One of those weeks, err.. years!

Hello community!

Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, January 7th, 2022

From your editor

You know the saying "one of those days"? Well, for me it has been one of those weeks. Actually, I could say it has been of of those years! This project is a rollercoaster and it has been for some time. It is weird to suddenly realise I started in this operational marketing manager role about one year ago. A year has past since "and what have we done?", to paraphrase a popular Christmas song.

Well, we are supporting way more devices now than a year ago. We ran a few add campaigns in the Ntherlands to see which message works best to get the message out there about our wonderful project. And we are still working as a community to further our OS and deliver on the promise of a reliable and privacy focussed OS. Speaking of which: did you see and.or try the new OTA-21 release? It rocks, doesn't it?

Due to the recent holidays there is no Q&A session to talk about this time but no doubt there will be a new one soon.

Did you experience the little dot bug in the donate-link in the previous edition? If not, well, you clearly didn't try to donate. Anyway, just like to day it is fixed now. Speaking of donations we are still working on getting recurring payments working. Well, we got it working but it was not good enough (the code was, but the process wasn't) so we are currently implementing a better and more reliable method. When that is done, rest assured I will let you all know! :-)

Anyway, sit back, grab hold of your favourite beverage (Club Mate Winter Edition anyone?) and enjoy another episode of the UBports Newsletter (while I write this edition this time in silence).

Greets, Jeroen Baten

News, hot from the press

In the next weeks the latest edition of the Dutch Linux Magazine will contain an advertorial about our project. No link as of yet, but keep an eye out on linuxmag.nl for more news.

Apps in the spotlight

Here are some new Ubuntu Touch apps to try out:

HexExplorer (https://open-store.io/app/hexexplorer.danfro) has been re-released by Daniel Frost because the original creator doesn't maintain the app anymore. The app lets you explore colors and their hexadecimal representation of the RGB values.
Librespeed Internet Speedtest (https://open-store.io/app/librespeed.xeoniki200) by xeoniki200 lets you do a speed test for your WiFi/2G/3G/4G/5G connection. You can share your test results on librespeed.org.
DartsTrainer (https://open-store.io/app/eu.dartstrainer.app.clickable) by Philipp Fruck is an app that supports you while playing darts and keeps track of your statistics. It supports an unlimited amount of players.

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 want to help development of the OpenStore, please reach out to Brian Douglass (@bhdouglass on Telegram): he can always use some assistance with the app and frontend.
Also, we could really use someone with knowledge in the field of SEO. If you don't know what that is, you need not apply :-). But if you do know your Search-Engine-Optimalisation stuff, we could really use your skills in the marketing team. Mail me if you live to help out! My email address is at the bottom of this newsletter.

A message for all new subscribers: 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 Michael Zanetti and Brian Douglass

We had a little chat with Michael Zanetti and Brian Douglass about the story behind OpenStore.

Michael started the OpenStore as a spare time project while he was working for Canonical in the early days of Ubuntu Touch, as a supplement to the official app store. Because Brian already created the website uApp Explorer that allowed browsing packages from Canonical's official Ubuntu Touch app store, Michael approached him: "He seemed like a good candidate to expand his project to include packages from the OpenStore. After all we had the same goal: improve the app ecosystem for Ubuntu Touch."

When Canonical dropped support for Ubuntu Touch, Brian stepped up to evolve the OpenStore into a general-purpose app store for Ubuntu Touch. He is still maintaining the OpenStore and he is even working on some new developments: "Right now the development focus of the OpenStore is on modernizing the code and infrastructure for the API. This should ease development and maybe open the door for other contributors."

Read the full interview on our blog: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/the-story-behind-openstore-3797