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

discourse.mozilla-community.org

61–70 of 156 posts

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

#61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You could... update it yourself? I totally get that it's in a pretty shitty state if it can't update itself in 15 months, but for those of us that are technically able, it seems like an easy fix?

I could.

I could also just do the same with my beefier Android phone instead.

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

#62
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why isn't this a problem for Linux? Or Perl, Python, Drupal or many of the other packages that exist under their trademarked names in Debian and other distributions?

There are several options:

* The logos might be under a free license

* The logos might not even be shipped (not a big deal for Perl and Python, which are primariliy command line applications)

* The trademark protection only includes the name, not the logo, and so it doesn't force the owner to defend its usage to keep the trademark.

For example https://www.drupal.com/trademark mentions a drupal icon which is subject to traemark, and a logo, which is not (unfortunately the log link is a 404).

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

#63
I wonder whether they'll consider bringing it back to smartphones, if/when Servo starts to make inroads into the Firefox for Android codebase. FirefoxOS seemed way too late for any early mover advantage, and too early to present web apps as a credible replacement for native apps (they can replace relatively simple apps but not much further at the moment).

In some ways, it would have been better if Mozilla had just kept it chugging along as a proof of concept, which you could install voluntarily on rooted phones, and use it as a basis for developing the API's, and the parallel layout engine, which along with a few years of development in client-side javascript should improve the reach of web apps. It was in some ways too late, and in some ways too early for the grand launch.

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

#64
post #59
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can choose from the older models, then, or use a monitor. I don't want the crappy smarts in my devices.

Again, where do we find one of those? Pretty much all stores carry only smart TVs in decent sizes.

Come to Europe, lots of models to choose from.

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

#65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the choice not to buy a TV. A large high quality monitor hooked up with a chromecast is far better, imo.

And where do you get those in sizes of 50"+ with proper remotes, color reproduction (HDMI color range!) and other functionality expected from a TV?

A trip down to any consumer store here in Germany?

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

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could... update it yourself? I totally get that it's in a pretty shitty state if it can't update itself in 15 months, but for those of us that are technically able, it seems like an easy fix?

I could. I could also just do the same with my beefier Android phone instead.

So what I did was bought a beefier android phone (not that beefy, just a Nexus 5), and flashed FirefoxOS on it :)

The default phones that FFOS comes with are pretty weak (except for the flame which wasn't that bad), but they have some pretty decent support for flashing popular phones.

I don't blame you if you don't do that, obviously -- android is definitely easier to use and update, and better supported than FirefoxOS. It's obviously completely OK to dislike FirefoxOS because of this, and choose to go with the more stable/simple option. Free up those brain cycles for something else.

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

#67
post #47
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

Or you can just buy a smart tv and not use any of it's features. I will never use built in functionality and always opt for my RasPlex (RPi 2), AppleTV, or Chromecast.

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

#68
post #32
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 f…

The next one in line : Ubuntu Mobile.

Such a shame they didn't focus on desktop, the timing was great with Windows 8 being a shit show.

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

#69

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…

> IMHO, Mozilla should absorb the Tor project Tor has too many legal and ethical issues around it for Mozilla to take that kind of risk. > And stop attacking the Linux distros for the Firefox trademark (forcing them to create the Iceweasel fork) or including proprietary services (e.g. Pocket) forcing the creation of the Icecat fork. Debian made a bunch of changes to Firefox and was still calling it Firefox. Debian al…

> Pocket code in Firefox is open source, you can examine it yourself

You can see the client side code but what Pocket is doing with all the data on the server side is completely opaque and source is unavailable.

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

#70
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In version 28 or so they removed the ability to configure Firefox Sync against a custom Sync server. You could continue to use an existing setup but there is no UI for setting up a new one. (all AFAIK)
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