(Open Source Learning) - Ubuntu & Android '..neatly .. mobile and desktop computing.'

'..it is so obviously the right way to do things, and neatly resolves any remaining conflicts between mobile and desktop computing.'

<blockquote>'..the recently-announced Ubuntu for Android is so exciting: it marries a full Android smartphone with a full Ubuntu environment (the common Linux kernel helps). In doing so, it makes a conceptual breakthrough:

<blockquote>Why carry two devices, when you could carry only one? Your next high-end smartphone has far more horsepower than you’ll need on a phone, and more than enough for a laptop. So we’ve brought Android together with Ubuntu, the world’s favourite free operating system, to give you a full productivity desktop that fits in your pocket. Android for the phone experience, Ubuntu for the desktop, all on one device, running at the same time.

So forget the office PC. Just dock your corporate phone and enjoy Ubuntu. Anywhere. One address book. One set of bookmarks. One place for your text messages and email. No more typing on a tiny screen when all you want is a keyboard and a mouse. Seamless integration of your desktop and mobile worlds. Brilliant.</blockquote>

Ubuntu for Android's key insight is that top-end smartphones are now more powerful than the desktops of just a few years ago. This means that a full version of Ubuntu – not just a cut-down Webtop environment – can run on your smartphone. That, in its turn, means that you no longer need a desktop PC at all – you just require a screen, keyboard and mouse. What you get when you hook up your Android smartphone with those is a full, no compromise Ubuntu system – and that is the real innovation here. This is not just desktop-like capabilities, as with the Motorola Atrix, but the real thing.

Ubuntu for Android is the real death-knell for desktops, not because people are moving to tablets, say, (although that is certainly happening), but because it is now possible to subsume your desktop into your smartphone. The desktop as such no longer exists, but is simply another aspect of your mobile computing.

That seems to me to be a fairly profound advance over previous ideas, and I predict that both Apple and Microsoft will come out with something similar because it is so obviously the right way to do things, and neatly resolves any remaining conflicts between mobile and desktop computing.

..

As the Internet of Things takes off, that's potentially an even bigger market than the huge mobile sector, which is already being taken over by open source in the form of Android. In other words, however well things are going now for innovative free software, they are likely to get even better in the future, when the core advantages of open source – zero unit cost, customisability, scalability and reliability – become paramount.'

- Glyn Moody, A golden age of open source innovation?, 14 March 2012</blockquote>


Context

<blockquote>(Open Source) - '..full of creative exploration..' - '..the unschooling movement..'

Open Innovation Community

GNU/Linux Advanced Administration - Free Technology Academy

P2PU | Learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything

Learning - Spontaneous, Complexity, Electricity - The Unique Individual

..Enterprise Nervous System (ENS)</blockquote>