Another dead project by Mozilla, not sure when they will understand they don't have resources like Google
Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
141–150 of 342 posts
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#142Not only that, they're ripping out support for it from the Gecko code base, which means that the only way to get security updates for it will be to fork Gecko. I doubt anyone has the resources to do that. It's basically dead. (Every non-Firefox consumer of Gecko has met the same fate so far.)
Mozilla of course has every right to determine how it wants to allocate its resources... but to me, this action speaks loudly that you cannot really count on them to stay the course. So, from an outsider perspective, every initiative must be analyzed skeptically, since they may leave you holding the bag.
This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said initiatives.
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#143So 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.
Microsoft mobile strategy might pay off on the hybrid laptops and the new netbook generations (4/8GB + 32/64 eMMC). Also they seem to at least cater to those not caring about apps, not able to pay for iPhone and dislike for Android. Overall Market share in Europe around 5-10% was around a few months ago, but they have money to spare, and might keep selling Windows Mobile devices just not to loose face. You cannot sel…
Plus Microsoft still has inroads left into the enterprise-managed mobile device space. (Most of the more recently announced non-Microsoft branded Windows mobile devices are things like HP's enterprise focused phone.) Especially with the potential big win of a company's IT being able to manage Windows mobile devices from the same Windows control panels as any other Windows machine in the workplace. Not that there is much territory there to sustain long term (just ask Blackberry), but with all the carriers slowly dropping their phone subsidies it might not be hard to imagine corporate sponsored phones could make a small comeback.
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#144Not only that, they're ripping out support for it from the Gecko code base, which means that the only way to get security updates for it will be to fork Gecko. I doubt anyone has the resources to do that. It's basically dead. (Every non-Firefox consumer of Gecko has met the same fate so far.)
Mozilla of course has every right to determine how it wants to allocate its resources... but to me, this action speaks loudly that you cannot really count on them to stay the course. So, from an outsider perspective, every initiative must be analyzed skeptically, since they may leave you holding the bag. This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said init…
>This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said initiatives.
While I'm sad since I can't now run Firefox OS on my OpenMoko phone, while listening to my ogg vorbis files and rocking Chandler, the revolutionary PIM app and posting updates to Diaspora, this should have been the conclusion from the beginning.
It was pretty clear that nothing much was ever gonna come out of it.
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#145What 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 smal…
>Of course the big difference is that Linux succeeded while Firefox OS failed. But thats after the fact.
The relevant big difference is that Linux filled a need and had a particular niche that had nothing to do with being "libre": it was good and costed nothing to run servers on.
Big UNIX vendors charged an arm and a leg (and often required their own hw platforms to run), and their software was behind the times (to the point that loading the GNU userland was necessary for getting them remotely comfortable to admin/program on).
Otherwise, Linux has been a failure on the Desktop too (statistically, nobody cares if someone here personally uses it -- the original idea of most Linux advocates was that it would conquer the desktop, overtaking Microsoft. Not that "it would get good enough to be used by some users on their desktops". It was already that, back in 1999).
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#146So 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.
Probably. Historically, tech falls into a natural monopoly or natural duopoly with some other marginal competition.
Windows and OSX rule on the desktop/laptop with Linux a bit player.
Intel and AMD on x86 with Via, IBM, and Cyrix and the rest either no longer being able to compete.
ATI and Nvidia on the gaming GPU end, and even then ATI had to be swallowed up by AMD to remain competitive. Intel still a bit player for budget graphics and with no product that remotely compares with the GPU heft of even a many years old Nvidia card.
We'll probably see iOS and Android be the default mobile OS's for a while with MS's Windows as a third player. Surface tablets and Windows phones still sell. If anything, the Surface Pro might be the best mobile Windows device out there and one of the nicer mobile devices for sale anywhere.
That said, mobile is probably resistant to a foss solution as people expect all sorts of cloud and managed experiences. Maps, siri/googlenow, cloud storage of photos, ease of buying, sharing, casting, media, etc. Most people won't be happy with an unbuntu phone that doesn't have all these features and probably couldn't care less about the privacy argument here. Do default installs of Sailfish, Tizen, and Jolla have any of this? Joe Consumer won't buy these things if they can't compete feature-wise.
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#147I 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/
I don't want to use the terminal on a phone
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#148Not only that, they're ripping out support for it from the Gecko code base, which means that the only way to get security updates for it will be to fork Gecko. I doubt anyone has the resources to do that. It's basically dead. (Every non-Firefox consumer of Gecko has met the same fate so far.)
Mozilla of course has every right to determine how it wants to allocate its resources... but to me, this action speaks loudly that you cannot really count on them to stay the course. So, from an outsider perspective, every initiative must be analyzed skeptically, since they may leave you holding the bag. This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said init…
> this action speaks loudly that you cannot really count on them to stay the course.
To be fair, on whom can you count? Although Google has had a success with Android, my impression is that the ground is littered with the projects that it advertised heavily but then left behind, abandoned, or killed.
Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla of course has every right to determine how it wants to allocate its resources... but to me, this action speaks loudly that you cannot really count on them to stay the course. So, from an outsider perspective, every initiative must be analyzed skeptically, since they may leave you holding the bag. This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said init…
> This is always true to a degree, but the more true you think it is, the less likely you are to jump onto said initiatives. While I'm sad since I can't now run Firefox OS on my OpenMoko phone, while listening to my ogg vorbis files and rocking Chandler, the revolutionary PIM app and posting updates to Diaspora, this should have been the conclusion from the beginning. It was pretty clear that nothing much was ever go…
This comment is a stone cold classic.