| Hello community!Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, February 4th, 2022 |
From your editor(I just finished writing this edition, and let me tell you; it's a beast! Enjoy!)
If TL;DR, please, please just do the poll!
Did I ever tell you people about the todo application that I use on my daily Ubuntu desktop? It's called TaskWarrior and it is my lifesaver. I started using it about 1.5 years ago, and after a week I added desired due dates to task and sometimes even priorities. Another few weeks later I added dependencies and recurring tasks, and at some point I even started to occasionally use the GUI application Vit. So, currently I have a list of 194 todo items, of which 54 are related to the UBports project and 66 to what is currently my biggest project (being a general manager somewhere).
Why am I telling you all this? Well, simply because in my life there is just way too much happening at the moment, and least of all that has to do with the UBports project. So, prepare yourself for another news letter but this time with many subjects that I want to tell you people about.
Anyway, sit back, grab hold of your favorite beverage and enjoy another episode of the UBports Newsletter (while I write this edition this time with some jazzy sounds on).
Greets, Jeroen Baten
Dalton and his Imagine textThis week we heard of the sad news that Dalton Durst, a very active leader in our community, decided to gracefully step down from his position.
He brought the news himself in a forum post that you can read here: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/7347/i-have-ended-my-contract-with-the-ubports-foundation
In this post he mentions a lot of very valid arguments and feedback that I think we can all learn from. One of those being observing a change in sentiment from "what can we do together?" to "what can the Foundation do for me?".
At the same time I see our Foundation going through all the steps of becoming more mature. Things are not perfect but continuously getting better. I see we are learning, and making a difference in the world. So I read his post also with a sense of "lessons learned".
So, from me to him a real big thanks for the incredible effort he has put in over the past years.
In his post he also mentions the personal challenges of trying to hard. I believe many of us who are really very active in open source also feel responsible for way to many things. If this rings a bell with you, this might be a good read: https://opensource.com/article/21/7/burnout-open-source
ImagineDalton has left a very large legacy and one of his many contributions was a text he wrote recently:
Imagine a phone that does everything you expect and nothing you don't...
... that helps you share what you want, but doesn't overdo it. ... that lets you get your work done, but still makes space for play. ... that helps you sleep, but not with token gestures. ... that works for you, not for advertisers or "a new monetization strategy". ... that is always there for you, but not always listening. ... that stays fast and up-to-date, without needing to buy a new one every year. ... that protects you from bad guys, without treating you like one.
Imagine a phone that's yours. Yours to have, keep, use, and share.
We're the UBports Foundation. Our community of volunteers and companies has been building the phone of your imagination for over five years. Now, we need your help...
These words resonate strongly with me and maybe also with you. So I asked one of our margeting people to think about a campaign around these words and they came up with 4 concepts... And now I need your help!Below you will see 4 marketing concepts. Please look at them and vote for the one you feel best about. You can send in your vote here!
Concept 1
In this concept we work with a main character. Preferably, it uses a telephone. His or her expression clarifies the
message that is conveyed by means of text bars.
01. 'Imagine a phone that...' the main character thinks.
02. 'Helps you share what you want,' the main character looks as if he can't believe it.
03. 'But doens't overdo it.' the main character goes crazy! Wow, this is what I'm looking for!
04. The phone appears with the name UBPort Foundation.
05. The orange area from shot 04 moves up and in the middle the sentences pass by one by one:
- Our community of volunteers and companies
- has been building the phone of your imagination
- Now, we need your help...
Concept 2
Each of these expressions gives a sentence again. The image can be loose
be used, but also as totally in a video animation. The photo in each image changes with
a fade to an image that saves on the quote (see video attachment). In the end comes a CTA with join us message: we need your help. The shapes in the pictures also move subtly like a dynamic shape.
Concept 3
In this concept we work with different “metaphor” images. Preferably, it uses a telephone. His or her expression clarifies the message conveyed by means of text bars.
01. 'Imagine a phone that...' we see a phone in the picture (the Volla phone) and "zip zoom" on the screen.
02. 'Helps you share what you want,' we see the zoomed-in image that represents an experience that you want to share (e.g. via socials) but also
literally sharing the picture image.
03. 'But don't overdo it.' we see an image of a situation that you would rather not share with the world. This picture also radiates overdo.
04. The phone appears with the name UBPort Foundation.
05. The orange area from shot 04 moves up and in the middle the sentences pass by one by one:
- Our community of volunteers and companies
- has been building the phone of your imagination
- Now, we need your help...
