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Update on Mozilla WebThings

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Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#21

Post by hellcow »

atonse wrote: post #12
dahfizz wrote: post #3

I hope this goes well, but I am worried. This is a project that I really care about. Mozilla seemed like our only hope for a smart home that doesn't spy on you between WebThings and all the speech processing tech they had. It's important that we have open source alternatives. I will be contributing to this project and I encourage others to do so as well.

Apple’s HomeKit Is another ecosystem that doesn’t spy on you. It’s the main reason I picked it even though there are fewer, more expensive devices to choose from.

Helpful reminder that Apple still cooperates with the FBI [0]. They famously participated in PRISM and only pivoted to privacy-based marketing after this bad PR. It's also closed-source, so you have absolutely no idea that what you've said is true; they've certainly lied about it before.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#22

Post by gostsamo »

calpaterson wrote: post #17
gostsamo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strange thing is that as far as I get, Mozilla didn't fire a single ff dev. Servo - yes, mdn - yes, but they actually want to focus on FF and transfered people from the servo team to the core product.

My understanding was that some Firefox teams were cut. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef... Do you know different? I also think that cuts to servo are de-facto cuts to Firefox as that browser was supposed to be the source of faster components.

They were not very clear on where the cuts are, but here is the quote from the linked article:

"In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team," Baker wrote.

The article prepends the paragraph with another sentence to impose its own interpretation on it, but the way I read it is that the browser division is reorganized around the user experience and everything else is moved in products and operations. Not sure how to highlight the words "browser growth".

Regarding Servo, the project is killed and part of the people had been kicked out, but the rest were merged with the core engine team. My understanding is that Mozilla decided that even Google is not doing two browser engines at the same time and decided to move the old one to rust the evolutionary way.

Did they fired someone from the ff team? Maybe, but I don't think that it is because the browser is no longer important for them. The fact that they moved there best rust devs to it testifies that at least they are not giving it up so far.

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#23

Post by benfrancis »

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #20
benfrancis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear that and I'm very sad about the recent layoffs at Mozilla too, which included lots of people I know. What would convince you to give WebThings a second chance under its new management?

For me, what would do it is a complete product that is not niche. A Chromecast competitor that supports the big platforms and content providers out of the box (Android/iOS, Spotify/Netflix, Alexa/Google/Siri) would be ideal. This already exists in the Chromecast, except it's not open. Ideally, it'd just be software on a Raspberry Pi or any hardware.

Interesting. That's very different to what WebThings provides today but that's something I'd like to see too and have toyed with building in the past.

Chromecast was once very close to being an open platform by implementing the DIAL protocol (although DIAL also had some centralisation issues), but is now a proprietary platform built on the Google Cast protocol, and is creeping towards morphing back into Android TV.

There was once a project to build a Firefox OS based TV stick called Matchstick which could have been great (B2G is still used on current Panasonic smart TVs believe it or not), which unfortunately got embroiled in a debate regarding DRM and never made it to market.

The digital signage platform I'm currently building at Krellian (https://krellian.com) could be adapted to consumer use cases like Chromecast and I'd be interested in building that in a standards-based way (e.g. using the W3C Second Screen Protocol), but the challenge would always be getting support from the big content providers, and of course the issue of DRM.

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#24

Post by calpaterson »

gostsamo wrote: post #22
calpaterson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that some Firefox teams were cut. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef... Do you know different? I also think that cuts to servo are de-facto cuts to Firefox as that browser was supposed to be the source of faster components.

They were not very clear on where the cuts are, but here is the quote from the linked article: "In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team," Ba…

I agree completely that Mozilla have been (almost deliberately) unclear.

The article seems to be quoting from this:

https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...

I think the sentence you've quoted makes it clear that cuts have happened to certain Firefox teams.

Now, we can argue about what the effect is of this cuts is but at least you have to accept that some Firefox teams have received cuts and likely those people have either been moved or dismissed.

When you say they moved their best Rust devs onto Firefox, yes but in part that is possible because they have made cuts to the Rust toolchain teams.

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#25

Post by calpaterson »

dralley wrote: post #19
calpaterson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that some Firefox teams were cut. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef... Do you know different? I also think that cuts to servo are de-facto cuts to Firefox as that browser was supposed to be the source of faster components.

The only parts of Servo that could realistically be ported into Gecko within the next couple of years have already been ported. Servo's DOM engine would be the last major remaining piece, but that would be a very, very long-term project. According to your link, developer tools and internal tooling/infrastructure teams took a cut. The effects will mostly be indirect.

Internal tooling and infrastructure teams that work on Firefox are still Firefox teams though. If you work on the build pipeline you still count as a Firefox development in my book.

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#27

Post by [deleted] »

benfrancis wrote: post #14
josteink wrote: post #2

In other words: It's dead. And to be clear, IMO that is absolutely fair. At this stage WebThings seemed more like a conceptual thought, rather than actual marketable products, protocols or even code. If Mozilla need to cut for real, they should definitely get rid of stuff like this which lacked a complete and convincing story.

I'm pleased to report that WebThings isn't dead, it is alive and kicking with a new commercial sponsor. The Thing Description specification at the core of WebThings is now a W3C Recommendation ( https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/ ) and there is a new W3C Web Thing Protocol community group working on standardising the concrete HTTP & WebSockets based protocol WebThings uses to monitor and control devices. Th…

[deleted]

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#28

Post by tssva »

benfrancis wrote: post #14
josteink wrote: post #2

In other words: It's dead. And to be clear, IMO that is absolutely fair. At this stage WebThings seemed more like a conceptual thought, rather than actual marketable products, protocols or even code. If Mozilla need to cut for real, they should definitely get rid of stuff like this which lacked a complete and convincing story.

I'm pleased to report that WebThings isn't dead, it is alive and kicking with a new commercial sponsor. The Thing Description specification at the core of WebThings is now a W3C Recommendation ( https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/ ) and there is a new W3C Web Thing Protocol community group working on standardising the concrete HTTP & WebSockets based protocol WebThings uses to monitor and control devices. Th…

I know this may be painful to hear since the new commercial sponsor is you but having an early stage startup which is entering the fairly crowded digital signage space be the commercial sponsor is not something which is going to raise anyone's confidence level that WebThings has a long term future.

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#29

Post by syshum »

atonse wrote: post #12
dahfizz wrote: post #3

I hope this goes well, but I am worried. This is a project that I really care about. Mozilla seemed like our only hope for a smart home that doesn't spy on you between WebThings and all the speech processing tech they had. It's important that we have open source alternatives. I will be contributing to this project and I encourage others to do so as well.

Apple’s HomeKit Is another ecosystem that doesn’t spy on you. It’s the main reason I picked it even though there are fewer, more expensive devices to choose from.

Given that is closed source you only have Apple's word on that, and I personally do not Trust Apple at all.

Further their hostility to open protocols, and open systems means I could never adopt them to run my home or IoT system

I have an extreme aversion to vendor lockin when it comes to IoT and I have no desire to tie myself of Apple

Re: Update on Mozilla WebThings

#30

Post by garettmd »

scns wrote: post #18
dvionoth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you heard of HASS? https://www.home-assistant.io/ it seems like the perfect fit for you.

Hass translates to hate in german

This is probably part of why they stopped referring to it as "hass", although many who have been a part of the ecosystem (and probably don't speak German) continue to use the term.
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