UBports Foundation news letter
May 14th, 2021.
From your editor
Life is fragile. I was recently confronted with that. I learned that one of the things that helps is getting back to the "now" . Because, no matter what happened in the past, that's gone. And no matter what happens in the future, that's unknown. So basically, all we always have is the now. And now, life is good and I'm working in an open source project, and I love doing that. So, that is my "now". And last week we did Q&A episode 100. And it was absolutely remarkable. The video that is a love letter to the community starts at about 12 minutes and is amazing. It moved me, and not only me. Go head and watch it here or see our special section on it below.
Some people commented on the current not so ideal styling of this news leter. We heard you! A new newsletter template is in the making so I hope to surprise you all soon with a completely different looking news letter.
You're all part of an amazing community. Together we do awesome stuff, but in the end, we're all just a community
of people. It's as Moem is saying in the Q&A100 episode: "It felt
like you are good people. So, I wanted in on that". Don't ever change....
Jeroen Baten
News, hot from the press
OTA-17 is right around the corner as I write this, but by the time you read this OTA-17 should have been released. Check out the details here.
And we add another device! The OnePlus 5/5T will be available on the installer shortly after the release of OTA-17. See more on this in our forum post.
Interview with Fedor Boiarchukov
Fedor Boiarchukov, also known as "Yellobus" or "purplevvay" in the UBports community, recently discovered Ubuntu Touch. He was amazed to see how easy it was to create his first app with Clickable. Time for us to ask him some questions:
How has your experience with Ubuntu Touch been?
It has been a great experience, especially the Lomiri environment is so good. I can proudly say that I have a daily driver device running Ubuntu Touch that meets all my needs. I really enjoy using Ubuntu Touch!
I also quickly realized how important open source mobile systems are. So I started being active on the UBports forum, because I wanted to be useful in the development of free and open source software for mobile. I guess and hope I'm slowly becoming a part of the community.
Are you also developing for the Ubuntu Touch platform?
Yes, I really wanted to create apps, but every time I started thinking about it, I got disappointed realizing what a huge knowledge and experience I should have just to start. But one day I discovered Clickable. I just opened the terminal on my computer, typed `clickable create`, chose the HTML5 template and wrote some basic HTML and CSS code. Then I connected my phone via USB (with developer mode enabled), typed `clickable` and after that my phone unexpectedly opened the app I wrote a couple of minutes ago!
That's a great experience! Do you have any tips for others who want to develop apps for Ubuntu Touch?
I guess HTML5 isn't the best way to create apps, but in my opinion it's a great way to get started with app development. You don't need to be a programmer to be able to develop apps for Ubuntu Touch. You are able to create apps using only HTML and CSS! Isn't that insane? You won't find it anywhere else! So what are you waiting for? Join the UBports project and make some apps!
The full interview is also available on our blog!
Big thanks to Fedor for answering all our questions and a shout-out to all our readers. Don't be modest! If you have a story to tell, we want to hear about it. Email me at jeroen at ubports.com and before you know it you get a bunch of questions and we will include your story here.
Ubuntu Touch Q&A 100
The 100th edition of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A session was all about the future challenges of Ubuntu Touch and the use of phones as tools.
Florian considers it a big challenge to attract more institutional funding. But a phone operating system that works and isn't Android or iOS should appeal to some institutions. Alfred worried that there are still obstacles for community members to contribute financially. And Marius sees a lot of work ahead to get VoLTE (Voice over LTE) working in Ubuntu Touch.
The Q&A session ended on a philosophical note. We're not like Apple or Google, determined to have their users active on their devices as much as possible. For us, a phone is a tool: you use it to finish a job and after that you put it away. There are other things in life, and we consider Ubuntu Touch users as humans, not as parts of an attention economy or a marketing data source.
You can watch the whole session, or read our notes, here:
But if you like to skip to some important parts, we have those for you too!
So, that's a wrap for this episode.
Next weekend there will be another Q&A to watch and a week later, we will send you a new news letter! \o/
Jeroen, Koen, Marcus, Dario and Nigel.
