Hi everyone,

I'm letting you all know that I have ended my contract with the UBports Foundation, effective January 28, 2022. Therefore, my role as Development Manager within the UBports community has ended.

What's changing?

My departure is likely to change how the UBports Foundation's Board of Directors, Board of Trustees, contracted project teams, community, and the public interact. This change is most likely for the better: leadership may be formed within all of our (already tightly-knit) bodies to report on progress and next steps. Whereas I've been a nexus for project information, tasks, people, and interaction, these centralized functions will now be distributed between interested parties.

Or, at least, that's the hope. This project has never functioned without you, dear reader. Your encouragement, leadership, and contributions make Ubuntu Touch possible. Now there will be a space left where I once contributed that pulls in new, unlikely faces.

I'm not dying, or at least I'm not planning on it. I'll still be available for the occasional question or two.

I'm also still available for my duties as the UBports Foundation Membership Committee chair. Watch out for more news about my assignments soon.

I've left my leadership responsibilities to the Ubuntu Touch based on Ubuntu 20.04 project in the capable hands of our contracted project team.

It is undecided whether the Ubuntu Touch Q&A will continue in its current format, use a new format, end its run, or do something else.

Why leave?

I'm all too familiar with the speculation when a project leader resigns. Allow me to alleviate some of that.

I enjoy what I do, I appreciate and support our team. I love that we were able to build a kind, friendly community that's open to a great many people. We're building excellent software, even if we're still a little unsure of what it should do best. However, I've already stated that I experienced burnout last year. I took a week off in October to attempt to alleviate the problem. It was not enough.

For the past four months, I've put myself under more stress and given myself less time to recover from it. Ultimately, it's led to me being unable to meet my expectations and yours. That feeling of missed expectations compounds my stress, and it's all snowballed. I now dread turning on my laptop, opening Telegram or my email, and even opening GitLab. Surely this can't be healthy. My resulting mood in communication isn't conducive to a healthy, productive environment.

At this point, I think I've read every self-help book. I'm a newfound expert in getting rid of distractions, reducing stress, working intensely, being kind to myself, self-reflection, and generally being more productive or healthy. Unfortunately, these have not combined into a proper set of actions and environment for me to thrive.

I also have dissonance compared to the UBports Foundation's values. The Foundation is set up to own copyrights, collaborate between disparate organizations, and drive projects where those organizations cannot do so themselves. This model does not have space for a rolling-contract, non-project-based, jack-of-all-trades community, development, and product manager any longer. Additionally, I've watched our community sentiment change from "what can we do together?" to "what can the Foundation do for me?" I have contributed to this misunderstanding of purpose, partially because I want to do things that the Foundation does not do. But what I would like in an ideal world and what we have are much different things.

What's next?

I'll be taking a bit of time to decompress and reorient. During this time, I'll be mostly unavailable for contact. Then, I'll come back around to finish things left incomplete, particularly in the Membership Committee.

Two years ago to this day, Canonical announced the discontinuation of Ubuntu Touch. But, you know, as a valued community member, that we have all worked hard to keep Ubuntu Touch alive and the project is stronger than ever.

We are proud to announce that UBports is now about to be granted the status of an official foundation that is recognized by the authorities in Berlin!

Read our official announcement here:
https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-blog-1/post/it-s-official-the-ubports-foundation-is-ready-for-launch-215

Thank you for all of your support, and we look forward to even better years to come.

TL;DR

• The revised Unity8 and Mir 1.x are coming in OTA-12
• You may wish to switch from the devel to rc release channel on any devices you're using daily.
• We might need to rewrite history on some git repositories. If this happens, we will keep a tag named xenial-before-2019-edge-merge to preserve the history.

The rest

We've been talking about "the Edge merge" for a while, and I understand that it is a rather opaque term to many people. I hope I'm able to answer your questions about what "the Edge merge" really is.

In short, what we'll be doing over the next few days is merging code which currently deploys to our Edge channel into branches which deploy to our normal release cycle. That releases daily into devel, which gets promoted to rc, which in turn gets promoted to stable. The next update on our stable channel will be OTA-12.

In order to understand why this is important, first I'll differentiate Edge from the normal release cycle. Ideally, most of our maintenance and feature work gets deployed into our xenial repository. This repository is used, along with the default Ubuntu repositories, to build the Ubuntu Touch images which land in devel. The Edge images are built with the xenial_-_edge repository overlayed on our xenial repository, allowing us to test large migrations before they impact a large number of users. So, at a base level, Edge is just devel with newer or more experimental packages laid over it.

Currently, we are using the Edge repository to test a huge migration away from Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015 - as deployed in Ubuntu Touch up until now - to Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017 - the latter had begun to neglect phone users in an attempt to bring it to the desktop faster. That neglect caused a large number of issues which needed to be fixed. Having these changes built into images for every device every day (in Edge) for months has allowed us to iron out most of these issues.

