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Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

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Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#11

Post by franze »

I still love my FirefoxOS Geeks Phone Keon 2013, it still is my go-to backpacking phone. ongoing long battery runtime, a decent browser for the https://mbasic.facebook.com/, gmail HTML, hacker news. necessary apps are there and work fine: For me that's HERE maps & alarm function.

I love it, because it's un-addicting. android and ios are designed to get your attention, all the time. FirefoxOS ist a tool that is there for you when you need it.

I wish they had succeeded, I even ran an FirefoxOS meetup in Vienna, I will miss it. Now back to my Android Phone, I think it beeped, vibrated or needs me in some other way.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#12

Post by espadrine »

yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

There are political avenues to explore. Just as Microsoft was hit hard by a number of anti-monopolistic EU decisions regarding Internet Explorer, Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space.

But this is the kind of thing that requires citizen action. Also, expecting the EU commission to be the only political consumer protection for multinational corporations is not ideal, there ought to be more actions on the American side as well.

Until then, I highly doubt that there will be any hope of breaking the duopoly, at least until Google's or Apple's core business model starts failing them, which is unlikely to occur within twenty years.

From an economical perspective, monopolies are great for companies and for the country's GDP, but they tend to cause lower standards of living, because of the loss of competition.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#13

Post by kaio »

yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

HP with webOS :). I really loved it. But it looks like you will need a really long breath to get attention and developers on your side for any new OS.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#15

Post by catwell »

kaio wrote: post #13
yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

HP with webOS :). I really loved it. But it looks like you will need a really long breath to get attention and developers on your side for any new OS.

I used WebOS, and I agree. I really enjoyed my Pre3. I could never bring myself to like Firefox OS.

The best now is Jolla, which I don't think has failed at all yet (I have a Jolla C, I wrote about it shortly here: https://blog.separateconcerns.com/2016-09-16-thoughts-1.html).

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#16

Post by mintplant »

josteink wrote: post #5
GTP wrote: post #4

Sad news for me

While yes, it's kinda sad, I also think this was obvious the second the first Firefox OS phones were shipped. The idea was good, but the execution and result was completely underwhelming. And after the dud launch, whatever momentum had been there, simply dried out. Nothing major has happened since launch for Firefox OS, while Android and iOS have had several major releases. That it took Mozilla this many years after…

> it took Mozilla this many years after the fact to admit this failure

The first Firefox OS phones shipped in early 2013. After spending around two years trying to make the project work, Mozilla stopped releasing new versions in May 2015 and officially started winding down the project by the end of 2015, as mentioned in the linked newsgroup post. So it wasn't really many years at all; also, it's hard to place the blame on "bad leadership" when the current CEO didn't come on board until the middle of 2014.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#17

Post by godzillabrennus »

pjc50 wrote: post #9
yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

Only one of those really makes any money. What's the economic model that would bring a competing OS into existence?

That's the truth.

It's going to take a plateau of performance coupled with a commoditization of mobile hardware for open source to move in.

Without a viable business model and with the rapid rate of change it's impossible for open source to even try and play in this arena.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#18

Post by microtonal »

espadrine wrote: post #12
yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

There are political avenues to explore. Just as Microsoft was hit hard by a number of anti-monopolistic EU decisions regarding Internet Explorer, Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space. But this is the kind of thing that requires citizen action. Also, expecting the EU commission to be the only political consumer protection for multinational corporations is not ideal, there ought to be more…

There are political avenues to explore. Just as Microsoft was hit hard by a number of anti-monopolistic EU decisions regarding Internet Explorer, Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space.

Why? In the 5 largest European markets, Android has 3/4th marketshare [1]. How can Apple be targeted for monopolistic behavior?

[1] http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/11/android-is-eating-apples-i...

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#19

Post by godzillabrennus »

twelvechairs wrote: post #14

A major shame that we are moving our technology from open playforms built to empower to walled gardens built to consume. One day maybe it will shift towards something more progressive again.

The PC world was never really "open" it just didn't have DRM like Apple and Google want to. Are into their walled gardens.

The market will force a correction at some point if the value is there for an open platform.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#20

Post by s_kilk »

microtonal wrote: post #18
espadrine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are political avenues to explore. Just as Microsoft was hit hard by a number of anti-monopolistic EU decisions regarding Internet Explorer, Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space. But this is the kind of thing that requires citizen action. Also, expecting the EU commission to be the only political consumer protection for multinational corporations is not ideal, there ought to be more…

There are political avenues to explore. Just as Microsoft was hit hard by a number of anti-monopolistic EU decisions regarding Internet Explorer, Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space. Why? In the 5 largest European markets, Android has 3/4th marketshare [1]. How can Apple be targeted for monopolistic behavior? [1] http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/11/android-is-eating-apples-i...

Plus, I'm much more worried about Googles vampiric approach to personal data, rather than Apple merely making it hard to deploy software.
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