Concept 4
In this concept we work with different “funny” images. Think of images that have been taken extremely out of context. A telephone but an old one and the 'overdo' depicted by a person entangled in telephones and cables. Images are cut through parts of color use linked together, so that it does feel like an expression. 01. 'Imagine a phone that...' we see an old-fashioned telephone in the picture, the use of color gives it something of this time. 02. 'Helps you share what you want,' we see a group of people "sharing" via their phone. 03. 'But doens't overdo it.' we see an image of a situation that literally radiates 'overdo it'. Too many phones, wanting to share too much. 04. The phone (must be the Volla phone) appears with the name UBPort Foundation. 05. The orange area from shot 04 moves up and in the middle the sentences pass by one by one: - Our community of volunteers and companies - has been building the phone of your imagination - Now, we need your help... <End of concepts>, </concepts>, end of concepts. Well I guess you get it by now.
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So, please look at them and vote for the one you feel best about: You can send in your vote here! Recurring payments coming!We are almost there! The recurring payments functionality of the Mollie payment provider integrated in our webshop is currently in the testing phase. We are almost there! Election dateI know some people are very active in getting the election process for the Board of Directors started. I can't mention a date (yet), but as soon as I can, I will!
MCH2022I wrote about this event earlier. This summer in the Netherlands will be the MCH2022 event. MCH stands for "Must Contain Hackers" and some 3500-4500 people from all over the world are expected to attend. And since we, as UBports Foundation, will be there too, I think this warrants its own section in this newsletter. I hope the next few month I can keep you all informed of the progress we are making here. We are still looking for volunteers to help out during the event. So one more time I will show you people this very nice jacket for those who will step up and pitch in.
We also already had a few people replying that they could do a deep level tech talk, so there are options there as well. So, if you like to attend, send me an email.
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News, hot from the press
Apps in the spotlightHere are some new Ubuntu Touch apps to try out: Sapot Browser (https://open-store.io/app/sapot-browser.kugiigi) by Kugi Eusebio is a fork of Morph Browser with experimental features. It adds a more powerful tab switcher, a redesigned toolbar and a bottom swipe to exit fullscreen videos. SimplePrint (https://open-store.io/app/print-ut.tbuen) by Thomas Büning lets you print files via IPP on your local network printers. Note that the app does no conversion and just sends the files directly to the printer. So your printer needs to be able to handle the file type.
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: Do you want to help with testing Ubuntu Touch or the UBports Installer? Then visit https://ubports.open-cuts.org/. Choose a project and a version, follow the test steps, and fill in the form with your comments, log files and test results. By the way, did you know that Hannah Sprinz published her bachelor thesis about OPEN-CUTS? You can find it on https://spri.nz/publications/2022/open-cuts/. Now that Dalton has ended his contract with the UBports Foundation, this also means he is leaving as a host of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A. Do you have a good command of the English language and do you want to help with running the Q&A? Then reach out to Florian (@Flohack on Telegram and the UBports forum). There has been some progress on our Raspberry Pi port recently. AppArmor and some other important components now work out of the box on Ubuntu Touch. If you have a spare Raspberry Pi 3, give it a try with the installation instructions on https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/raspberrypi and share your test results on the forum: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/7282/raspberry-pi3-progress.
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/blog/ubports-blogs-nieuws-1/post/become-a-member-of-the-ubports-foundation-3766
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Ubuntu Touch Q&A 115
Dalton, Alfred, Marius and Florian were the hosts of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 115 session. They talked about what will become OTA-22 and about user expectations for device ports.
The next OTA release, OTA-22, will have a lot of welcome fixes and new features. In the Halium 9 build, camera permission prompts will work as they should, and a new tweak will allow specific actions to happen automatically when the screen goes off or on. MediaHub will allow you to view a video on a server without having to download the whole file first. And last but not least, Florian showed video chat working in Morph. This works on the Whereby and Jitsi web sites.
The Q&A hosts also talked about diverse user expectations. At one end, we have the 'general users' who just want a working, reliable phone with basic stuff. At the other extreme are the 'tweakers', those who just want to have fun with the challenges of stretching the limits of Ubuntu Touch on their phone. If a tweaker ports Ubuntu Touch to a device and a general user wants to use it, their different expectations could lead to problems for the latter. Therefore we need to guide general users towards devices which are solid and likely to be around for a while.
You can watch the whole session and read our notes here: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-115-3800
Clickable 7 releaseIf you want to start building Ubuntu Touch apps, now's the time! Our build tool Clickable has a new major version!
Clickable 7 comes with a bunch of new features. It has received bash completion, a global configuration file, and a 'ci' command to test your CI configuration locally in the Clickable CI container. The project configuration file now uses the YAML format instead of JSON. The new release has also added a Godot template to create apps for the Godot game engine.
If you've already been using Clickable 6, there are some breaking changes you have to consider. For instance, the default architecture has changed from armhf to the host architecture. You can change this back in the Clickable configuration file. The Clickable documentation has a Clickable 7 migration guide to help you through the process. There's even a clickable-migration tool to apply these suggestions automatically to your Clickable 6 projects.
Read our blog article for more information about Clickable 7 and links to the relevant documentation:
https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/new-clickable-7-release-3801
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