We will also need to rewrite git history on the xenial branch in some cases, as the phone and desktop platforms diverged enough to prevent them from being merged cleanly. In these cases, we will save the old xenial branch in a tag called xenial-before-2019-edge-merge to ensure the history is preserved.

During this time, we will pause updates to the devel channel for all devices. This will prevent you from receiving an update which could be very broken and, possibly, render your device unbootable. If you don't want to come right onto the bleeding edge when we re-enable those updates, now is a good time to switch to rc or stable using the UBports Installer (don't check the option to wipe your device) or by heading to "Settings -> Updates -> Update Settings -> Channels".

Ubuntu Touch will have many fixes after this merge is finished, but it will also be broken in some new and interesting ways. Our goal as we reach OTA-12 is ensuring that the transition from OTA-11 is smooth. This will involve fixing those new and interesting issues.

After https://github.com/ubports/unity8/issues/121 was filed and we've had not one, but many sour discussions about this or related topics, I figure we should try to slow it down a bit.

People are getting antsy (read: livid) about the changes to Ubuntu Touch in upcoming releases. In this post I'll try to tackle the issue of "home." More specifically, Where is home in Ubuntu Touch now?

The case for going home

Home, in terms of an operating environment, is the first place where a user arrives and a place they can return to. It's taken many forms over the years of personal computing:

• 7000 BYTES FREE, READY.
• $ (or C:\>)
• Windows' Start menu (Then its Start screen, then its Start menu again)
• Screens which are actually called "Home" on Android and iOS

The concept of Home is slightly different for every operating environment, but it serves a few important purposes:

• It is used to start other interactions with the environment (applications, for example)
• It is "returnable," a user should always know how to get to it. Now that operating environments are used for multitasking, this shouldn't be by destroying all running activities.
• It is "safe," a user should always know what to do once they get there

Home serves as an anchor point for the environment's experience. If the user gets lost or stuck, returning home should help.

The Dash

We can currently assert the following things about Unity8 on a mobile handset:

• Long swiping from the left of the screen always returns you to the Dash.
• The Dash is a window and is shown in the app stack.
• Due to the last point, the Dash remains focused when the device is locked and unlocked.

The dash is home.

The Drawer

The following things about those assertions have changed:

• We no longer have the Dash. Long swiping from the left of the screen opens the App Drawer.
• The Drawer is not a window and does not appear in the app switcher.
• The Drawer does not remain focused when the device is locked and unlocked.

It is consistent with our desktop experience.

But it's got everyone up in arms.

Where is home now?

By far, the most important question I see us asking ourselves (indirectly) is, "where is home now?" The answer... isn't straightforward.

Is the Background home?

Users will land in the Ubuntu Touch experience at the Background (NOT the desktop, which implies you may put things on it):

When arriving at the Background, the Launcher (some call it the dock) appears to greet them. The user may arrive at the background by booting the device or closing all their apps. By offering the Launcher, the background can be used to start other interactions AND it is safe. However, it breaks one of our main rules: There is no way to return to the background without destroying all of your activities.

Is the Drawer home?

The Drawer may be opened by long-swiping from the left of the screen or tapping on the big ol' orange button:

This can be done at any time. This makes the Drawer returnable. It is very simple, so I assert it is safe. And, well, it starts new interactions.

Something about it has people really uncomfortable, though. Maybe it's the fact that, unlike the Dash (or iOS' home, or Android's home), the Drawer is dismissed when you lock the device. This resonates with me a bit, a serial home-presser before locking my device. I like to start at square one whenever I pick up my phone.

Can we find home?

Does this add a new requirement to home? Does home also need to be durable (or comfortable?), lasting through transitions to lock states or other huge events?

Or, is this okay? Is this a case of a different design being more efficient? The ideal use of Unity8 is pinning applications to the Launcher, where they can be managed and switched between (even on the lock screen).

(Maybe the Launcher is home, or the lock screen!)

Home must be durable

If home must be durable, the Background is close to being home. The only problem is we can't return to it easily. There are an infinite number of ways to solve this, here are a couple I've thought of:

Go to background as an app

Hide apps appears as another window in the app switcher. It is always located behind the most recently used app, as shown here.

Go to background as an action

We discussed having Go to background as a specific action you perform on the app switcher. It could also go somewhere else, but there's nowhere to put it. This issue proposes having it be the "Cancel" action of the app switcher, when you tap in the blank space. That caused a lot of upset since it changes the current behavior (tapping in the blank space goes to the app you were just using, today you learned) and is not explicit (as a Python developer, I agree). Here's a way to make it explicit:

(It took me twenty minutes to make that, don't judge me)

Nah, this is more efficient

If home doesn't need to be durable to be home, maybe there is a way to offer an olive branch to people who think it does?

