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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

#121

Post by addicted »

gwbas1c wrote: post #114

What was the point of Firefox OS? I never really saw any kind of marketing around it beyond "Mozilla decided to make a phone OS." From what I've gleaned, the only differentiating factor was that all apps are Javascript. Like my mom cares what languages her apps are written in.

A real open source OS? Youd equally well have asked what the point of Linux was before it picked up steam.

Of course the big difference is that Linux succeeded while Firefox OS failed. But thats after the fact.

I think something like Firefox OS is important, but probably wasnt something Mozilla should have undertaken when their key asset was under massive threat and it keeps dropping other stuff that, admittedly small numbers of people are using, were still successful in Theur niche and could have continued with minimal effort (examples of projects that affected me directly are Thunderbird and Prism).

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#122

Post by gthtjtkt »

gwbas1c wrote: post #114

What was the point of Firefox OS? I never really saw any kind of marketing around it beyond "Mozilla decided to make a phone OS." From what I've gleaned, the only differentiating factor was that all apps are Javascript. Like my mom cares what languages her apps are written in.

If you took 30 seconds to read the first result after Googling "Firefox OS", it would be very apparent what their goal was and why they thought it was worth pursuing.

I'm not even a web dev, but I'm sad to hear that it didn't pan out.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#123

Post by truth_sentinell »

m12k wrote: post #30
rajeshp1986 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@Yoavm, what pisses me more is that both Apple & Google now have a yearly update of their OS and all they shamelessly showcase on stage is emoji's and notifications.

Maybe that's it? The product category of "smartphone OS" is now so well-defined that the possible improvements are evolutionary at best, not revolutionary, and hence there's also no space for a new entrant to provide a big enough improvement over the incumbents to gain significant attention? Firefox OS promised to make app creation easier through web technologies, but "not enough apps" isn't the problem with Android…

Yeah but a year for 70 more emojis? Come on now. With all the good engineers they have.. There always must be a good idea in the span of a year..

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#124

Post by truth_sentinell »

freehunter wrote: post #94
Aissen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love it, because it's un-addicting. To me this is synonymous with "has less features" or "unusable". I think Microsoft actually did an ad campaign on this "un-addicting" thingy. If you're actually optimizing for time well spent, re-read https://medium.com/swlh/distracted-in-2016-reboot-your-phone... (you can apply most of this to Android).

As a former long-time user of Windows Phone, it's not "unaddicting" in a way that's boring. There are plenty of apps to waste your time with. It's just that you don't need to. When I used Windows Phone, I didn't need to open an app to see the weather, or to see my text message, or to see my email. The live tiles made sure I could see all of that from the home screen. One glance across the screen and I knew everything…

So why did you leave it and what do you use now?

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#125

Post by ascagnel_ »

justincormack wrote: post #93

There goes the chance of any updates on my Panasonic TV I guess... I wonder if there will even be security updates.

Maybe not security updates, but you may get some advertising updates[0].

[0]: http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1...

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#126

Post by vegabook »

skrowl wrote: post #113
maheart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big supporter of GNU/Linux on the phone. I don't care if Jolla or Ubuntu don't ever make it as "major" players in the mobile OS world. I'd be perfectly happy with GNU/Linux mobile software that's as good as the Linux desktop. I run Linux on my desktop (and laptop), and we're 1% of desktop users. I'd be satisfied with 1% mobile market share. We don't need a billion users, all I want is a hacker-friendly platform…

Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Check out Replicant. It removes most of the stuff you might find objectionable.

Unfortunately it's also JVM [edit: Java] on the phone.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#127

Post by maheart »

skrowl wrote: post #113
maheart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big supporter of GNU/Linux on the phone. I don't care if Jolla or Ubuntu don't ever make it as "major" players in the mobile OS world. I'd be perfectly happy with GNU/Linux mobile software that's as good as the Linux desktop. I run Linux on my desktop (and laptop), and we're 1% of desktop users. I'd be satisfied with 1% mobile market share. We don't need a billion users, all I want is a hacker-friendly platform…

Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Check out Replicant. It removes most of the stuff you might find objectionable.

>> Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top.

Android is just the Linux kernel on the phone -- that's the issue I have with it. It comes with none of the other stuff that makes GNU/Linux great: philosophically/socially it's different, but on a technical level it's missing rest of the GNU/Linux stack (e.g. package management, and the plethora of developer tools -- including languages and libraries). The GNU/Linux stack is developed by a diverse ecosystem of contractors, big and small business, and non-for-profits (e.g. Red Hat, Intel, Mozilla, Samsung, Canonical, Document Foundation, Fujitsu, Google, etc). Android is largely controlled by one company.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#128

Post by Sylos »

cryptolect wrote: post #7

I was really hopeful for a ChromeOS competitor. Guess I'll have to wait. Maybe Ubuntu's mobile OS?

...why not just regular Ubuntu?

Or well, any lightweight Linux distro, really.

There's also this, in case that comes closer to what you see as ChromeOS competitor: https://cublinux.com/

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#129

Post by chatmasta »

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.

For the average non-technical user, a "pure Linux" phone with no sand boxing would be a security nightmare. Just look at jailbroken iOS devices as an example. Maybe sophisticated users know how to take extra precautions in exchange for more freedom, but the average user will happily use banking apps with no idea what the other processes on the phone are doing.

For this reason, Android is a good middle-ground. It's well-sandboxed by default and if you need more power you can root it. Nothing is stopping anyone from releasing "free software" open source android apps published outside of the play store. As is, they would get more adoption than any app on the Ubuntu/Firefox/etc store.

As long as Android exists and is easily rootable, and preferably as long as the iOS jailbreak community keeps up with major versions, I'm happy with the state of "linux" on mobile.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#130

Post by _ZeD_ »

skrowl wrote: post #113
maheart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big supporter of GNU/Linux on the phone. I don't care if Jolla or Ubuntu don't ever make it as "major" players in the mobile OS world. I'd be perfectly happy with GNU/Linux mobile software that's as good as the Linux desktop. I run Linux on my desktop (and laptop), and we're 1% of desktop users. I'd be satisfied with 1% mobile market share. We don't need a billion users, all I want is a hacker-friendly platform…

Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Check out Replicant. It removes most of the stuff you might find objectionable.

Android is not GNU
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