14 DAY TRIAL // The former community manager for Canonical, Jono Bacon, notes in a very interesting article that it would be a good idea to rebase Ubuntu on Android and be done with it. It might sound like a joke, but it's not.
Jono Bacon was the Ubuntu community manager until last year, when he moved to the XPrize Foundation in a rather similar role. He's still a part of the Ubuntu community, but he no longer has the same pull as he used to have. We have rarely heard him talk about Ubuntu, which makes his latest article a little bit weird. Bold, but weird.
It's unclear who is supposed to see this article, but it's likely going to raise some eyebrows, whether in the community or among his former colleagues. He was a part of that team and they have worked very hard on Ubuntu Touch and other projects. The fact that he's now suggesting that Canonical should rebase their operating system on Android, mostly for app compatibility, sounds a little off.
Ubuntu based on Android. Who said that?
The main reason cited by Jono Bacon in his lengthy post is the access to an already huge pool of applications that are already available for Android. Rebasing the entire operating system on Android, while keeping the Unity desktop, would provide much better compatibility with the existing apps.
"While scopes offer a way of getting access to content quickly, they don't completely replace apps. There will always be certain apps that people are going to want. The common examples are Skype, WhatsApp, Uber, Google Maps, Fruit Ninja, and Temple Run. Now this is a bit of a problem. The way new platforms usually solve this is by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay those companies to create and support a port. This isn’t really an option for the Ubuntu phone (there is much more than just the phone being funded by Canonical)," said Jono Bacon.
The former community manager also explained how this would work, from a technical standpoint, although there are issues that will remain unresolved. Another benefit would be much better hardware support and a much easier way of porting the operating systems on other devices. In any case, it's unlikely that the idea will get any sort of traction, but it might spark some useful discussions in the community.