Canonical (Nearly) Halts Development of Ubuntu For Android 55
rjmarvin (3001897) writes "In a since-removed bug report on Launchpad, Ubuntu's issue tracker, Canonical's Matthew Paul Thomas stated that Ubuntu for Android is no longer in active development. In a statement, Canonical stated that while the project is not completely dead, Canonical is currently focusing on pushing Ubuntu for Phones. The company is open to working with partners on Ubuntu for Android, but will not proceed with further U4A development unless they can form a partnership with an OEM partner to launch it. The Ubuntu for Android project was first announced in early 2012."
Why (Score:0, Insightful)
Whu would you want ubuntu on your phone?
To get a buggy UI and pointless removal of software without notice. Just because they can?
I use Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Ubuntu as my desktop, because while I like Arch and Slackware, I'm too old to spend time futzing with getting backups to work or writing custom trayer configurations or whatever. (And when I finally got everything I wanted on Arch, half of GNOME or KDE was installed anyway, so I didn't really see the point.)
Anyway, you know what I wish Canonical would work on? Ubuntu for Computers. I don't need yet another mobile operating system; Android is there, iOS is there, Windows Phone is there, FirefoxOS is there. There's nothing that Ubuntu Touch is going to offer that isn't done better somewhere else. All it's doing is cannibalizing resources from Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. Working on Mir just creates divisions within the open source community; there's nothing wrong with Wayland.
So yeah, Canonical, don't just jump on the mobile bandwagon. You have a core product, focus on it.
Whose repository is the least bad: Ubuntu wins (Score:3, Insightful)
My Ubuntu installations don't have a buggy UI on the desktop. XFCE is great. If you're talking about Unity, then I see the problem: you shouldn't use that. All you have to do is take a look at that, say "ewww" and then you won't even care how buggy or bug-free it is.
Here's the thing: this is basically all about which repository you think sucks the least. I think I've gotten to the point where I don't give a rat's ass which packages come by default in a distro, but I do care which packages I end up running. And in this respect, Ubuntu has turned out to be pretty pleasant. I wish my previous Gentoo system had this few problems, or that "plain" Debian had the right stuff for playing videos (really, that's still an issue?!) on the boxes that need to do that, but they don't. Ubuntu comes though.
Compare Ubuntu to the alternative repository that we're talking about here: The Google Play Store. Because functionally that's all Google Play is: a few files within /etc/apt.
Tell me: do you really want to "who has more garbage that you might actually end up experimentally installing" shit-off about which repo is worse, between those two? Ubuntu so utterly embarrasses Google, that you might as well be advocating Windows 95.
That's why (though I don't use one now) I still do look forward to an Ubuntu phone. I don't care whatever foolish UI projects Ubuntu misguidedly works on, but I still like them as repo maintainers. Like 'em the best, actually. At least right now. (And yes, they're even better than Mint!)