Ubuntu Phone: Not a moment too soon

Announced on Jan. 2 in London, Ubuntu Phone offers a fresh alternative for phone vendors seeking a compelling user experience for customers. It also presents a new choice for manufacturers that want to control their phone operating environment — and, unfortunately, for patent trolls and other anticompetitive riffraff wanting to tax other people’s effort.

While Ubuntu Phone may seem late to market, that in itself is not a problem: Over the long haul, there’ll be plenty of market opportunity. I was fortunate to be able to discuss the news with Richard Collins of Canonical, who is the product manager for Ubuntu Mobile; the video interview can be found at the end of this post.

Ubuntu in your pocket

Ubuntu Phone is a new edition of the Ubuntu operating system derived from Debian GNU/Linux and targeted at smartphones and tablets. It’s a logical outgrowth of many smaller announcements made over the last two years concerning the Unity desktop, touchscreen compatibility, Ubuntu for Android, and more. Coverage of the announcement includes more details — especially regarding the gesture interface — that I won’t repeat here. Suffice to say that the prototype is gorgeous.

To open source developer eyes, this announcement includes several points of differentiation from Android. First, the platform uses native Linux applications rather than requiring a virtual machine — no Java needed. This means that most Linux applications are a GUI redesign away from working with Ubuntu Phone. For native applications, Canonical has chosen to use Qt, the GUI toolkit from KDE, which Nokia embraced before its current relationship with Microsoft. Specifically, Ubuntu Phone uses QML to enable rapid development.

Second, HTML5 Web applications are fully supported, too. That means applications developed for other platforms — the Chrome browser and ecosystem, for example, or for Apple devices independent of the App Store — will work on Ubuntu Phone. Leveraging the growing market of HTML5 apps rather than exclusively ploughing a new furrow for native apps is a smart move.

Third, the platform is a real instance of Ubuntu and includes the full Ubuntu desktop experience. Thus, devices with a suitable video output can seamlessly morph into a full desktop computer in a way that is likely to be much more satisfying and complete than the kludgy mess Windows 8 offers.

Part of a larger community

Fourth and perhaps most important for open source developers, Ubuntu Phone is another part of the Ubuntu ecosystem. Many developers criticize Android for having no “upstream” — no developer repository into which one can aspire to contribute bug fixes and enhancements. Indeed, a few assert this lack of collaborative development somehow invalidates Android’s open source credentials.

But Ubuntu Phone is a variant of Ubuntu, alongside the Desktop and Server versions. That means it will be possible to engage directly with the platform: file bug reports, develop fixes, and contribute features. Canonical says Ubuntu is “a single OS for phone, PC, and TV” and has pledged Ubuntu Phone will be the most open mobile platform available. If this turns out to be real, it could be a path toward success. When technologies can be freely tried and adopted by developers, the result can be tremendous, providing the sort of developer marketing leverage that otherwise requires the immense budgets of giants like Microsoft.

Of course, there are skeptics. Canonical has been on the receiving end of inexplicable hostility from some sections of the “free software” community in the past, and Ubuntu Phone offers those critics another opportunity to attack. Canonical’s tendency to experiment internally with new ideas before discussing them in public is frowned upon in some open communities. Also, Canonical has been known to toy with approaches that seem to lack respect for digital liberty. The recent criticism of Canonical’s integration of Amazon search — condemned as “spyware” by Richard Stallman — is the latest in a line of controversy involving an alleged fast-and-loose approach to user freedom.

But the most common comment from skeptics is “show me the code.” While various features have made their way into Ubuntu releases, today there’s no public Ubuntu Phone code, source or binary. While Collins commented that the most likely date for product availability is September, another well-placed source explained that “the source code will be available in the next few weeks and we’re hoping that phones will ship with Ubuntu at the end of this year, early next.”  That sounds realistic to me; I also expect a proof-of-life in the form of a demo for Nexus 4 phones and Nexus 7 tablets soon, along with early code around the time of Ubuntu 13.04. A full product release depends on a roll-of-the-dice this week in Vegas, though.

Canonical, you’re late All this is highly relevant to Canonical’s success with Ubuntu Phone. The announcement this week comes with no news of devices running the operating system and no deals with OEMs to deliver devices soon. The timing was clearly meant to coincide with the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas, where Canonical will be present, looking for customers for Ubuntu Phone. This “vaporware” dimension has been the source of the most coherent criticism, including from Linux kernel developer Ted T’So, who commented:

What do I make of it? (1) Canonical is starting after Windows Phone 8 has been rolled out, and of course long after Android and iOS have been established, so it is very late to the party. (2) Microsoft has way more marketing budget than Canonical, which is important both for attracting end users and application writers, and which is very important when you are trying to overcome the aforementioned last-mover disadvantage. (3) RIM, Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, etc. all have way more experience negotiating with carriers, which is critically important in the US market (it’s unfortunate that the carriers have that much power, but it’s true). (4) Canonical has relatively little experience negotiating with handset manufacturers.

Time will tell whether these criticisms will win. Certainly the U.S. mobile market and that of both Europe and the Far East are very different, and plenty of opportunity is out there. Canonical may well win by being less of a commercial threat to OEMs than other vendors. Google, Samsung, and Microsoft are all so large they dominate and threaten smaller competitiors in a way Canonical will not.

Software patents The mobile device market has another problematic dimension: patent wars. Decades of cartel-like behavior around standards by the incumbent vendors, aggressive interventions by mobile market newcomers like Apple and Microsoft, and greedy opportunism by herds of patent trolls all make the mobile market a minefield. Google’s approach was sound: basing its platform on Java so that Sun (then Oracle) would clear part of the minefield in advance. Canonical appears to be making a similar calculation.

Linux is as well-defended against patent aggression as possible, with defenses such as the Open Invention Network easily available and with very large corporate players like IBM acting on Linux’s behalf. All the same, if Canonical gets any traction whatsoever, it’s easy to imagine the trolls lining up in droves to sue their partners, just as they are with Android. Canonical’s approach is to rely on the Linux system to clear as much of the minefield as possible and then to handle future issues on a case-by-case basis.

On balance, I think Canonical has unveiled a well-devised idea with the potential to disrupt the mobile market yet again. Unifying desktop, tablet, and phone in a way not even Windows seems to have achieved is a promising idea. But to succeed, Ubuntu Phone will need to win the endorsement of several major OEM partners, the interest of significant carriers in several markets, and — perhaps most critically as a force for disruption — the trust of open source develoeprs around the world. Those are all very big asks.

Canonical has built Ubuntu into the most viable midpoint between commercial viability and software freedom for the consumer market. With luck, Ubuntu Phone will follow that same trajectory.

This article, “Ubuntu Phone: Not a moment too soon,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of the Open Sources blog and follow the latest developments in open source at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.