A new KDE project based on Ubuntu Touch has been released

Jul 26, 2015 17:50 GMT  ·  By

KDE developers have announced that they are working on a new project called Plasma Mobile. From what the developers are saying, it's running on Wayland and is capable on running Ubuntu apps. One of the problems is that at least one of the Ubuntu developers has noticed that, even if the project is based on Ubuntu for phones, credit is not given.

Besides the fact that the Plasma Mobile announcement came out of the blue, one of the most prominent features of the project is that it will be able to run Ubuntu Touch apps (.click apps). This is an interesting feature, to say the least, and it begs the question: just how much of Ubuntu Touch is being used?

This is happening in the open source world, so it's not really a problem if someone else is using the work from another project, as long as they respect the license. So, this is not about anything that doesn't comply with the licenses; it's just something that has to do with the common courtesy.

Giving credit where credit is due

The ones who can speak about the Ubuntu Touch code being used in other projects are the developers themselves. This is just the opinion of one such developer (and not of Canonical).

"First alternate launcher for #Ubuntu touch (really sad they don't mention at all that this is 90% Ubuntu for phones, they even demo the ubuntu default apps). Canonical would already be the center of a shitstorm for not giving credit if it was the other way round, great to see others use our work nonetheless," wrote Oliver Grawert on Google+.

He also went on to explain the following: " I'm not after getting the credit here and I'm happy they use the Ubuntu base. It is just that if there would have been a Kubuntu phone first and canonical had replaced the UI with Unity to sell it as unity-phone without giving credit to KDE you would by now see a multipage blog post from +Aaron Seigo attacking +Mark Shuttleworth ;) just find it a fun fact that the people usually screaming first and loudest do make the same mistakes... Shows we are all humans in the end ;)

On the other hand, many of the Ubuntu devs are glad to see that Ubuntu for phones is being used by other teams as well and that it's becoming increasingly easy to do it. You can find more details about the Plasma Mobile project in our initial report.