Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site
Monday, September 26, 2011
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a significant milestone in the ongoing effort of making Ubuntu a target for app developers: the new Ubuntu App Developer site.
Developer.ubuntu.com should now be the central point of reference for any topics related to application development. From creation to publication: porting, sharing, contributing, finding information… a site that should grow organically to provide the tools, share the knowledge and act as the springboard to foster app proliferation and developer community growth in this exciting area.
Embracing the concept that for sustainable business development and wider adoption Ubuntu should provide the ability to purchase apps as well as to install open source software for free, the site has been developed with that exact idea in mind. In that regard, developer.ubuntu.com has been built upon the foundations of existing tools such as the Ubuntu Software Centre and My Apps to offer a unified and consistent journey for both open-source, non-commercial and commercial app authors.
A quick walk through the App Developer site
All sections of the site have been carefully designed upon research and user testing to provide a simple yet intuitive journey to app developers, from software creation to publication and distribution in the Ubuntu Software Centre. Here’s a quick guide:
- Get started – an introduction to the recommended tools and the workflow for Ubuntu app development, including a video to kickstart new developers in less than five minutes.
- Resources – a growing directory of resources to support app development in Ubuntu: reference documentation, guides, tutorials and more.
- Publish – a simple guide to app publication in the Ubuntu Software Centre, including an extensive FAQ on how to publish commercial applications.
- Community – the place to get involved, share and actively participate within a network of like-minded developers, including the app developer blog.
- My Apps – an online tool to enable app developers go straight from a finished app to the Software Centre, making publication a seamless process.
Big thanks
In this project I’ve had the privilege of working with the Web Design team, who essentially made the site happen. It’s been a fun ride, and they’ve produced a truly stunning result in a very tight schedule. To them, and to many Canonicalers and other members of the Ubuntu family go the thanks for making developer.ubuntu.com possible.
Next steps
This is just the beginning. For all its current awesomeness, we are aware that the site needs to pass the test of a wider audience, adapt to their needs, and grow. Expect more developer.ubuntu.com discussions at the next Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, Florida, where any community member can participate and contribute to the discussion of the future plans for the site.
In the meantime, there are two easy ways in which you can already start participating:
- Tutorials – we’re in need of more tutorial content, and you can help other developers by having your tutorial featured on developer.ubuntu.com
- Bugs – help us test and improve the site by reporting any bugs that you might find
This is a very exciting and new territory for Ubuntu, and I’m thrilled to see all the progress we’re making in this area. This is going to be awesome.
Monday, September 26, 2011 at 21:23
[...] This post was originally published here [...]
Monday, September 26, 2011 at 21:52
I notice the pie chart showing the 80% the developer gets, actually is more like 88%… it’s a small thing, but I think it would be good for Canonical to be honest and fix that
developer.ubuntu.com/publish/
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 10:58
Heh, well spotted, Greg
Would you mind filing a bug at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntudeveloperportal/+filebug so we can track it?
Feel free to report any other issues you might find on the site.
Thanks!
Monday, September 26, 2011 at 23:22
This is great – good on Ubuntu for coming out with this now!
Monday, September 26, 2011 at 23:55
[...] Canonical rolled out the official developer portal for Ubuntu. And, with it, tools for submitting and managing your commercial applications within the Ubuntu [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 3:38
[...] David Planella has announced the release of the Ubuntu Developer Portal, which can be found over at [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 4:06
[...] posted here by David Planella on Monday, September 26, [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 4:09
I like it! One question: why are you going with pygtk as part of the recommended tool set? With gtk3 we’re doing pygir with gtk3 directly, so there’s going to be some frustration there when people learn on pygtk and then learn that they need a bunch of funny changes to get their code using newer versions of gtk. I’m sure we agree that the faster we get people off custom bindings and into gobject introspection the better, but then I guess there is also frustration if someone wants their pygir+gtk3 stuff to work on older releases.
Was this a specific choice for compatibility with releases before Oneiric? Any hints where one could help here to ease the transition in the future? (I get the feeling that what will be helpful depends on why this is the way it is).
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 10:57
Hi Dylan,
Glad you like it
PyGTK is not yet deprecated for Ubuntu, and it was chosen because for the time being it’s well supported and it enables developers use our recommended set of tools throughout their applications’ lifecycle.
That said, the recommended toolset is not set in stone, and as technology evolves, the developer process will as well and we’ll be reviewing our recommendations and assessing the choices we make to provide the best app developer experience.
It might well be that we don’t go from PyGTK to PyGI, but rather straight away to another powerful, but different technology!
In any case, if you’d like to ease the transition to PyGI, a good place to start might be contributing to fix this bug [1]
[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/quickly/+bug/666382
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 9:46
“It might well be that we don’t go from PyGTK to PyGI, but rather straight away to another powerful, but different technology!”