What do you think?

Does home need to be durable? If so, is the Background a good place to have that interaction? Is there a good way to get there?

How do we keep the home interaction consistent between phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop?

Note that "just add another setting to..." is not an acceptable compromise. More customization means more development overhead, makes it more difficult to support users (you might have to do this, or you might have to do that), and takes away from a consistent experience. (If you want to discuss this metatopic, please make another thread.)

Addendum: ground rules

You're talking about a bunch of colorful rectangles, remember. Take your time when replying and keep it respectful and on-topic. This is a good place to brainstorm, but make your ideas concrete with mockups rather than talking about them abstractly.

Hi everyone,

It's been about two years since we added QtWebEngine to Ubuntu Touch, beginning the arduous process of replacing Canonical's Oxide rendering engine.

At the time, all of the webapps and HTML5 apps on the store relied on Oxide's unique quirks. Some expected the behavior from Ubuntu.Web, others explicitly imported Oxide libraries.

Since then, things have changed. We've become increasingly present on 64-bit ARM devices where Oxide simply isn't available. Many of our users coming to the platform now can't take advantage of these apps.

Many app developers have released their apps to take advantage of Morph.Web or direct QtWebEngine imports. However, I believe there are still some holdouts on the store... Either by lack of maintainership or by choice. The Ogra webapp container in particular only uses the Oxide rendering engine. Any apps made with it simply don't work on the PinePhone, Volla Phone, Xperia X, Nexus 6P, or many other new ports...

With this in mind, I propose that we make OTA-15 of Ubuntu Touch the final release which includes the Oxide rendering engine. In other words, OTA-16 should not include Oxide. That gives a roughly three-month period to transition any remaining apps to the new rendering engine (on top of the two years already provided).

Removing the Oxide rendering engine takes a pretty large, not-updated piece of code out of the image. That means smaller updates for everyone, more space in the rootfs to provide newer features, and a more secure device overall.

Is this timeline with OTA-16 the first non-Oxide update feasible? What else do we need to consider before its removal that we can prioritize for OTA-14 and OTA-15?

What follows is a log of most of the changes to Ubuntu Touch between OTA-15 and OTA-16 (as of the March 8, 2021 Release Candidate).

OTA-16 is our second-largest release ever. About 1/3 of the binary packages installed in Ubuntu Touch changed in this release.

This changelog does not include all changes. In particular, changes to the following components are not included:

• Applications preinstalled using click packages
• Device-specific changes made in their Halium build trees

[Rodney]

Upgrade 21 Qt source packages from v5.9.5 to v5.12.9
Backport ~20 of Qt's dependent source packages to Xenial
Remove the Oxide web rendering engine: ubports/morph-browser#419
Fix build of U1DB, fixes ubports/u1db-qt#2: ubports/u1db-qt#3
Add 16.04.5 app framework: ubports/ubuntu-touch-meta#59
Fix QML warnings caused by Qt 5.12 update: ubports/ubuntu-ui-extras#66
Fix QML module dependencies for Qt 5.12: ubports/unity-api#27
Fix content-hub under Qt 5.12: ubports/content-hub#16
Handle changes to Qt private window state API in qtubuntu, fixes ubports/qtubuntu#3: ubports/qtubuntu#17
Fix maliit-framework's build against Qt 5.12: ubports/maliit-framework-packaging#4
Replace transitional dependencies and run online-accounts-api tests on arm64: ubports/online-accounts-api#2
Update QML module dependencies: ubports/accounts-qml-module#2
Update libusermetrics dependencies: ubports/libusermetrics#11
Update qtubuntu-print for private API changes in Qt 5.12: ubports/qtubuntu-print#1
Clean up system-settings warnings and failed tests after Qt 5.12: ubports/system-settings#275
Update ubuntu-push-qml dependencies: ubports/ubuntu-push-qml#3
Update dialer-app dependencies: ubports/dialer-app#148
Update dependencies and fix build of unity-webapps-qml: ubports/unity-webapps-qml#1
Fix runtime errors of morph-browser against Qt 5.12: ubports/morph-browser#446
Fix ubuntu-system-settings-online-accounts import errors and run tests on arm64: ubports/ubuntu-system-settings-online-accounts#4
Add support for Qt 5.12 and 5.15 to ciborium (why is it like this): ubports/ciborium#47
Fix messaging-app for Qt 5.12: ubports/messaging-app#261
Fix qqc2-suru-style for Qt 5.12: ubports/qqc2-suru-style#52
Update dependencies of mediaplayer-app: ubports/mediaplayer-app#17
Build Oxide rendering engine against Qt 5.12 (but don't install it by default on Ubuntu Touch): ubports/oxide-packaging#2
Port Ubuntu UI Toolkit to Qt 5.12: ubports/ubuntu-ui-toolkit#103
Port Lomiri to Qt 5.12: ubports/unity8#355
Log the whole filename when a file fails to save: ubports/qtubuntu-camera#16
Fix Launcher becoming invisible when an app updated its messages bubble while the Drawer was open, fixes ubports/unity8#361: ubports/unity8#362
Move internal implementations of QQC2-suru-style components into a subdirectory, fixes ubports/qqc2-suru-style#53: ubports/qqc2-suru-style#54
Fix address-book-app for Qt 5.12: ubports/address-book-app#177
Fix imports in Fingerprint settings plugin, fixes ubports/system-settings#24: ubports/system-settings#25
Switch to ubuntu-touch-sounds instead of ubuntu-sounds: ubports/telephony-service#22
Fix system-settings displaying "nan minutes" for screen timeouts: ubports/system-settings#279
Import and use Morph.WebContext correctly: ubports/morph-browser#466
Fix display of QtWidgets applications under Qt 5.12: ubports/qtubuntu#19

