14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's convergence concept might seem alien at first sight, but the developers are homing in on what they actually want to achieve and they have recently defined what they are looking for and what their final aim is.
You might think that convergence is a never-ending uphill battle, but that's not really the case. There will be a point in time when Canonical will stop and say "we've done it, we're there." It won't happen too soon, or at least not in the next year or so, but they have already made great strides towards it, and the company is not narrowing their efforts even more.
Some Ubuntu users could read about convergence for the first time, and they are probably wondering what this is all about. Basically, Canonical aims to build a single operating system that can run on any platform, be it a PC, a phone or a tablet. The same codebase, the same apps, and the same experience, which only differs depending on the platform. You won't have to use a phone-like desktop on a PC, but the code underneath will be the same.
Sprinting for convergence
Canonical's Zoltán Balogh published a very interesting piece regarding the convergence efforts for Ubuntu, and he outlines some of the directions that need to be followed. The fact that he gave the title "Sprinting for convergence" also tells us that Canonical is getting closer to the finish line.
"When we talk about convergence we mostly mean application convergence. The “definition of done” is when one can start an application on a touchscreen phone and the application scales and adapts automatically to a bigger screen with keyboard and mouse when plugged into the device," wrote Zoltán Balogh on developer.ubuntu.com.
In order to achieve this kind of convergence, Canonical will need a powerful SDK, but that's already in place and doing its job wonderfully. Zoltán detailed all the categories that need to conform to the new convergence, from stuff like tooltips to panels and dropdown menus.
If you really want to get a good idea on what Canonical's plans for convergence are, you should check the entry on Ubuntu Developer.