"KaiOS gives smartphone powers to light and affordable devices"
KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
91–100 of 165 posts
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#92I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
IIRC Android is the most common operating system on Earth, while Linux desktops are still around 5% market share. Seems like desktop Linux needs to do as Android does to take off, not the other way around?
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#93I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
What they lacked is support for Android apps, since obviously expecting everyone to rewrite all apps for a new platform is a non-starter. If Mozilla had simply acquired LineageOS, worked on MicroG to reach feature parity with Play Services, added Firefox for Android and their own app store in addition to Google Play via MicroG, and resold flagship Android phones with that as well as offering it to OEMs, they would ha…
The problem is that would still be Android. Which means they'd still be beholden to Google, having to support their code, maintain compatibility with their design decisions, etc. That's not a good place for any serious business to be in.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
What they lacked is support for Android apps, since obviously expecting everyone to rewrite all apps for a new platform is a non-starter. If Mozilla had simply acquired LineageOS, worked on MicroG to reach feature parity with Play Services, added Firefox for Android and their own app store in addition to Google Play via MicroG, and resold flagship Android phones with that as well as offering it to OEMs, they would ha…
The problem is that would still be Android . Which means they'd still be beholden to Google, having to support their code, maintain compatibility with their design decisions, etc. That's not a good place for any serious business to be in.
Because writing a whole OS from scratch competing with giant companies and having to somehow magically go from 0 to a million apps (while being unpopular due to the few apps) is a good place to be in?
Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free.
It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform, since Google doesn't offer a version that can be installed by users and also doesn't offer their version to OEMs with no strings attached.
Again, they still can do that now, since there still isn't a version of Android that runs on any phone other than LineageOS, which is relatively underfunded.
[obviously what Mozilla would gain from this is market share for Firefox for Android]
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#95I couldn't find a link to the source code. Then I found this:
>KaiOS is based on the Firefox OS open-source project and we are committed to abide by the rules of the applicable open source licenses. Therefore, we’ll make the source code available to the extent required by the applicable open source licenses.
Haha. Good luck with your OS. Next.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. It is somewhat ironical that the Wintel monopoly that standardized so much of PC space ultimately ended up helping Linux desktops, despite the grumblings of UNIX greybeards.
I don't really agree with the claim. What allowed the Linux desktop to take off was extreme security problems in Windows and generally a terrible user experience. Anyone adopting Linux had to put up with constant hardware incompatibility issues. It's just that Windows was so bad that it was worth it. (I made the switch sometime around 2003, and have been Linux-only for more than a decade.) In contrast, there is no ob…
This is not completely true. I was pretty happy with Windows as my Desktop OS, despite the occasional horrors. All my games worked, Visual C worked and most of the random utilities worked.
I partially switched to Linux just as an adventure, because I could.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#97I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
Apparently KaiOS is a fork of Firefox OS/B2G. So... where's the code, yo? I've scoured Github, but no sign of it. edit: nevermind: "KaiOS is based on the Firefox OS open-source project and we are committed to abide by the rules of the applicable open source licenses. Therefore, we’ll make the source code available to the extent required by the applicable open source licenses." So that's a no on giving back to the B2G…
Checking out the site it looks like they are targeting feature phones and they appear to be quite successful at it.
Which is funny because Mozilla tried that shortly before abandoning the whole project.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#98I have actually developed for this platform. KaiOS powers Jio Phone and Reliance JIO is by far their largest customer (and also an investor from what I know).
The thing I like about this platform is that it runs most web technologies. You can thank Firefox OS for that. We used React ecosystem to develop apps for KaiOS and they worked well enough. Jio Phone ships with Video and Audio streaming apps which are all built on either React or Angular and use HTML5. I think all of that was possible on Firefox OS as well and they haven't really changed anything substantially. We were given links to archived FirefoxOS documentation pages when we asked for documentation.
They have managed to package FirefoxOS for enterprise customers. From what I know the KaiOS team comprises of people who worked on parts of Firefox OS (but not the core FirefoxOS team). This makes me wonder why FirefoxOS shut down and why did it not try to market itself like KaiOS has managed to do.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#99I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
Apparently KaiOS is a fork of Firefox OS/B2G. So... where's the code, yo? I've scoured Github, but no sign of it. edit: nevermind: "KaiOS is based on the Firefox OS open-source project and we are committed to abide by the rules of the applicable open source licenses. Therefore, we’ll make the source code available to the extent required by the applicable open source licenses." So that's a no on giving back to the B2G…
It's not a "no on giving back". You only have to make available the source for products you ship, and KaiOS itself is not the one shipping the devices, so it's up to the OEMs to provide the source they use on their phones (they do their own customizations).
That being said, I'm trying to get us to open source the "base" version which is provided to OEMs.
Re: KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that would still be Android . Which means they'd still be beholden to Google, having to support their code, maintain compatibility with their design decisions, etc. That's not a good place for any serious business to be in.
Because writing a whole OS from scratch competing with giant companies and having to somehow magically go from 0 to a million apps (while being unpopular due to the few apps) is a good place to be in? Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free. It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform, sinc…
Who on earth wants an android phone but is waiting for a fork from some random company before they make the switch? Your argument applies to approximately nobody. If someone wants an android phone right now they can pick from literally thousands of devices.
On the other hand, I'm already a KaiOS customer because they power the phone I want: the one that makes calls and handles text messages, and then gives me a high-speed network for my computer. I spend about a quarter of my time in India; while there I got a Jio phone and liked it so much I found a KaiOS device that works in the US as well.