Google’s Flutter Team Layoffs Leave Ubuntu Devs in a Flap
Quoting: Google's Flutter Team Layoffs Leave Ubuntu Devs in a Flap - OMG! Ubuntu —
With Canonical committed to using Flutter for its own desktop apps the news of layoffs in the team responsible for building the framework has left some in the wider Ubuntu community worried about its future viability.
The new Ubuntu Installer, Firmware Updater, App Center, and the (currently MIA) Desktop Security Center are all built using Flutter, which is Google’s cross-platform Web-based UI framework underpinned by the Dart programming language.
And within the Ubuntu Flutter community a number of devs are also using the framework to build interesting new desktop apps. Perhaps the best known example is slick music/radio/podcast/video player MusicPod.
Has Canonical backed the wrong horse? One concerned community dev told me the Flutter roadmap for 2024 has deprioritised desktop features — a sign they say doesn’t bode well for its future nor their enthusiasm to build apps using it.
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Google Layoffs Injects Doubt into Ubuntu's Flutter Investment
Flutter is a popular open-source UI creation framework by Google that has been part of many popular applications and services lately. Many developers like how fast and easy it is to work with.
It became so enticing that it has made its way into one of the most popular Linux distributions, Ubuntu. You can notice it in action with the app center and installation screens when comparing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
Even though some think that Flutter doesn't deserve a place on the Linux desktop, Canonical sees things differently, and has been pushing for Flutter-based apps on Ubuntu since 2020.