[Marius Gripsgard]

Fix automatic brightness on Android8+ and Treble devices: ubports/repowerd#14
Add missing include for std::isnan in morph-browser's domain-settings-model: ubports/morph-browser#447
Register the Morph.Web QML type: ubports/morph-browser#448
Do not create runtime for biometryd's dbus stubs: ubports/biometryd#4

[Ratchanan Srirattanamet]

On Android 9 and Android 7 devices, make alarms and ringtones play through headphones and speakers even when a microphone is plugged in: ubports/pulseaudio-modules-droid#11 and ubports/pulseaudio-modules-droid#12
Make unity-system-compositor compatible with newer Mir while maintaining Mir 1.2 support: ubports/unity-system-compositor#19
Fix trust-store hanging when it failed to display a prompt, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1668: ubports/trust-store#14
Update GStreamer and bring in gst-droid, allowing an accelerated camera viewfinder on the PinePhone and video recording on 32-bit Android 7 devices.

["natur-produkt"]

Fix switching mobile data SIMs in some cases on some Android 9 devices: ubports/indicator-network#57

[Chris Clime]

Update morph-browser user agent to "like Android 9" instead of "like Android 4.4", fixes ubports/morph-browser#374: ubports/morph-browser#386
Fix page zoom settings sometimes not being applied, fixes ubports/morph-browser#350 and ubports/morph-browser#360: ubports/morph-browser#352
Re-enable custom user agents and add "Always Deny" checkbox when a website requests location access, fixes ubports/morph-browser#320: ubports/morph-browser#368
Fix QtQuickControls2 style being set incorrectly in morph-browser, fixes ubports/morph-browser#440: ubports/morph-browser#442

["Flohack"]

Add option to rotate boot screen to upside-down orientations: ubports/unity-system-compositor#18

[Kugi Eusebio]

Make deleting a file from the morph-browser downloads list also delete the downloaded file, fixes ubports/morph-browser#330: ubports/morph-browser#412
Make tabs taller when using the tablet/desktop browser UI, fixes ubports/morph-browser#221: ubports/morph-browser#418
Fixed morph-browser click name, fixes ubports/morph-browser#335: ubports/morph-browser#423
Add visual option to reopen most recently closed tab: ubports/morph-browser#416
Overhaul Downloads UI with "recent downloads" panel, a toolbar icon which shows downloads in progress, and more, fixes ubports/morph-browser#193: ubports/morph-browser#415
Avoid selecting a tab when trying to swipe on its title, fixes ubports/morph-browser#426: ubports/morph-browser#427
Stop the browser from rotating itself whenever its window is taller than it is wide, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1344: ubports/morph-browser#430
Change "Unity8" to "Lomiri" in keyboard shortcut overlay: ubports/unity8#350
Fix errors shown while using content-hub pickers: ubports/content-hub#17
Changed type of edge-barrier-sensitivity: ubports/unity8#367
Make the Keyboard theme page select the currently active theme when loaded, fixes ubports/system-settings#281: ubports/system-settings#282

[Lionel Duboeuf]

Allow apps to play audio files from a temporary directory, fixes ubports/media-hub#2: ubports/media-hub#25
Display a message when the Contacts app fails to load the device's current phone number(s), fixes ubports/address-book-app#142: ubports/address-book-app#147
Add support for animated images in default Messages app: ubports/messaging-app#258
Fix incorrect audio recording timer, fixes ubports/mesaging-app#265: ubports/messaging-app#268
Fix call timer not starting at 0, fixes ubports/dialer-app#149: ubports/dialer-app#150
Fix message bubbles being invisible under Qt 5.12, fixes ubports/messaging-app#263 and ubports/messaging-app#269: ubports/messaging-app#267
Fix DatePickers not showing when they are loaded asynchronously, fixes ubports/ubuntu-ui-toolkit#109: ubports/ubuntu-ui-toolkit#110

