OT: Ubuntu phone && HTML5 / QML

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Ed,

Am 16.03.2015 um 09:58 schrieb Ed Kapitein <ed at kapitein.org>:

>> <SNIP><
>> Interesting.
>> 
>> Makes me curious why you both spend money on that one instead of e.g. the GTA04A5?
>> 
>> Any answer is valid - and no need to be polite…
>> 
>> I am just curious to understand how people think and decide such things in March 2015.
>> 
>> BR,
>> Nikolaus
> 
> Hi Nikolaus,
> 
> A couple of things made me decide to buy the ubuntu phone.

thanks!

> 
> -1 The price. for me it is afordable at 170 euro vs +/- 600 euro for a
> neo900 and slightly less for the GTA04A5
> 
> -2 The device is in "mass" production, compared to the volumes of GTA04
> or neo900

well, this is the simple hen&egg situation that we face for some years.

For our community products we have: because 1, there is no 2 and because 2 there is no 1.

What makes the difference? Some investor (Ubuntu) did cover the risk of
buying the first set of thousands of eggs and was able to get the price down
(higher quantity buyer).

They can, because Ubuntu is not only a free (as in free beer) OS but Canonical
sells maintenance services (ubuntu advantage) to get the money to run
their operations.

This type of services is something our community lacks. And is even beyond the
openmoko approach (because it focusses on the client side while the money is
with servers, clouds and content).

> 
> -3 Development is done by a huge team, with a long track record in
> development.

Well, the team here was big - but has become smaller and smaller.

I just wonder if they have a longer track record than the Openmoko
community.

Hm. Makes me think about:
* would people be interested in a real maintained Openmoko distribution
* combining everything we have (kernel, Replicant, QtMoko and other choices)
* not only for Openmoko devices but others as well to get a broader audience
* regularily maintained by fixed team
* those who spend let’s say 5 EUR / month get bug fixes and updates first


> -4 Using old components from the GTA02 to build a GTA04 will get me a
> "new" phone with and 8 year old screen, 8 year old battery, 8 year old
> case etc.

This is mostly a consequence of 1 and 2. A GTA05 could be much more
modern and made out of all-new components. But because of 1 and 2 there
is no GTA05.

> 
> But i really appreciate what all members from the gta02 community have
> done in the past and are still doing today!
> 
> Big thanks from me.
> Ed

Big thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Our key problem is that we don’t have a big budget to spend for a new GTA05
that can compete with others.

BR,
Nikolaus