Too late, but is it too little?

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                Hello community!

                Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, December 10th, 2021

                From your editor

                Maybe you know the expression: "Too little, too late"? When something arrives at you and it is not enough and it's also way too late? One could argue that this is positive when it comes to things like friends, but in this case it is just me, myself and I. Yesterday my day was swamped with other stuff and I completely forgot to write the bi-weekly newsletter.
                Yesterday I tried to connect an Ubuntu Samba server to FreeIPA central authentication. One piece of advice: don't. It won't work and hasn't worked for the past 5 years. Anyway, that's how I forgot to write the newsletter. Please forgive me. So here I am, on a Saterday morning, with "Welcome To The Other Side (Concert From Virtual Notre-Dame)" by Jean Michel Jarre blasting through my speakers.

                In this edition you'll find some mentions in the news, some apps in the spotlight, usual help needed (we always need more help), and, very cool IMHO, an interview with Capsia! And to top it all of we share some Q&A news.

                So, sit back, grab hold of your favourite beverage (mine at the moment is Club Mate Winter Edition) and enjoy another episode of the UBports Newsletter!

                Greets, Jeroen Baten

                News, hot from the press

                Distrowatch weekly has a mention: "UBports gains new apps".
                https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20211206#news
                 
                Distribution Release: "UBports 16.04 OTA-20". https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=11402

                Sponsored and in Dutch: "De UBports-community geeft je met Ubuntu Touch meer controle over je mobiele telefoon".
                https://nl.hardware.info/nieuws/79672/sponsored-de-ubports-community-geeft-je-met-ubuntu-touch-meer-controle-over-je-mobiele-telefoon

                Apps in the spotlight

                Here are some new Ubuntu Touch apps to try out, selected by Mateo Salta and presented in the latest Q&A session:

                You can find these apps on the OpenStore (https://open-store.io/).

                Please remember that OpenStore has a built-in option to donate to app creators. We urge you to use that button, so that we'll get more great apps on Ubuntu Touch.

                Help needed!

                If you have some spare time or money, we could use some help in the following domains:

                If you find something wrong on devices.ubuntu-touch.io or see that data for a device is missing, you can file a merge request at the devices repo (https://gitlab.com/ubports/infrastructure/devices.ubuntu-touch.io). If you have no idea what that even means, not a problem! Contact Capsia on the forum (https://forums.ubports.com/user/capsia) or on Telegram (@capsia).

                 With other mobile phone operating systems you may get stuff for free in money terms but then you are the product in that transaction. With Ubuntu Touch you are not the product, but we can’t live just on fresh air. Please consider the value you get from Ubuntu Touch, including the money you save by not spending money on paid apps, and donate on https://ubports.com/donate.

                And if you have been an active community member and want to pitch in on a more managerial level, consider becoming part of the Board of Trustees. You can read more about this in the following blog post: https://ubports.com/nl/blog/ubports-blogs-nieuws-1/post/become-a-member-of-the-ubports-foundation-3766

                Interview with Capsia

                We had a little chat with Capsia, who is known in the UBports community as the maintainer of the Ubuntu Touch Devices page.

                Capsia is an 18-year old high school student from Italy. His first phone ran Android, but from the start it didn't feel good. When he searched for alternatives, he found Ubuntu Touch. And soon he began contributing, from the redesign of the lock screen to the Raspberry Pi port and the redesign of the UBports website.

                His involvement with the UBports project has been special to him: "I found that helping others and collaborating with them in a shared project is fun, but it also brings a special sense of purpose and meaning. We share some ideals as well as the obvious practical objectives. I am naturally curious and always want to learn. Working on new projects has made me acquire new skills. I feel that my main reason for being is to constantly learn more about things.

                Thanks to other UBports community members like Dalton, Kaizen, and Lehkeda, who have kindly invested their skills in me, I’m becoming a better UI designer and developer. But to be honest, I have gained a lot more than just the technical side."

                Read the full interview on our blog: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/interview-with-capsia-3793

                Ubuntu Touch Q&A 113

                Florian, Alfred and Dalton were the hosts of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 113 session. They talked about OTA-21 and progress towards 20.04.

                OTA-21, which is expected before Christmas, has a lot of changes. The greeter (which asks you for your PIN) has received a new design, so this is something you'll immediately notice. The Settings app gets a Storage section. And microphone access in the Morph browser is fixed, which may allow Skype and other calls to work now in Morph.

                Progress towards the 20.04 base is continuing and the roadmap is becoming clearer. There will first be a Core Development Release, available to developers on real phones to play with and fix bugs. After that, there will be an App Development Release, which will enable app developers to adjust their apps to the new environment. There will also be an Opt-In Release, which everyone will be able to switch to on their device. This will be a thorough testing stage. Only then will we move to the general availability version, which replaces the 16.04 base in the OTA releases of Ubuntu Touch.

                You can watch the whole session and read our notes here: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-113-3792


                And once more, your biweekly UBports newsletter. Enjoy!