[Jami Kettunen]

Add support for the PM8998 PMIC LED flash controller as used in the Snapdragon 835 and 845 chipset: ubports/indicator-power#40

["NotKit"]

Correctly display the device name when using generic Halium system.img: ubports/system-settings#273

[Joan "Cibersheep"]

Fixed inconsistent Catalan keyboard layout, fixes ubports/keyboard-component#125: ubports/keyboard-component#124

[Mateo Salta]

Hide the morph-browser scaling error on some devices: ubports/morph-browser#441
Move "Update Settings" to a headerbar action: ubports/system-settings#276
Change Ubuntu logo to Info icon for "About" page: ubports/system-settings#280

[Dalton Durst]

Rewrite WindowStateStorage to make it asynchronous and work on Qt 5.12: ubports/unity8#356
Fix Shell being partially destroyed when a new Shell was created, causing test failures: ubports/unity8#365
Speed up tests by creating fewer objects in the Indicators: ubports/unity8#366
Fix notification LED for unread messages (wdehoog had an earlier attempt for this but it didn't entirely fix the issue, ubports/unity8#359, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1651: ubports/unity8#363
Fix vibration from apps with hfd-service: ubports/apparmor-easyprof-ubuntu#21
Fix creation of MMS messages on Android 7 and 9 devices, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1670, ubports/ubuntu-touch#1677, and HelloVolla/ubuntu-touch-beta-tests#94: ubports/telepathy-mission-control-5#4
Allow apps with the Networking policy group to use QNetworkInterface, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1680: ubports/apparmor-easyprof-ubuntu#22
Fix double clicking or double tapping under Qt 5.12: ubports/qtubuntu#20

[Alfred Neumayer]

Fix use of QTemporaryFile (and therefore QFile::copy) with Qt 5.12: ubports/apparmor-easyprof-ubuntu#20

[Caleb Connolly]

Don't crash hfd-service when trying to add a transient trigger fails: ubports/hfd-service#13

[Daniel Kutka]

Fix browser tab previews under Qt 5.12, fixes ubports/morph-browser#457: ubports/morph-browser#467

What follows is a log of most of the changes to Ubuntu Touch between OTA-17 and OTA-18 (as of the July 7, 2021 Release Candidate).

This changelog does not include all changes. In particular, changes to the following components are not included:

• Applications preinstalled using click packages
• Device-specific changes made in their Halium build trees
• Anything I missed while browsing GitHub and GitLab. PM me if I missed yours!

["Flohack"]

Add exposure modes to qtubuntu-camera: ubports/qtubuntu-camera#12
Fix missing WiFi indicator on some Android9 devices: ubports/indicator-network#65
Add a different vendor service for call audio on some Android devices: ubports/audiosystem-passthrough#2

[Joan "CiberSheep"]

Change top panel color during a call from "positive" (green) to "activity" (blue) ubports/unity8#324
Add degree symbol to keyboard, fixes ubports/ubuntu-touch#1628: ubports/keyboard-component#178
Fix theming in dialer SIM card selection: ubports/dialer-app#162

[Lionel Duboeuf]

Add "time sent" to information for SMS/MMS messages, fixes ubports/messaging-app#179: ubports/messaging-app#250 and ubports/history-service#32
Enable stickers in the SMS/MMS messaging app: ubports/messaging-app#266
Add method to PhoneUtils so it can return a country code from a locale string: ubports/telephony-service#29
Don't perform long-running migration in history-service, fixes ubports/history-service#288: ubports/history-service#37
Prevent migrations from running more than once in history-service: ubports/history-service#39
Fix v17->v18 migration running more than once: ubports/history-service#38

[Mateo Salta]

Remove "New Tab" bar from History page: ubports/morph-browser#345
Update look of tabs so they aren't floating in space: ubports/morph-browser#394
Fix the header being weird in ExpandedHistoryView: ubports/morph-browser#488
Fix building messaging-app with Clickable: ubports/messaging-app#297

["Danfro"]

Add redeye flash mode to qtubuntu-camera: ubports/qtubuntu-camera#13

[Luca Weiss]

Only use Hybris in platform-api when required: ubports/platform-api#6
A volley of fixes to dbus-cpp, network-cpp, and process-cpp

["userj"]

Add a line break in the middle of the volume warning: ubports/indicator-sound#3

["Antikruk"]

Add a Belarusian keyboard layout: ubports/keyboard-component#146

[Kubi Eusebio]

Open the on-screen keyboard on a new tab: ubports/morph-browser#417
When opening a new tab from a link, place the new tab next to the tab that opened it, fixes ubports/morph-browser#326: ubports/morph-browser#439
Add navigation history to the back/forward buttons: ubports/morph-browser#444
Fix Control+Alt+T shortcut: ubports/unity8#375
Replace the side stage handle with one that looks like Drawer and Indicator handle, fix the shadow stealing input from the app: ubports/unity8#374
Fix building morph-browser with clickable, fixes ubports/morph-browser#484: ubports/morph-browser#485

