Ubuntu Phone Carrier Advisory Group Announced 40
An anonymous reader writes "With the focus from Ubuntu on phones, seven carriers have signed onto their Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group including Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Telecom Italia, Korea Telecom, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, and SK Telecom. The group is designed for the carriers to let 'mobile operators shape Ubuntu's mobile strategy. Members receive advance confidential briefings and provide us with industry insight to ensure that Ubuntu meets their needs.'"
Looks like Ubuntu Phone is getting serious. Mark Shuttleworth writes about their first meeting: "We mapped out our approach to the key question I’ve been asked by every carrier we’ve met so far: how can we accommodate differentiation, without fragmenting the platform for developers? We described the range of diversity we think we can support initially, received some initial feedback from carriers participating immediately, and I’m looking forward to the distilled feedback we’ll get on the topic in the next call. CAG members get a period of exclusivity in their markets."
Re:American Carrier Support (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, don't worry about that. They've already got fiber optic splitting in the areas between Facebook, Yahoo!, Skype, Google, Microsoft, etc. and their respective Internet service providers. There's not as much need for a backdoor in the user/client side when practically all of the communications between these companies and their users are under constant surveillance and being sent in to top-secret NSA-controlled data gathering server rooms.
Inevitable truth (Score:4, Interesting)
Mark Shuttleworth writes about their first meeting: "We mapped out our approach to the key question I’ve been asked by every carrier we’ve met so far: how can we accommodate differentiation, without fragmenting the platform for developers?"
To which he added "Fragmentation or lack of differentiation, please pick one and we can move on."
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If the differentiation is in apps and themes/skins, it can be done. If it's forks of the OS, it's fragmentation.
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If the differentiation is in apps and themes/skins, it can be done. If it's forks of the OS, it's fragmentation.
Tell that to anyone who has ever commented about fragmentation in Android.
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99% of them were wrong.
Hell, you can support multiple API levels at once.
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99% of them were wrong.
Hell, you can support multiple API levels at once.
Tell everyone that they can pick their choice of screen size from 3" to 6" (and beyond) and pick exactly how crazy they want the widgets to be, and nobody bats an eye
Tell them that they can play Angry Birds 1, 2, 3, 4, but not Angry Birds 4.5, and everyone loses their mind!
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Differentiate your phone from all others but one. Be like Apple and don't let the carriers fuck up your phone by preinstalling apps the end user doesn't want, won't use, and can't delete. Or let them "helpfully" redesign your UI and feature set because they know better than you do what users want to do and how they want to do it.
Re:Inevitable truth (Score:4, Interesting)
Debian seems to handle it OK. The same Debian repositories can make an awesome desktop machine, a rock solid server, a single purpose kiosk, or an HTPC. And all this software is written in a variety of languages and runs on a variety of hardware.
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Actually, Debian has proven itself for mobile phones to, the Nokia N900 and N9(Maemo and Meego) are both based on a debian based distribution.
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If something still does the job for which it was purchased or built, then it is not obsolete. The word you are looking for is "old" or possibly "outmoded".
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The N900 worked fine when it was release. Four years have past, and the smartphone market moves way too fast. That doesn't undo what good the N900 did. It just means it's old.
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Exclusivity? (Score:2)
CAG members get a period of exclusivity in their markets.
How can they if it's really all open source?
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The Ubuntu trademark is certainly not open source.
Why pander to the carriers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I realize that none of these carriers are in the US so that may very well be the difference here... BUT!!! Why pander to the carriers? What we need is open source in phones in a way that enshrines the consumer first. GPLv3 all the phone specific software so that it CAN'T BE TIVO'IZED and corrupted and used against the owner of the device. I'm all for people getting paid if they want to be paid for their work, but it will in no way ever justify locking me out of my own devices in any way or using my devices against me in any way. Remote software removal by anyone other than the owner? Nunh-Unh. Locking me into a market and excluding others? Nunh-Unh.
Re:Why pander to the carriers? (Score:4, Interesting)
All we really need at this point is the drivers. Nexus devices already offer what you want assuming you remove the google market, or just break that functionality.
Hardware folks seem pretty hesitant to provide drivers or even information to make them at this point.
T is for Telekom, but is that good enough for me? (Score:2)
I realize that none of these carriers are in the US
Deutsche Telekom is on the list [ubuntu.com], and it has a U.S. division [t-mobile.com].
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Doesn't mean that T-Mobile is involved. For example, Duetsche Telekom was selling the iPhone years before T-Mobile did.
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What we need is open source in phones in a way that enshrines the consumer first. GPLv3 all the phone specific software.
Android has market share, has manufacturers (choice in devices), has carriers (coverage), has app developers, is relatively mature, and is "open" enough for most. Do you really think consumers are going to choose Ubuntu just because of a software license most have never heard of? I'm all for innovation, competition and choice, but Ubuntu doesn't seem to be offering anything compelling to any but the hard-core software freedom crowd.
