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Ubuntu Phone Carrier Advisory Group Announced
An anonymous reader writes "With the focus from Ubuntu on phones, seven carriers have signed onto their Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group including Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Telecom Italia, Korea Telecom, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, and SK Telecom. The group is designed for the carriers to let 'mobile operators shape Ubuntu's mobile strategy. Members receive advance confidential briefings and provide us with industry insight to ensure that Ubuntu meets their needs.'"
Looks like Ubuntu Phone is getting serious. Mark Shuttleworth writes about their first meeting: "We mapped out our approach to the key question I’ve been asked by every carrier we’ve met so far: how can we accommodate differentiation, without fragmenting the platform for developers? We described the range of diversity we think we can support initially, received some initial feedback from carriers participating immediately, and I’m looking forward to the distilled feedback we’ll get on the topic in the next call. CAG members get a period of exclusivity in their markets."
Mark Shuttleworth writes about their first meeting: "We mapped out our approach to the key question I’ve been asked by every carrier we’ve met so far: how can we accommodate differentiation, without fragmenting the platform for developers?"
To which he added "Fragmentation or lack of differentiation, please pick one and we can move on."
Perhaps CAG group members will get to sell the Ubuntu phone in their area for a period of time before carriers who don't join up can. I expect it is hardware exclusivity, not software.
Ah, don't worry about that. They've already got fiber optic splitting in the areas between Facebook, Yahoo!, Skype, Google, Microsoft, etc. and their respective Internet service providers. There's not as much need for a backdoor in the user/client side when practically all of the communications between these companies and their users are under constant surveillance and being sent in to top-secret NSA-controlled data gathering server rooms.
I realize that none of these carriers are in the US so that may very well be the difference here... BUT!!! Why pander to the carriers? What we need is open source in phones in a way that enshrines the consumer first. GPLv3 all the phone specific software so that it CAN'T BE TIVO'IZED and corrupted and used against the owner of the device. I'm all for people getting paid if they want to be paid for their work, but it will in no way ever justify locking me out of my own devices in any way or using my devices against me in any way. Remote software removal by anyone other than the owner? Nunh-Unh. Locking me into a market and excluding others? Nunh-Unh.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Google is trying to wrestle control away from the carriers after whoring out Android under their terms when it first came out. Obviously to get carriers interested in Android phones, Google had to ensure they gave power over feature set and update release to the carriers. This "control" caused a massive fragment in the market were phones today are still being sold with Android 2 to 3 versions behind the version of Android Google wants to ship.
While it may have ultimately made Android the top phone platform on the market today, it's cause a huge headache for Google to try and now release value added features like Play Music and Apps while supporting a wide assortment of random versions. Its also a nightmare platform to develop on unless you ignore everything before Android 4 and accept the limited scope of customers.
Not sure this is the best model for Ubuntu to follow because they don't even have the clout Google has that still struggles to get control back.
Carriers need to be told that they features of a phone is defined by the phone, if their networks can't support the feature then they don't get the premium top brands to sell to customers. For instance any carrier that does not support iPhone has seen significant decline in their customer base, this forces the carrier to support the features that Apple wants, not the other way around, to get back customers.
Also this goes completely against the openness of the Ubuntu platform as carriers are more interested in "locking down" rather then "opening up". Not sure open source and phone carriers are a good synergy, this product is doomed.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
"The group is designed for the carriers to let 'mobile operators shape Ubuntu's mobile strategy. " This will do nothing but destroy the platform. Carriers have nothing good to "advise" any phone OS maker about. Every one of them shovel more crap on top of the phone that what is upposed to be there and destroy features they dont like.
Thus ends Ubuntu Phone OS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.