Will (parts of) the Ubuntu Edge be Open Hardware?

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"This first version of the Edge is to prove the concept of crowdsourcing ideas for innovation, backed by crowdfunding. If it gets greenlighted, then I think we'll have an annual process by which the previous generation backers get to vote on the spec for the next generation of Edge.
So in this first generation Edge, no, we didn't look for open hardware specifically. We can choose silicon with more open drivers as we finalise the spec, but again I think the priority for the CPU / GPU will be performance to hit the goal of convergence.
In future generations, it would be great to see if we can do an all-open device, for example."

on IR blaster

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
“IR sender is a very cool idea, will see if we can work it in, thank you!”

on wireless charging

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
“We considered it and decided it would make the device too thick (because we are already pushing the limits on storage, RAM etc). In a future iteration I would like to do both wireless charging and wireless display for untethered convergence, but that’s Not Ready Yet, even for the crazy people.”

Can you talk about the licences that will be used for this project and how open they will be? Are we gonna see binary blobs or can we expect the firmware to be released as open source? I think this is a really important question for a lot of people.

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"There may be blobs in the first generation device. The way to a blob-free future is to show demand from folks who care about that, not to be ideological about it.
On architecture - that's an open question and we're studying the proposals and raodmaps of the top silicon providers to see what part has the best chance of crossing the PC / phone gap."

How will you address the privacy concerns on contemporary phones?

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"We're entering a really interesting phase where in a sense our very own tools spy on us.
We will certainly have an easier time providing transparency on the origin of the code in the platform than, say, your average android device, where it's all a big hacky mush. The core OS which will be updated regularly on the Ubuntu phones is all traceable directly back to standard Ubuntu source and binary packages.
There will be a core piece on each phone which handles the hardware, consisting of kernel and drivers and firmware and interfaces to things like the radio. That's where unhealthy things could creep in from manufacturers and carriers. We can offer... constructive guidance there."

How will the 32 millions USD be spent? Will it all go to the hardware (including research/design etc), or is some of it going into the development of the software too?

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
Software is covered by our existing efforts to bring Ubuntu to mobile, nothing more needed there. The crowdfunding is really what it costs to bring a device to market, it would be more if we were a major brand, $32m is pretty lean I'm told. Hope the actual cost doesn't exceed it or I'll be carrying that baby but hey it's worth the risk.

Carrier interference/lockdown
How are you navigating the carrier & manufacturer interference waters with Ubuntu Phone? One of the most frustrating things as an Android user is that both the phone manufacturers and the cellular carriers lock down devices and install unwanted software.
Are you planning on allowing carriers to lock down certain features (like root) of Ubuntu phones? Do you forsee handsets with manufacturer-installed software (apps or even shells) that can't be removed or replaced by the user?
Edit for clarity: I'm asking more about the overall platform & the agreements Canonical is making with hardware manufacturers and carriers, not about the Edge specifically.

On a tangent from this question, how will be be able to use the Edge on carriers like Verizon here in the US that are very fond of locking everything down?

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"We've proposed to our carrier partners that:

there's a hardware part to the software that they are responsible, which is essentially drivers, that gets updated on their schedule (but is not user visible, no apps)
there's a core-OS part, which is Ubuntu, which gets updated automatically and is the same for everyone
there is a layer for carrier customisation, which may be additional apps or scopes or themes but not core OS changes
and then there are end-user apps
In that world, I think we'll have less silly bloatware, and we can certainly keep the core OS part clean and up to date."

Would you consider Ubuntu a "traditional" Linux OS, given the number of exclusive features that got implemented in Ubuntu during the last years or is it maybe time to make a hard cut between Linux and Ubuntu? (Just from a top-level, consumer perspective of course. You guys are doing very exiting things with Linux)
Keep the Updates coming, very exited for 13.10 and Mir!

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"No, I think every Linux has its reason for existing, which means it has its differences. And that's just fine. I think Ubuntu is every much Linux - all the parts we invest in are free software for other distros to try if they want, too.
More generally, I think this meme is a bit of sour grapes, and if we want Linux to evolve based on sour grapes, we'll all just have a bad taste in our mouths in the end "

Mark, i'm Debian user (and Ubuntu too). What about providing Unity for Debian/Other Distributives? What is the situation with sending patches to upstream?

FYI, the non-upstream patches unity depends on are basically listed here https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch; that list, however, includes even too many things to have a basic unity experience (i.e. there's not real dependency on lightdm or unity-web-apps; while some other patches are now upstream).
I talked also with some debian devs and there is some intrest in providing unity on it.

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"Yeah, it's total FUD that we make it hard for people to support Unity. It's a fast-moving project, sure, but it's always been hard to keep up with those, and the main reason for Unity not being on say Fedora or SUSE is imo political rather than technical.
We've taken patches from various folks to ease their efforts in bringing Unity to other distros and would gladly take more - many eyes etc.
Similarly for Mir, we think it's important to have at least two great efforts to bring next-gen display to the free ecosystem, we think Mir has real advantages over the alternatives, and would love to see it more widely adopted. Are starting to see projects support it and feedback is they love the APIs and we love the opportunity to get more feedback!"

Hi and thanks for your time. Will the Edge be covered by any warranties outside of the return policy?
Also how long will the Edge be recieving software updates?

[–]Mark_Shuttleworth[-]
"We want to support the edge with updates to 14.04 LTS and then through the life of 14.04 LTS, which would be a total of 6 years."




And a lot more Q&A here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...der_of_ubuntu/