Hello Simon, thanks for replay! It explained many things to me. If someone could explain to me even the last part of my message:
"I've got also some question about getting cash for apps. How devs can gain money except selling their products in store? Are there some micro-payments implemented? Ads showing? Is there similar thing to Google Ads services? Or can devs use Google Adsense/Adwords in Ubuntu to gain money?" Simon, from your message I deduced, that it's little too early to talk about that, right? 2015-06-29 9:10 GMT+02:00 sturmflut <[email protected]>: > Hey Krzysztof, > > as the creator of the list you linked to I would like to share some of > my thoughts. The following things may sound a bit negative, but we have > to be honest to ourselves. > > Number 1: I don't think we have a real lack of developers, there are > plenty of people out there who want to develop for the platform. The > problem is that the whole Ubuntu ecosystem is currently not fully > functional, buggy, unstable and doesn't offer enough support for developers. > > I would like to give several examples for this (please forgive me for > not adding a link to the many matching bug reports, I can provide them > on request): > > - You can't even build a simple audio recorder because the > implementation stops working after a random number of record calls. > > - All GPS apps stop working after a while because the GPS subsystem is > buggy. You can't have two apps using the GPS at the same time. Most GPS > apps need to run in the background or keep the screen on, which is not > possible. You can't even build a GPS Status app that shows you all the > info about your receiver, because the API is there, but the > implementation is missing. The sports tracker app you want can currently > not be built. > > - All Instant Messenger apps need to run in the background. The only way > to do this would be to tap into the Telepathy service on the phone, for > which there is no documentation, and AFAIK not even the Telegram client > currently does this. > > - People want to call their friends over the Internet, but there is no > VoIP service/API. > > - Push notifications can only be delivered via a server that's hosted by > Canonical. You have to change all your own server-side code to use this > service. The service is currently highly unstable, I only get about half > of the Telegram notifications I am supposed to receive. > > - Up until OTA-4 the ubuntu-html5-app-launcher was still based on > QtWebKit, not on Oxide, which resulted in very poor performance. It was > so slow that I couldn't even run a simple game, which forced me to come > up with undocumented workarounds. I can see many HTML5 developers giving > up because the "standard" way to run their apps on our devices doesn't > seem to perform good enough for them, and not everybody has the time to > find out what's the problem. > > So before we can even think about running campaigns for more apps, we > have to get the platform to a state that actually allows those > developers to ship great apps with full functionality without having to > resort to the Open Store. Otherwise they'll be just frustrated and leave. > > I know that 95 percent of the problems I mentioned are being solved > right now, but it will still take a lot of time until they are part of > an OTA update. > > > > > Number 2: App development has to be sustainable. You can throw money at > developers, and you might get some great apps ported. But there are > several challenges: > > - It will not scale. There are too many apps out there we need. > > - It will look like Ubuntu can only get more apps if we pay developers. > That's a very bad message. > > - There will not be enough money for anything major, developer time is > insanely expensive. > > - Many services have closed APIs and do not allow independent clients, > e.g. WhatsApp. We can crowdfund a decent WhatsApp client port, but it > will never be the same as an official one and WhatsApp will actively try > to shut it down. > > - Where is the motivation to keep developing further, once the developer > has got the money? > > > I think the solution is more like the following: > > - Make the platform as attractive as possible. > > - Show developers that they can make actual money on Ubuntu. This means > that we users will also have to be willing to pay for apps. > > - Keep asking all the major app developers and service providers to ship > for Ubuntu. Talk to them on social media, open threads on their forums, > send e-mails. Even if they decline, other users and the media will see > that Ubuntu is getting traction. > > - Spend your money wisely. Don't just pay somebody to port your > favourite app, talk to the actual developers and ask them what they > would need to offer long-term support for Ubuntu. In many cases it will > not be cash, but support. > > - Invest as much time as you can on supporting developers. Join the IRC > channels, the mailing lists, help writing documentation. Provide starter > templates for as many different app types as possible. > > - If you can, fork an existing project and try to port it for Ubuntu. > Just start and ask for help, you might quickly find other people who > will help you. > > > I invest a significant amount of my time on all of this, and I slowly > see the seeds growing. For example we spent months getting libSDL2 to > work, and suddenly somebody ported Neverball and Neverputt. > > cheers, > Simon -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
