Today, August 9, 2016, Canonical, through Richard Collins, has been proud to announce the availability of the React Native web development framework for its popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.

It appears that Canonical loves web developers, and it always keeps them in the loop with all the tools needed for the perfect job. After introducing support for the Cordova framework, which is very well supported on Ubuntu Linux and has received a lot of attention from web developers, today Canonical promises to offer full support for another great framework, namely React Native.

"Application development for mobile and desktop using web technologies is becoming increasingly popular. If you are one of these developers then Ubuntu has a great choice of frameworks you can use to create new apps," says Richard Collins, Ubuntu Mobile Product Manager at Canonical. "The Webapps team at Canonical is always focused on ensuring the right frameworks are available to developers."

The best web development framework for Ubuntu convergence

For those not in the known, React Native is a web development framework that can be employed for building native mobile apps using JavaScript and React. It's based on ReactJS, a web-friendly declarative programming model, and was designed from the ground up to offer an extra layer of system performance by using native UI (User Interface) components and system APIs for delivering a deeply integrated UX.

However, Canonical's main reason for the introduction of the React Native framework in Ubuntu Linux is to continue its convergence vision and to allow mobile application developers to port existing iOS and Android applications written with React Native to the Ubuntu mobile OS. Of course, developers can also build Ubuntu native versions of any existing ReactJS web app. The React Native Ubuntu source code is available for download today. Support for packaging apps as Snaps and publishing them on the Snappy Store is also available.