["farkasdvd"]

Snooze the alarm, rather than dismissing it, after it times out: ubports/indicator-datetime#29
Start snooze timer from the time the snooze started, not the time the alarm started: ubports/indicator-datetime#30

[Alberto Mardegan]

Start and stop the SSH service without using Android properties: ubports/dbus-property-service#1
Rewrite media-hub in Qt C++ instead of... whatever it was, fixes ubports/media-hub#29, ubports/media-hub#24. ubports/media-hub#28
Fix location-service build under crossbuilder: ubports/location-service#10
Fix remote media sometimes not playing, podcast tracks failing to resume in Podbird, fixes ubports/media-hub#31: ubports/media-hub#32
Simplify moving to next track ubports/media-hub#33: ubports/media-hub#34
Add tests for resetting a track: ubports/media-hub#36
Fix strange play order in Podbird, fixes ubports/media-hub#35: ubports/media-hub#38
Fix random test failures: ubports/media-hub#39

[Dalton Durst]

Remove log handler that disables warnings in trust-store: ubports/trust-store#16
Save 30MB or more RAM whenever unity8 is running (always): ubports/unity8#388
Fix being able to type too fast for the Drawer, being able to drag the drawer too far open, and 4-finger tap summoning the keyboard in addition to the Drawer, fixes ubports/unity8#389, ubports/unity8#251: ubports/unity8#391
Fix opening the Drawer when Lomiri is in Shell-only mode: ubports/unity8#393

[Ratchanan Srirattanamet]

Update build infrastructure for trust-store: ubports/trust-store#17
Remove qtubuntu dependency on platform-api: ubports/qtubuntu#21
Explicitly depend on platform-api now that qtubuntu doesn't: ubports/core/seeds/ubuntu-touch#27
Handle long power button press if it's the first input after Lomiri starts: ubports/unity8#390
Fix autobrightness after ubports/core/repowerd!18: ubports/core/repowerd!31
Add Wayland support to mir-android-platform: ubports/core/mir-android-platform!26
Fix crashes in nemo-qtmultimedia-plugins when QMultimediaService is null: ubports/core/nemo-qemultimedia-plugins!1
Build biometryd for both xenial and focal at the same time: ubports/core/biometryd!6
Import gst-plugins-good security updates: ubports/core/packaging/gst-plugins-good1.0!1

[Chris Clime]

Define a storageName by default for morph-browser, so it will keep cookies between sessions in WebEngine 5.15: ubports/morph-browser#486

["doniks"]

Translate the Libertine QML files, too: ubports/libertine#112

[Adam Schrey]

Update Libertine icons: ubports/libertine#116

[Marius Gripsgard]

Allow building repowerd without hybris support: ubports/core/repowerd!18

Hey everyone,

I wanted to give you an update from the developer team in case you aren't following the development of Ubuntu Touch very closely. To get to it quickly, it seems like we won't be able to deliver an update to Mir 1.0 or higher in Ubuntu Touch OTA-8.

Edit: Most of the problems listed here have been resolved. See https://github.com/orgs/ubports/projects/10 for more details on what's blocking the merge of unity8+Mir1.1 into the normal cadence.

There's a bit to unpack for this one. The best technical explanation can be gained from others on the team, but you're going to get me for this one.

The big problems

Apps rarely display

The most glaring issue is that apps are rarely able to display anything on the screen. They start correctly and can almost always be interacted with, but only a black box is displayed. Resizing windows in desktop mode leads to many fun effects.

To paraphrase, it seems like there is a race condition in Mir getting a display surface (a box which the app uses to draw stuff) from Android before it has to pass it to the app.

This problem is mainly exhibited on devices with Qualcomm chipsets.

Poor performance

Some actions are extremely slow. When apps display correctly, they have a very low framerate. Pulling out the dock and the app launcher is painful. There really is no excuse for this, newer versions of Mir are much more efficient than our current 0.24.

Interestingly, the performance of the indicators is almost perfect. They feel way better to use than they do under Mir 0.24. In fact, the lowered input latency of Mir >0.26 is noticeable when scrolling around the indicators. This shows us that the failures are within Unity8 itself -- Mir is functioning perfectly.

We should have known

These challenges aren't entirely unexpected. The Android->Hybris->Mir->QtMir->Unity8->QtUbuntu pipeline can't be expected to be perfectly stable when several parts of that stack change all at once. We were over-optimistic when estimating how long it'd take to solve the problems upgrading Mir and Unity8 at the same time would bring.

What's next?

