not logical, not efficient ???
Maybe there are better ways, but it's not worth the trouble from a company stand point.If a company is profitable, that's because their strategy works. There is a certain logic to it and if cannot understand it that's not because your stupid or something. It's just that you don't imagine the goal the company is trying to achieve. And that's not something obvious even if it's money related...
You can speculate about these goals, but you'll never know if you don't have a seat at the board of directors.
Most problem in the world come from misunderstanding others. My advice, think twice about others legitimate motivation and you'll start to understand them a bit better.Peace.
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@mrlen If light bulbs and speakers that have an IP address is something you can make continuous money with, and Ubuntu Touch isn´t, then, a company must follow the former alternative.
Mark Shuttleworth invested millions of his own money already in Ubuntu, more than a usual business owner would do, and that money wont flow forever. They tried hard to create money from the phone platform, but it did not work out, partly for the reasons he mentioned in this interview. Period.
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@mrlen said in Powers that be holding alternatives back | Conspiracy?:
In any case, I DO genuinely believe someone told Canonical to quit working in Ubuntu Touch.
You should immediately stop believing this, because it's not at all true.
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@dobey I'll stop saying it, because I know it's not well received -- but I can't stop thinking it. I'll move onto other, more important topics now.
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@mrlen It's not about whether it's well received or not. It's just simply and utterly false. You have conceived a conspiracy based on your own false assumptions about many things you have no understanding of. Businesses do not work the way you think they do, based on the many assumptions you've posted in this thread.
I was there when it happened. Everything you've said is false. A lot of people are of course unhappy with the decision, but it has nothing to do with any of the things you are imagining.
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Ok, now I realize I was completely uninvolved in any of this, but as a UT user on a Nexus 4 for well over a month and someone who made a failed Ubuntu respin in the 2010's, I feel I can settle the question in this with sufficient knowledge and explain why this conspiracy is completely wrong.
I will explain it from a complete outsider perspective. It all started with Ubuntu Netbook edition, which was the first version that had an early version of the interface we use on our devices today. Using Ubuntu with a phone was discussed, but back then, that was obviously long before the age of full Android dominance.
Then Ubuntu Touch came out and Mark discussed the issue of convergence, which back then was like science fiction. It was great, but only worked on a couple of devices. Also decisions made for the desktop environment to accomodate the move to phones ticked off a lot of users who moved to other respins or distros (ok maybe not that many but at least me). So now we're at like 2010ish.
That was the year of the Ubuntu Edge (ok it was 2014). Mark had the idea to make a state of the art Ubuntu Phone called the Ubuntu Edge which would have made your iPhone eat dirt, plus it could do convergence, and legit believed he could raise $32M to make one on Indiegogo. He was close (ok in the end he wasn't. He was like $20M off but that first week was super exciting.) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/
So finally, I think, I think the technical vision (which was futuristic and awesome) became overshadowed by the financial vision (huge profits as would-be future iPhone users would mock the green-text poors from their amazing, high-end convergence devices and was incredibly unrealistic for an obvious reason I will detail) and I feel like the Edge campaign was a bit of a wake-up call from reality.
It wasn't long before I think that took a toll on Mark, who from what I understand from what I've read of him is basically successful at everything he does. As someone who has occasionally failed, I completely understand how painful that can be, and so it's understandable why he walked away from the project and the Unity DE to put back Gnome. However, the reason the vision failed is kind of obvious: Ubuntu's popularity among new regular users is that you can bring computers whose technical requirements failed Windows back to life. In short, Ubuntu's popularity among regular users was bringing old computers back, while powering new devices was a much later focus of interest. Certainly, I have never been part of the $600 phone crowd. So Mark focused on Ubuntu Desktop and gave UT back to the community to work on. However, before the Installer, installing Ubuntu Touch looked a lot like making Puppy Linux run the latest Chrome. (No, no, it's not as easy as using the portable version.)
So they quietly have been working to put UT on more devices, which kept a lot of people under the radar interested. Librem came out and with the whole $599 pre-order a lot of people were like "oh we've seen this before." But then in the fall, suddenly this weird PinePhone company came out offering $100 phones with... Ubuntu Touch on it. Well, I may not be a tech person, but I do know that $100 minus $10 for UBports equals A REALLY CHEAP PHONE and that's the language I speak. Having raged quietly against the monster Android's become, I became obsessed with finding how these Pinephone guys did it. What's the cheap tech, I wanted to know. I wanted to know. (Also they sold out of the phones.) So I think I duckduckgo'd "low cost ubuntu touch" or something and found the page with the Nexus 4. And there was an easy installer. And bless that guy who was selling a Nexus 4 with UT on it for $80 (totally fair if you add in the labor cost) but as someone who got Puppy Linux to run the latest Chrome, that installer looked really easy, so I bought a Nexus 4 for $35 and a week for delivery and an hour later had UT running on it.
So it's not that there was a conspiracy, it's that UT only became massively accessible a few months ago and everyone's like "how this phone work so great" when in fact it's the product of years of work that no one noticed and it's only shining now.
I believe this authoritatively settles the question. I have spoken.
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@totalrando said in Powers that be holding alternatives back | Conspiracy?:
So now we're at like 2010ish.
Nope. That was 2012/2013 timeframe when first version of Ubuntu for devices was public.
Between the Netbook remix and Ubuntu for devices (and Ubuntu for Android, which never actually happened), was just primary focus of developing the Unity environment (and services like file sync and music streaming, through Ubuntu One).
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@dobey I wasn't exact on time. My memory is far from perfect on events. But I think I'm right and that's what matters.
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@totalrando You're a little bit off. There was a heck of a lot done between the Ubuntu Edge campaign, and Canonical dropping development of Unity and Ubuntu for devices. Also, Ubuntu Edge would not have resulted in the same Ubuntu Touch that we have today, if it had been successful, as the goal there was to have an Android phone with a version of Ubuntu optimized for running on the phone when plugged into external display, more like Samsung DeX or how MaruOS works.
Things that led to the decision are a lot more complex than the simplified timeline presented. It's not worth it to go too deeply into things here though, but suffice to say the OP's conspiracy theorizing is way off base. Google and Apple both have enough money that if they wanted to stop "alternatives" they could have simply purchased Canonical in whole, and dismantled all the projects, including Ubuntu (because why would Apple want an alternative to macOS). But obviously none of that ever happened. It's akin to placing the same theory as the reason for why Blackberry or Windows Mobile also failed. Just nonsense.
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@dobey I feel like what's being lost in all this is that I got Ubuntu Touch running on a Nexus 4 in no time flat with this easy installer you all created, and that's really the most important thing.
But I do agree this theory is hilariously wrong.
