Opportunity for BaCon on Librem 5 phone

[barryk]

You guys have probably read about this initiative, a crowd-funded project for Linux on a phone ...yes, another one!

Actually, it is looking good, and I have ordered their dev-kit, see my blog announcement:

bkhome.org/news/201806/librem-5-an-open-source-linux-phone.html

There will be one main OS, PureOS, a security-focused Linux. Also, Ubuntu Touch and Plasma Mobile are going to be ported to it.

PureOS is very interesting. It is gtk+3/Gnome based, and they have developed a shell called "phosh":

developer.puri.sm/Environments/Phosh.html

And they are using libhandy for the gui widgets:

honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/libhandy/doc/

Also very interesting, is they are trying to develop "adaptive apps" that will work on any screen size, from phone to desktop, using something called an "adaptive container widget":

puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-7/

Anyway, it occurred to me that all of this would be a natural fit for BaCon and HUG, and there is an opportunity here for BaCon to become the development language of choice for people who would like to get into creating apps for the phone.

Just a thought, what do you reckon?

The crowd-funding page is here:

puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

[rikky]

Well yes, sounds exciting.
But, for $599,- comming in Januari 2019, maybe.

I don't want to spoil your party, but especially for people who like to develop and experiment, there is a different, more flexible, and much cheaper possibility.



The PiPhone

<deleted>

 Rik. 

[barryk]

Thinking about it a bit more, HUG would not be quite suitable, as it uses absolute coordinates for placement of widgets.

HUG would need to support free-flow packing of widgets, using horizontal and vertical boxes, as is done in gtkdialog with its <hbox> and <vbox> tags.

Then there would have to be some way of changing layout for landscape and portrait orientation.

But, for $599,- comming in Januari 2019, maybe.

I don't want to digress into comparing different phone projects in this forum thread. But, yes, that US$599 is a bit high. The thing is though, part of the money is a contribution to the development. Basically, I am donating some money to these guys because I like what they are doing. It would be nice to dream that one day they will have a phone that is mass-produced and inexpensive -- I won't hold my breath for that one though.

I am tentatively optimistic, and can see the potential, as long as they can keep to the timeline, and keep up the impetus, and finally get a useful collection of apps. Lots of ifs there, but it could happen. Most importantly, they are using existing software, and in some cases re-purposing it, as opposed to Canonical who tried to reinvent the wheel.

[rikky]

I see, 
It seems like everybody 's got a smartphone nowadays, so it would indeed be very nice to have a decent Linux one. without wires sticking out of it, like the Pi.

And I am sure the guys here on the forum can find a way to hbox and vbox with HUG.

You can already scale the landscapes, or graphics if you use svg pictures, And text is scalable as well.
I see no problem.

 Rik.