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What we need is open source in phones in a way that enshrines the consumer first. GPLv3 all the phone specific software.
Android has market share, has manufacturers (choice in devices), has carriers (coverage), has app developers, is relatively mature, and is "open" enough for most. Do you really think consumers are going to choose Ubuntu just because of a software license most have never heard of? I'm all for innovation, competition and choice, but Ubuntu doesn't seem to be offering anything compelling to any but the hard-core software freedom crowd.
surely it can't all be gpl when MEMBERS GET EXCLUSIVITY?
it's pandering to the carriers to get them to upfront money. but it can't be both open and exclusive to carriers x y and z in their relative markets..
it's probably because shuttlworth thinks you can't use other carriers phones or some stupid shit like that. he's stuck in the US in 2001.
none of this shit we even care about, what would matter is how are they going to be better than android? how? tell us that and get some sweet devices out.
Re:Why pander to the carriers? (Score:4, Funny)
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Not sure I can phrase this well, but as I read the blog post, pandering to carrier was not what came to mind.
Ubuntu brings the OS - it's of a piece and stays that way. Carriers have already advanced the phones they'll initially offer Ubuntu on; and various devs have been playing around with stuff, the drivers have been written. Carriers will speechify about what they want (look, feel, apps) and Ubuntu will nod and agree (and not change the OS). Devs will do the accommodating of the carriers' preferences.
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I completely agree. I never have, and never will buy a phone form a carrier.
I think mobile phone carriers and open source are two things that just don't mix. Just like RIAA and open source won't either.
If you care about users, you sell to users. If you don't, you go through a carrier.
this seems odd to me (Score:2)
First mistake, and last (Score:3)
Google is trying to wrestle control away from the carriers after whoring out Android under their terms when it first came out. Obviously to get carriers interested in Android phones, Google had to ensure they gave power over feature set and update release to the carriers. This "control" caused a massive fragment in the market were phones today are still being sold with Android 2 to 3 versions behind the version of Android Google wants to ship.
While it may have ultimately made Android the top phone platform on the market today, it's cause a huge headache for Google to try and now release value added features like Play Music and Apps while supporting a wide assortment of random versions. Its also a nightmare platform to develop on unless you ignore everything before Android 4 and accept the limited scope of customers.
Not sure this is the best model for Ubuntu to follow because they don't even have the clout Google has that still struggles to get control back.
Carriers need to be told that they features of a phone is defined by the phone, if their networks can't support the feature then they don't get the premium top brands to sell to customers. For instance any carrier that does not support iPhone has seen significant decline in their customer base, this forces the carrier to support the features that Apple wants, not the other way around, to get back customers.
Also this goes completely against the openness of the Ubuntu platform as carriers are more interested in "locking down" rather then "opening up". Not sure open source and phone carriers are a good synergy, this product is doomed.
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Google is trying to wrestle control away from the carriers after whoring out Android under their terms when it first came out. Obviously to get carriers interested in Android phones, Google had to ensure they gave power over feature set and update release to the carriers. This "control" caused a massive fragment in the market were phones today are still being sold with Android 2 to 3 versions behind the version of Android Google wants to ship.
While it may have ultimately made Android the top phone platform on the market today, it's cause a huge headache for Google to try and now release value added features like Play Music and Apps while supporting a wide assortment of random versions. Its also a nightmare platform to develop on unless you ignore everything before Android 4 and accept the limited scope of customers.
Not sure this is the best model for Ubuntu to follow because they don't even have the clout Google has that still struggles to get control back.
Carriers need to be told that they features of a phone is defined by the phone, if their networks can't support the feature then they don't get the premium top brands to sell to customers. For instance any carrier that does not support iPhone has seen significant decline in their customer base, this forces the carrier to support the features that Apple wants, not the other way around, to get back customers.
Also this goes completely against the openness of the Ubuntu platform as carriers are more interested in "locking down" rather then "opening up". Not sure open source and phone carriers are a good synergy, this product is doomed.
These are all great points, and I don't disagree with anything per se.
However, I think you are assuming that the future must be like the past. The phone market has undergone a series of significant changes over a period of decades, the past five (+) years with the rise of Apple and then Android coupled with the collapse of Blackberry and Nokia have only accelerated that.
I suspect that as the technology becomes both more powerful and ubiquitous the easier it becomes for a small competitor or open source proj
And it enters the fail phase.... (Score:3)
"The group is designed for the carriers to let 'mobile operators shape Ubuntu's mobile strategy. " This will do nothing but destroy the platform. Carriers have nothing good to "advise" any phone OS maker about. Every one of them shovel more crap on top of the phone that what is upposed to be there and destroy features they dont like.
Thus ends Ubuntu Phone OS.
Self-defeating premise? (Score:2)
The field is already dominated by Android and iOS. If they add yet another OS to the mix, aren't they further fragmenting the market no matter what??
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Market != platform