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Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

cnet.com

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Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#31

Post by BoysenberryPi »

mevile wrote: post #13
maxlybbert wrote: post #10

The original announcement that Netscape would release Mozilla as open source included some FAQs, including one question along the lines of "are you going to release your own operating system?" The answer was that there was no good reason to build an operating system on a browser. If only they had remembered that!

> The answer was that there was no good reason to build an operating system on a browser. Because Chromebooks are such a failure right.

Are you comparing the web now to the web then? I would even argue that Chromebooks are a pretty big flop.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#32

Post by fabrice_d »

papayawhip wrote: post #21
icebraining wrote: post #6

Seems weird (out of character) to be reading this from a news site rather than from the Mozilla blog.

Mozilla is a global company. It would have been nice to do the right thing and inform all the people affected before a public announcement, but people love to leak when they've already been let go. Shame that people might have learned they lost their job from a news site because their colleagues didn't respect a confidential memo.

> people love to leak when they've already been let go

Where do you get that from? If you are a MoCo employee, email me. My email is in my profile.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#33

Post by acchow »

Animats wrote: post #2

So they're laying off 50 people, yet hiring for roughly comparable jobs.[1] [1] https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/

You also need to publicly post job listings for PERM labor certification (for green card) and LCA (for H-1b petition). They probably have employees that want to move off whatever visa they are on (typically H-1b to green card, or STEM to H-1b).

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#34

Post by fabrice_d »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #11
flukus wrote: post #3

I'm kind of sad about this because I found development for the OS to be better than for any other mobile OS, even though I've got no love for javascript. It also ran a lot smoother than android even on the potato quality phone it come on. I hope in future they can leverage their rust knowledge and give us a platform that's open, easy to develop and fast.

>It also ran a lot smoother than android I find that hard to believe considering the reviews I've read on it.

That is true. On the same HW, Firefox OS was better than Android.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#35

Post by keyle »

perryh2 wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #2

So they're laying off 50 people, yet hiring for roughly comparable jobs.[1] [1] https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/

Is it possible that they are collecting resumes online but never hiring or interviewing the candidates? The resumes would be used as evidence that they tried to hire Americans but didn't consider any of the applicants to be qualified. This evidence was used to file visa applications.

That's a pretty incriminating statement, do you have any proof?

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#36

Post by remir »

Firefox OS should have competed against Chrome OS, not Android and iOS.

Chrome OS is the perfect OS for the masses; lightweight, very secure and stable. A lot of things that used to require dedicated apps can be done in the browser now. Chromebooks are also great machines for schools, much more practical than iPads (in my opinion) and very easy to manage. Mozilla missed the boat.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#37

Post by richardwhiuk »

perryh2 wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #2

So they're laying off 50 people, yet hiring for roughly comparable jobs.[1] [1] https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/

Is it possible that they are collecting resumes online but never hiring or interviewing the candidates? The resumes would be used as evidence that they tried to hire Americans but didn't consider any of the applicants to be qualified. This evidence was used to file visa applications.

I've seen this done for less nefarious reasons, whereby a company will keep advertising for positions, but just not hire anyone. This is because not advertising jobs is a strong negative signal that business is in trouble.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#39

Post by richardwhiuk »

Omniusaspirer wrote: post #29
Apocryphon wrote: post #26

Never mind sufficient adoption to challenge iOS/Android, what are the chances any of these other OS's even manages to survive? * Windows Phone * Tizen * Ubuntu Touch * Sailfish OS Honorable mentions: CyanogenMod, Plasma Mobile

My experience with Tizen on my 2016 Samsung TV has been great so far with a pretty rapidly growing application base. Not seeing any obvious reasons why it would die on this platform any time soon barring Samsung removing it from their devices for some reason.

The point of Tizen isn't to succeed per se, it's to fight Google's dominance over Android, so that Samsung have more bargaining power with Google.

Re: Mozilla closes Connected Devices division, lays off 50

#40

Post by ndesaulniers »

bastawhiz wrote: post #17
Brakenshire wrote: post #5

Should have been kept as a research project, and only launched for consumer devices when service workers and PWA's became mainstream, and also the new rendering techniques from servo are integrated into gecko. If we're lucky, web apps will be able to cover 50-80% of native app use-cases in the next 2-3 years. When Firefox OS was launched, it was clear they were simply not up to scratch to make a system like that viab…

> when service workers and PWA's became mainstream, and also the new rendering techniques from servo are integrated into gecko If service workers were invented, PWAs were a thing, or Servo had been built, Mozilla's actions around Firefox OS would probably have been much different. What really killed Firefox OS was the lack of ecosystem. VP of Apps Rick Fant put all the emphasis on apps for Firefox OS instead of Firef…

Basta for president 2020
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