I'll change gears and focus on delivering some more fixes to OTA-8 before wrapping up. Marius will continue working on Mir and other intense low-level issues.

This cycle has included a lot of behind-the-scenes fixes as we've been fixing up automated tests on many components (especially the Ubuntu UI Toolkit -- Thank you Rodney!), allowing us to bring on new code. I've been merging in some rather old PRs (sorry for the wait, everyone who opened those) and I hope to continue to clear the queue for this release.

Tomorrow we'll merge the changes from our xenial_-_edge_-_mir branch into xenial_-_edge. This will cause any Qualcomm devices on the edge channel to experience the problems I listed above (and could cause general instability on other devices). It will be difficult to update Qualcomm devices without having developer mode enabled (which I hope you have anyway, you're on the edge channel). If you are using the edge channel and are not tolerant to these issues (I question how you got on edge in the first place ), please move to rc or stable using the options in System Settings.

If you're not sure whether you're using the edge channel or not, you probably are not. The current release channel is listed in "System Settings -> Updates -> Update settings, 'Channels'"

So, what have we learned this week?

• Everyone wants a home
• No one can agree on what home is
• Some people like the desktop "stuff on your desktop" paradigm, others hate it
• New Unity8 already provides features we're used to seeing on a home screen, but not somewhere that is a home screen

Quite a few shades of gray here. I don't think we'll be able to reach consensus for everyone without just getting in and doing something, then taking the feedback from that. It's really hard to describe dynamic functionality in words and sometimes it doesn't make sense until it's put in front of you.

Personally, I think Kugi said it best early on:

I guess I could live without "home" until we get a great idea that's really a game changer

Let's try some things out and see what sticks, starting at the simplest first. The best ideas will naturally float up and get traction behind them. As they develop past their initial stages, we'll see more development toward interfaces which are consistent at every point.

I must reiterate that (since my job title is "development manager" and I feel the need to protect the time of our paid and volunteer developers) I do not support adding lots more settings or compromising between ideas. I truly believe we can make one really good way to use a mouse, keyboard, and/or touchscreen on any size personal device and the only way we'll do that is by working together. If that is totally not to someone's liking, we are not the only mobile operating system.

So, to put what is next more concretely:

• We may experiment with Jan's idea to tap the background (it's only a few lines of code to change what tapping there does) and ask for feedback from small groups.
• Otherwise, we don't want to make any huge changes to new Unity8 before it is released to Stable the first time. We'll release then iterate.

Go out and make.

It's been a long time coming, but we're finally merging Qt 5.12 into Ubuntu Touch.

This is a process that will take a few days. During that time, updates to the devel channel of Ubuntu Touch will be pinned to an older rootfs release. Changes to Android compatibility images will be shipped, but changes to packages in the system will not.

So, you will still see updates available on some devices (like the Nexus 5, Volla Phone...) but not on others (Bq E5, E4.5...). Don't be alarmed!

This is only a notification, no action is needed on your part.

@d0od

Wow, didn't expect to see you around these parts. Thanks so much for your kind words, and for keeping an eye on things over the years. I know your readership (and the projects you follow) never make it easy for you. And now I'm coming at things from the same view as you, being absolutely overwhelmed by the things that come at me. My response to that stress has been remarkably similar to yours. So, here's my humble pie... Sorry for all that mess in 2017, and the bad blood that's come after.

I really appreciate your work.

@farkasdvd said in I have ended my contract with the UBports Foundation:

My first thoughts: he's either got a better job or he's been cancelled

Nope

I see a nice future ahead of you.

Thank you. I've really appreciated your help with testing.

@nero355

I would prefer you did not post alternative medicine that is not only unproven, but disproven and expensive, here. Thank you for understanding.

Hi everyone,

I'm letting you all know that I have ended my contract with the UBports Foundation, effective January 28, 2022. Therefore, my role as Development Manager within the UBports community has ended.

What's changing?

My departure is likely to change how the UBports Foundation's Board of Directors, Board of Trustees, contracted project teams, community, and the public interact. This change is most likely for the better: leadership may be formed within all of our (already tightly-knit) bodies to report on progress and next steps. Whereas I've been a nexus for project information, tasks, people, and interaction, these centralized functions will now be distributed between interested parties.

Or, at least, that's the hope. This project has never functioned without you, dear reader. Your encouragement, leadership, and contributions make Ubuntu Touch possible. Now there will be a space left where I once contributed that pulls in new, unlikely faces.

I'm not dying, or at least I'm not planning on it. I'll still be available for the occasional question or two.

I'm also still available for my duties as the UBports Foundation Membership Committee chair. Watch out for more news about my assignments soon.

I've left my leadership responsibilities to the Ubuntu Touch based on Ubuntu 20.04 project in the capable hands of our contracted project team.

