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KDE's Aaron Seigo Bashes Ubuntu Phone

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-sir-I-don't-like-it dept.

sfcrazy writes "KDE's Plasma Active team leader Aaron Seigo has raised some concerns around Ubuntu Phone. He says 'We can start with the obvious clue: Unity currently does not use QML at all; Ubuntu Phone is pure QML. So, no, it is not the same code, it is not the sort of seamless cross-device technology bridge that they are purporting.' He then concludes, 'If you're a Free software developer, user and/or supporter and buying into these claims, I don't know how else to put it other than this: you're being duped. Consider what supporting those who employ such tactics means for Free software.'"

8 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hrm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, it's just Michael over at moronix who needs more clicks, so he misrepresents what someone says to get them. Slashdot gets on the bus for the same purpose. News at 11.

  2. FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Unity's 2D version is QML and is not the standard there up til very 'recently'; and has been used for the phone version.

    Why making /. headline before even the people could check the phone version out.

    Androidist's FUD ?
     

    1. Re:FUD by BanHammor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, it is QML, but it's long since discontinued.

  3. poppycock by drankr · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not, he's not bashing Ubuntu phone, mostly because such a thing does not exist - yet. He is criticizing Canonical's less than sincere approach to the rest of the world. That's all.

  4. Mod Parent Up! by Carewolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is almost no correlation between this story headline and the actual content Aaron wrote. Among other things Aaron wrote:

    I want to make it crystal clear that I think Ubuntu Phone a great thing to see; more Free software mobile efforts, particularly ones using Qt/QML, warm my insides like a good bowl of soup on a cold winter's night

    1. Re:Mod Parent Up! by TractorBarry · · Score: 3, Informative

      > It's the kind of thing that doesn't make me interested in any form of desktop or GUI open source development and hasn't for years. It's the same old bullshit

      Wish I had mod points today I'd mod this right up ! +10 insightful.

      The latest Gnome/Unity fiascos has put me completely off desktop Linux. There are so many areas of Linux that are in desperate need of improvement (pro audio apps, pro image manipulation apps, pro video apps) - not to mention all the usability bugs that never get fixed.

      But what do the developers do ? Continually fuck around with the desktop metaphor, keep breaking things, continually "reinvent the wheel" (extremely badly), or needlessly trying to push new paradigms down our throats. "Hey we haven't rewritten subsystem X this week so let's throw out what we've got (thereby conveniently ignoring all the bugs) and let's write something entirely new (with all nwe bugs that will never be fixed) instead".

      It's a huge, huge waste of time.

      Not to mention the fact I'd got quite a number of people in my locaility to start using Ubuntu. When they pulled that Unity shit every single one of them was on my case complaining how the latest updates had broken their computer and "how can we get rid of this rubbish ?"

      Desktop linux is a waste of time. Excellent server. Complete waste of time as a desktop. Constantly moving operational metaphors, not enough pro quality apps and no desire to fix bugs (let's make new buggy, shitty "shiny" instead)

      There I've said it.

      --
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  5. Not a problem with Ubuntu Phone by suy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I doubt Aaron has many complaints with the technology used in Ubuntu Phone, because that's Qt Quick using QML, the same is used in Plasma. The thing is, Plasma was conceived as a very flexible way to create the primary user interface (that is, the visible thing that is not the applications). At that time, that was the "desktop shell" (Plasma Desktop), and nowadays is also a touch-device user interface and others (Plasma Active, Plasma Media Center, etc.).

    The vision the KDE guys had was right, and with few resources have created a great framework. Instead, Canonical had to write Unity several times. The "normal" Unity I don't even remember in what's written (GTK+, Clutter, Nux... can't follow it), but I remember that there is the Qt-based Unity-2D (dead, AFAIK) and the new Ubuntu Phone version, which uses Qt again.

    They could have saved tons of resources by choosing the technology and sticking a bit to it, helping to develop it. And now they claim they provide a seamless user experience across devices. Well, that could be true, but not using the same technologies, so the user experience is not going to be consistent with different bugs, different features, because the code bases are totally different.

  6. His actual post by Noughmad · · Score: 5, Informative

    on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107555540696571114069/posts/HSL2C21DJt7

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