Let me guess: Qt becoming the primary choice for Ubuntu app development? o_O
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 6:07
Why are you enforcing that apps “write all configuration settings to ~/.” So any app following the XDG Base Directory Specification will not be accepted?
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 11:13
I believe they would be accepted as well, but I’d need to double-check with the MyApps developers.
Perhaps the wording on that page needs to be written in a different way. There is a bug about it already [1], which will be looking at in the next few days.
[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntudeveloperportal/+bug/860088
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 6:43
That’s really a nice portal, which is completed with the ability to put up both the free and paid apps on the software center.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 7:10
Awesome work.
It needs promotion now.
What better way to do this than right from the place where you want your apps to be : Ubuntu software center?
So i think it should have a link (probably right in the front area or somewhere visible enough) promoting this site.
Something like “get your apps in ubuntu” (or “submit or develop an app for ubuntu”).
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 7:24
[...] David Planella ha anunciat al seu bloc la presentació final del lloc web «Ubuntu App Developer», enfocat a promoure el desenvolupament d’aplicacions per a l’Ubuntu. [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 7:26
question:
if a developer has already made an app, but has it in a PPA (which gets frequent updates and fixes), how can he/she get it into the software center?
Will the software center offer these updates or will the users lose the frequent updates and need to hunt down for the PPA to add to their sources once again?
Thanks
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 11:17
At the moment, and inline with the practice for applications distributed through the Ubuntu archive, shipping updates for apps submitted through My Apps and published through the Software Center is not supported. That is, the Software Center only provides a stable version of your app per Ubuntu release. That said, you can continue shipping more frequent updates through an external PPA.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 20:42
ok, thank you for the reply.
there seems to be a bug report in progress for this issue:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/578045
do you think that would finally help solve this problem for developers and users, or an user will still need to keep hunting down for a ppa to get the update/fixes?
thanks.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:47
[...] Planella, Canonical alkalmazott közölte a hírt blogján, hogy mérföldkőhöz értek az alkalmazás fejlesztőket megcélzó projektjüknél. A [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 11:17
[...] Nuevo espacio para desarrolladores de Ubuntu davidplanella.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/announcing-the-ubu… por durc hace nada [...]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 21:44
[...] анонс на английском. Posted Сен 27 , 2011 Categorized: Debian/Ubuntu Tagged: Apps, [...]
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 1:20
Hi again, just came around this link earlier and figured it has some useful criticism that could be used to solve some of the issues and attract the developers we want:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/370171/gnome-creator-linux-has-only-10-great-desktop-apps
Thanks.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 2:15
[...] Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a significant milestone in the ongoing effort of making Ubuntu a target for app developers: the new Ubuntu App Developer site. [...]
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 9:43
The site is really nice, I tracked its progress for the last couple of month.
However, one thing worries me a bit: In a previous version, the “publish” section had a yet-to-be-written section about getting apps into the next version of Ubuntu. From what I understood, this was meant to cover the usual process of getting open source packages into the normal ubuntu repositories.
So what happened with the Debian first policy? I mean, it’s really cool to have a way for developers of commercial apps to get their work into the Software Center. But I would really have liked it if the site also helps open source developers managing the Debian way, and get applications into the standard Ubuntu, better yet: Debian, repositories.
Ubuntu has done a lot to make the development process easier for new developers. I’m really thankful for that. But I’m a bit sad about Ubuntu binding more and more of the work done by volunteer developers exclusively to Ubuntu itself.
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 15:49
You are right in that we should have a section explaining how to add applications to the development release.
But to be clear: nothing changes in the way more complex applications get in the repositories, or how the Ubuntu platform is built. What we are doing is adding an easier way to publish light weight apps to the Ubuntu Software Centre.
If someone were to submit an application such as LibreOffice, it wouldn’t qualify for the app submission process and would have to go through the usual Debian/Ubuntu packaging process, to end up in the main, universe or any other suitable repository.
Nothing changes here.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 14:34
hi,
can I put a Free app on the store and then in the future change the status to Paid App with a price on?
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 15:54
I _believe_ there is no technical limitation why you couldn’t do that, but we’re working on a software publishing policy right now that should answer this and other questions. Stay tuned for updates on the app developer site.
In any case, for now, I’d suggest you make the decision beforehand and stick to that.
Friday, September 30, 2011 at 0:12
hi,
btw I’m asking because in my country if you want to sell an app you need at least to start an individual company. Without going in details: here it is not very cheap to do that. That is because the law is focused on shops and manufactures, not about a guy that sells a little app in an online store and maybe makes nothing or a few bucks.
So I would prefer to start with a free app and only if it gets very popular create an individual company and switch to a paid app.
Friday, September 30, 2011 at 10:24
Then I’d recommend you to start as you say with a libre+gratis app and give us any feedback on the experience
Monday, October 3, 2011 at 12:10
[...] ukończyło pracę nad stroną dla deweloperów aplikacji dla Ubuntu. « Programy, których (być może) nie [...]