Re: our story for html5

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

Hi Allan,

Sorry for my late response.  I've been traveling for vacation and
finally got a chance to settle down and write some mail. :)

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 2:35 AM, Allan Day <allanpday gmail com> wrote:
> Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me> wrote:
> > So I've been going to a number of these startup events where people
> > who are starting tech businesses show up.  Almost all of them are
> > doing some kind of app using html5 or something related to android.  I
> > don't really have a good story for them when it comes to html5.
>
> There are two aspects to this, I suppose: 1. use of GNOME technologies
> in whatever products these people are making, and 2. GNOME as a
> development environment.

Yes, that's what I have also identified.

> Regarding 1, it would be interesting to know the potential for
> developers to use GNOME libraries in mobile or web apps. I have to
> confess that I don't know a huge amount about this, but I'd love to
> know more. It would also be good to know what the competition are in
> this space.

Tizen the mobile platform has a number of GNOME related technologies
that were talked about by Nathan during the last GUADEC.  Tizen
implements automotive Linux specs and so is in compliance.  I can
probably convince someone to add GTK+ to Tizen.  However, this only
helps us in IVI and possibly in the phone space if someone is able to
find a good reference device.  I've been trying to get a phone from
Intel but it has been a little difficult and there is also now a reorg
that has been discussed in the press that makes it still a little
difficult.

What immediately comes to mind is that we might be competitive with
anything that is both hardware and software combination.  Very
difficult to see GNOME fit in webapps and mobile space at the moment.
That is a market we need to create or find someone who would be
interested in creating it.  This might be something we want to partner
with Collabora or someone who know something about this space.

> For 2, there are a number of avenues we could pursue:
>
>  * We're a developer friendly platform.
>  * We're free.
>  * Ease of configuration/setup.
>  * Builtin virtualisation with Boxes et al.
>  * Shared technology with Linux servers, particularly systemd and containers.

This is a good set of things to talk about.  As someone else said in
this thread, stressing that GNOME supports the familiar workflow that
other OSes have including the worklflow tools.  We can also offer new
ones like Builder with the promise that we can further refine their
development.

In this case, I would still like to give some contact to a partner
that they can contact for help and guidance.

>  * ...
>
> One thing to check on here is what developer tools/platforms are being
> used, and whether they are available for GNOME. Again, this would be a
> good subject for some research.

Agreed.

> > Even if we were just to talk about development of html5 applications
> > on GNU/Linux and/or GNOME, I'm not well aware of good applications
> > that can do that.  Suggestions? ...

There has been some on this thread.  Mozilla is one, and probably need
to know other more popular ones as well.

> My impression is that a lot of web developers are using editors like
> Sublime Text nowadays.

That is a good start.

sri

> Allan