When speaking about Free and Open Source Software (#FOSS), one of the core freedoms, is the freedom of choice. When looking at computer systems, the change is really happening with Linux becoming more and more dominant on the desktop, and an increasing number of people using foss tools. With other hardware the story is quite different, On the one side there are the IOT devices, which often run on Linux, so quite foss. Most other not IOT hardware runs on proprietary software. But let'let's examine the world of smartphones. In 2007 the first iPhone came entered the market, followed by Android in 2008. While iOS is completely proprietary, with all kind of evil tooling which can be used to spy on the user, Android is basically free and open source, only most smartphone producers put a proprietary layer, with proprietary apps on top of the foss operating system, so we don't know what happens to your data. So what choice do we have?
A few answers are possible, but we focus on one for now: Ubuntu Touch.
Ubuntu Touch is a mobile operating system developed by Canonical Ltd., the company behind the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu. The project was started in 2011 with the goal of creating an open-source, touch-friendly alternative to proprietary mobile operating systems like Android and iOS.
Here's a brief timeline of the history of Ubuntu Touch:
- 2011: Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical Ltd., announces plans to develop a mobile version of Ubuntu. The project is initially called "Ubuntu Mobile" but later renamed to Ubuntu Touch.
- 2012: The first alpha release of Ubuntu Touch is made available for developers and testers. This early build runs on Samsung Galaxy S II devices.
- 2013:
- Canonical releases the first beta version of Ubuntu Touch, which adds support for more devices (Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Google Nexus 4).
- The company announces plans to launch a commercial device running Ubuntu Touch in 2014.
- 2014: Bq Aquaris E4.5 becomes the first commercially available smartphone to run Ubuntu Touch. This device is released exclusively in Europe.
- 2015:
- Canonical releases the second beta version of Ubuntu Touch, which adds support for more devices (Samsung Galaxy S III and Google Nexus 7).
- The company announces that it will no longer develop new features or hardware support for Ubuntu Touch, instead focusing on maintaining existing functionality.
- 2016: Canonical stops actively developing Ubuntu Touch. Although the project is still maintained by a community of developers, there are no further updates or releases.
- 2020: A group of independent developers forms the "Ubuntu Touch Community" to continue working on and improving the operating system.
At this moment Ubuntu Touch is alive and kicking, the project is developed by a community of developers, (https://ubports.com/), has it's own appstore and is supported by smartphone producers like Volla and Fairphone . The main advantage is that the operating system has no proprietary add ons and is fully foss. But this is not the only freedom you get. When developing software for iOS or Android you don't have much choice in how you are going to develop apps for both ecosystems. When developing for Ubuntu Touch you can develop apps with Python, Javascript, C++, QML, HTML, GO and RUST, so plenty of options.
Ubports the foundation responsible for the development of Ubuntu Touch is a partner of OS-SCi, while we embrace the freedom of choice, we need more apps for the community. More apps means more developers, developers we are training.