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“We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

discourse.mozilla-community.org

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Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#31

Post by drdaeman »

paride5745 wrote: post #3

This is a good news. Firefox OS was never a real product, but a PoC. IMHO, Mozilla should absorb the Tor project and focus on Free Web technologies, e.g. a really Free email service and a Free cloud storage service. Yes, I intentionally use capitol F for Free. How to raise money? Freemium model. A good email+cloud storage service, with the optional pay model for using a custom domain. And stop attacking the Linux dis…

> a really Free email service

What do you mean, exactly?

Service that's Free as in "Free Software"? We have enough of free MTA, MDA and MRA software, and while they can be always improved further there's need to start a new project. There are also a lot of packaging efforts, where anyone can find what they'll be pleased with (from source tarballs to build to one-click "rent a server and provision everything there, pre-configured" web-based buttons). And Mozilla have finally ditched their MUA (Thunderbird) recently, so I somewhat doubt they'll venture in that field again, even if they'd decide to make a web-based MUA (instead of desktop software) this time.

Service with some nice-to-hear policies? There are enough services that do all sort of pinky promises (and, I must admit, some try to bring some technological measures, but core email protocols don't allow much here, so it's mostly still relies on trust) of privacy, security and all sorts of stuff. Not sure if we need another one.

Something else?

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#32

Post by pjmlp »

kmfrk wrote: post #18

Some people seem gleeful about this, but Firefox OS is actually an excellent Smart TV OS, especially at a time where a lot of manufacturers feel comfortable inserting ads into people's TVs without their consent. It's obviously ridiculous that this is something we need to deal with in the first place, but I'm definitely happy that I got one of the few TVs without a scummy OS. The smartphone OS was always a vague idea…

I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything.

As for FirefoxOS I never understood the point of it.

OpenMoko tried to be an open smartphone platform and failed.

Nokia did it for Symbian OS with web widgets and it failed.

Palm did it with WebOS, with the plus side of allowing C++ bindings for games, and it failed.

Android and iOS allow for web widgets and cordova like apps and there usually have bad feedback from users vs native apps.

Windows Phone allows for first class development with web based tech and few bother to use it, rather CoreCLR and WinRT.

OEM and network providers always have the final word, they learned not to let others follow Apple's footsteps.

That was a very far hard attempt from the begging.

I rather see Mozilla spending their efforts in Firefox, Thunderbird and Rust.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#34

Post by BuckRogers »

currysausage wrote: post #25
BuckRogers wrote: post #11

I've always loved Mozilla products, having been a non-stop Firefox user since beta (if anyone reads this at Mozilla, never ever kill the toolbar RSS feed support!). Netscape prior, of course. I was hopeful for FirefoxOS and kept waiting for it to land in the US. I've always felt that Mozilla should rebrand Firefox as simply 'Mozilla'. The Mozilla browser. Using their dinosaur logo as the mascot. It just sounds hipper…

> I've always felt that Mozilla should rebrand Firefox as simply 'Mozilla'. And throw away the last bit of brand recognition they have? Actually, they plan to do the opposite: call unrelated products Firefox Xyz because that's the brand that people know. Firefox (then Firebird) should have been Mozilla Browser, and Thunderbird should have been Mozilla Mail [1]. The codenames proved to be quite catchy though. > Normal…

That's the default response right? I've thought about that, I just wonder if the current branding is an uphill battle, or was it the right choice? The regular users know what they're using and the day it updates to Mozilla with the new logo would generate some news and probably many people who left for Chrome to try it again. I don't think it's even been considered for the reason you state.

But if it were attempted, the Electrolysis launch would be the time.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#35

Post by CaptSpify »

dal wrote: post #9
paride5745 wrote: post #3

This is a good news. Firefox OS was never a real product, but a PoC. IMHO, Mozilla should absorb the Tor project and focus on Free Web technologies, e.g. a really Free email service and a Free cloud storage service. Yes, I intentionally use capitol F for Free. How to raise money? Freemium model. A good email+cloud storage service, with the optional pay model for using a custom domain. And stop attacking the Linux dis…

Yes and they should allow us who want to actually use the capital F.. Free part of the licence to use your own servers for everything. It is really hard to do now with Sync in Firefox for example.

What is hard about it? I've never used it, but have been meaning to for a while. Are there licensing issues? or is it just hard to actually get working?

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#37

Post by Loic »

vacri wrote: post #12
paride5745 wrote: post #3

This is a good news. Firefox OS was never a real product, but a PoC. IMHO, Mozilla should absorb the Tor project and focus on Free Web technologies, e.g. a really Free email service and a Free cloud storage service. Yes, I intentionally use capitol F for Free. How to raise money? Freemium model. A good email+cloud storage service, with the optional pay model for using a custom domain. And stop attacking the Linux dis…

> And stop attacking the Linux distros for the Firefox trademark (forcing them to create the Iceweasel fork) Debian's rules don't allow things that aren't free-free, and blocked the copyright-encumbered logo. Mozilla was protecting it's trademark and branding. Debian calling it iceweasel basically replaced the branding so that it could be used under Debian's rules. It turned out to be a fairly amicable result - debia…

I am sorry you are down voted because fundamentally you are right. If you have a trademark, you are obliged to handle the use of your trademark very carefully, these are the rules and this is not because you are an organisation supporting free software that you can escape these rules.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#39

Post by keshab »

This is a good news and kudos to them for trying to increase our options. FF OS might have taken off had it been a little bit earlier. It took a lot of time for Android to get to where it is right now. Even for Google, it took them a lot to get it right. It was a good project but lets face it, there was no way it would have been more than just an experiment. Firefox OS never had a chance to begin with. I hope they've learned their lesson. Now they can focus on their real projects.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#40

Post by creshal »

i80and wrote: post #7
creshal wrote: post #2

> We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the version 2.6 release. Meanwhile, most FxOS phones (all three of them, I guess) are still stuck on 1.3 because Mozilla's update policy for it has always been even more broken than Google's. I won't miss it. My Fire E has been a paperweight for the past year because it was just useless – the base OS was never on par with even Android 2, and the fragmentat…

FWIW, Firefox OS 2.0 is actually pretty dang good. Update policy is still busted of course.

I wouldn't know, my phone was supposed to get it 15 months ago and still hasn't.
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