It is undecided whether the Ubuntu Touch Q&A will continue in its current format, use a new format, end its run, or do something else.

Why leave?

I'm all too familiar with the speculation when a project leader resigns. Allow me to alleviate some of that.

I enjoy what I do, I appreciate and support our team. I love that we were able to build a kind, friendly community that's open to a great many people. We're building excellent software, even if we're still a little unsure of what it should do best. However, I've already stated that I experienced burnout last year. I took a week off in October to attempt to alleviate the problem. It was not enough.

For the past four months, I've put myself under more stress and given myself less time to recover from it. Ultimately, it's led to me being unable to meet my expectations and yours. That feeling of missed expectations compounds my stress, and it's all snowballed. I now dread turning on my laptop, opening Telegram or my email, and even opening GitLab. Surely this can't be healthy. My resulting mood in communication isn't conducive to a healthy, productive environment.

At this point, I think I've read every self-help book. I'm a newfound expert in getting rid of distractions, reducing stress, working intensely, being kind to myself, self-reflection, and generally being more productive or healthy. Unfortunately, these have not combined into a proper set of actions and environment for me to thrive.

I also have dissonance compared to the UBports Foundation's values. The Foundation is set up to own copyrights, collaborate between disparate organizations, and drive projects where those organizations cannot do so themselves. This model does not have space for a rolling-contract, non-project-based, jack-of-all-trades community, development, and product manager any longer. Additionally, I've watched our community sentiment change from "what can we do together?" to "what can the Foundation do for me?" I have contributed to this misunderstanding of purpose, partially because I want to do things that the Foundation does not do. But what I would like in an ideal world and what we have are much different things.

What's next?

I'll be taking a bit of time to decompress and reorient. During this time, I'll be mostly unavailable for contact. Then, I'll come back around to finish things left incomplete, particularly in the Membership Committee.

@klh

lid-is-present: yes is... interesting.

Many phones have a hall effect sensor that's set as a lid in the kernel. This allows book-like cases to embed a small magnet to shut off the device screen when they are closed.

@nero355: I'm not sure which community you've been in, but talking like this is not acceptable here.

People who aren't interested in computers like you are, are not dumb. Everyone has different tastes, priorities, and education, but none of these things necessarily make someone "less smart" than someone else. Consider whether there is anything that you do (driving, taking care of your health, tidying up, organization) that you do worse than other people. Are you less intelligent for having different priorities and skills?

Ubuntu Touch is built for people who are not as knowledgeable about the operating system as its team. There are many Linux distributions for which this is not the case, and those are good for different purposes. If you are trying to apply your own experience as someone knowledgeable about the principles of computing to an operating system that isn't really designed for you, it's not our fault that the design has mismatched. It's yours.

If this misunderstanding is going to continue, I'd recommend that you find another project that suits your priorities better. But I don't think you'll find any community that takes great pleasure in calling people dumb.

@gy0im

This is the 32-bit image for the Xperia X. It was hidden as we are planning to drop this image with the 20.04 upgrade. It is not receiving a lot of attention and you probably shouldn't install it newly on your device. The 64-bit image in the devel/rc/stable channels is getting much more attention and is recommended.

Yeah, GitHub can be scary for first-time users.

I'm not opposed to a "Send Feedback" option in the operating system. I've built feedback and ticketing systems for non-developers before. I'm concerned with who would manage the sent feedback. People will send everything from new device requests to problems with apps to how angry their mother was on their call that day. We'll need people who are willing to be level 1 support technicians. Someone like that is exceptionally rare in a volunteer community.

I've monitored the front-line email that was on the UBports contact page before. It is soul-crushing work. There are so many "you all are dumb because you don't support GoomiPhone Four Thousand and Three" messages. I understand why people email like that. I don't wish reading it on anyone. Therefore, we would probably need to hire a support team for such a system.

Before you ask, "is that really necessary? How much feedback are you expecting?" I can assure you that it is necessary.

So I'm not opposed, but it needs a lot more planning.

@magnargj said in OTA-20 Is Now Rolling Out:

Wouldn't a form for registering issues after a new ota rollout be a good idea

Maybe. I think that it should be easy for people to say they have a problem with our software.

however.

We're pretty low on time, and many different people are working on Ubuntu Touch. It would be pretty challenging to coordinate them to look at another place (like a spreadsheet that form requests get dumped into) for new bugs. Also, the software is available to everyone at no charge. I don't think it's that much of an ask to have people go to a central place to report issues that they have with Ubuntu Touch. Especially when someone getting a GitHub or GitLab account opens them up to many, many opportunities with Open Source software.

Maybe you have an idea on how we could make the current bug reporting process easier for people? We can probably find a way to make sure that we get all the information that we need from everyone, without taking a lot of your time.

We were low on time this week and the questions asked here were on projects that are mostly out of my control, so they wouldn't make for good content.