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Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

extremetech.com

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Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#41

Post by tomjen3 »

slowpoke wrote: post #7

As much as I appreciate the efforts to build a successful, truly open mobile OS, the "browser as an OS" approach is an incredibly dumb idea. It's another step away from general purpose computing, and I don't like this direction one bit. Some people here on HN might not really want to hear this, but web apps aren't the future . You just fundamentally cannot put everything on the web. It works for incredibly simple thi…

Why can't you put everything on the web? Right now it is not powerful enough for 3D rendering but that is mostly a limitation of Javascript and people using old browsers.

Other than than I don't see any program which is used by ordinary people today that you couldn't put on the net. Most of them properly already should have been.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#42

Post by peterwwillis »

nkassis wrote: post #40
peterwwillis wrote: post #39

Oh great. It wasn't bad enough that Android lacks a real-time user interface, now all my apps will be in JavaScript and HTML5, making everything even slower and crappier. It's so funny how phones made 10 years ago were more real-time than those today. On top of that I get the bulkiness of a Mozilla product combined with the security vulnerabilities of a Mozilla product. "Basically, Apple and Google have so much contr…

"It's so funny how phones made 10 years ago were more real-time than those today." Oh come on that's just not true. Phones 10 years ago barely had color displays and 0 apps other than contacts,phone and maybe music and I don't even think java games were there yet. As far as I know, getting contacts synced between your phone and computer meant buying some huge palm or blackberry and hooking it up to your computer with…

You don't understand the concept of real-time devices. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computing

Really java made the phones less real-time, but it was 10 years ago that one of the first Java phones in the US was sold by Sprint. Nextel I85s came out in 2001, and the Sanyo SCP-4900 (with 12-bit color!) came out in 2002.

All those apps and games and syncing? Means diddly squat if the god damn phone is locking up from apps clogging the CPU and preventing me from pressing the "Pick up" button when i'm receiving a call. Phones today are (in general) overrated, overpriced, hardly usable pieces of shit.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#43

Post by kenrikm »

From The Article: -- With Boot to Gecko, carriers would have an open operating system, based on an open browser and framework, with a truly open Marketplace. Carriers could create their own Open Web Marketplace and populate it with their own apps, and create their own rules. They could brand the OS and load it up with as much or as little bloatware as they like. With B2G, carriers would once again be in control. --

Wait a second.. they think it's a good thing that the carriers can create their own walled gardens with this new OS? That's the most absurd thing I have ever heard. While Google/Apple have their own barriers they are nothing compared to what the phone industry had in place pre-iPhone. Before the iPhone/AppStore/Android you could not even use the GPS that was built into your device unless you paid $10 per month, any apps that even remotely affected carrier revenue were blacklisted (Free SMS etc..) Sorry but I would rather deal with Google or Apple's walled gardens than the prisions we were in before.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#44

Post by SoftwareMaven »

kenrikm wrote: post #43

From The Article: -- With Boot to Gecko, carriers would have an open operating system, based on an open browser and framework, with a truly open Marketplace. Carriers could create their own Open Web Marketplace and populate it with their own apps, and create their own rules. They could brand the OS and load it up with as much or as little bloatware as they like. With B2G, carriers would once again be in control. -- W…

That part struck me, too. I hope Mozilla is smarter than that, or else Boot to Gecko will be DOA.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#45

Post by SoftwareMaven »

alexgartrell wrote: post #38
arturadib wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is an incredibly dumb idea Ouch. It's another step away from general purpose computing Not if the web platform itself is taking enormous strides towards general purpose computing, particularly in the mobile realm of B2G: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5#New_APIs In fact, in my opinion the web stack is becoming The Greatest Programming Toolkit Ever Built: http://blog.arturadib.com/the…

I don't work for Mozilla, don't use Firefox, and am not a front-end developer (I write C). That said, I agree 100% that Apps of the future will be delivered over HTTP to general purpose runtimes that will essentially be browsers (maybe they'll drop the need to wrap everything in chrome, or something). Browsers are increasingly become a dynamic language runtime attached to a powerful graphics rendering library. Make t…

At which point, the OS isn't doing anything but hooking that runtime to the device drivers, and the natural question will be, "Why shouldn't the browser just be the OS?"

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#46

Post by azakai »

av500 wrote: post #3

So Mozilla's fully open "Boot to Gecko" will power the carriers walled garden "fully closed" wet dreams?

> So Mozilla's fully open "Boot to Gecko" will power the carriers walled garden "fully closed" wet dreams?

This has always been and will always be a factor with open source. Open source means that anyone can use the code for any purpose.

North Korea can use Linux, for example, but that doesn't make Linux evil.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#47

Post by stonemetal »

tomjen3 wrote: post #41
slowpoke wrote: post #7

As much as I appreciate the efforts to build a successful, truly open mobile OS, the "browser as an OS" approach is an incredibly dumb idea. It's another step away from general purpose computing, and I don't like this direction one bit. Some people here on HN might not really want to hear this, but web apps aren't the future . You just fundamentally cannot put everything on the web. It works for incredibly simple thi…

Why can't you put everything on the web? Right now it is not powerful enough for 3D rendering but that is mostly a limitation of Javascript and people using old browsers. Other than than I don't see any program which is used by ordinary people today that you couldn't put on the net. Most of them properly already should have been.

Why can't you put everything on the web?

Why would I want to? I really don't see the point of trying to run a real time industrial automation control from a javascript engine inside fire fox. It might be a fun hack but I fail to see any real use.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#48

Post by azakai »

slowpoke wrote: post #7

As much as I appreciate the efforts to build a successful, truly open mobile OS, the "browser as an OS" approach is an incredibly dumb idea. It's another step away from general purpose computing, and I don't like this direction one bit. Some people here on HN might not really want to hear this, but web apps aren't the future . You just fundamentally cannot put everything on the web. It works for incredibly simple thi…

> You just fundamentally cannot put everything on the web. It works for incredibly simple things. But that's it.

The web isn't everything - no perfect solution exists for every problem. But you go way too far in the other direction. Modern web browsers can run very complex code at very high speeds. Saying the web can only do incredibly simple things is like saying Java can only do incredibly simply things (which people did say, several years ago).

> What would interest me more in B2G is whether the Linux base underneath it is fully functional. And not just a slightly advanced "bootloader" for B2G. A fully functional, mostly free GNU/Linux system that gets widespread adoption, even just as a smartphone OS, would be a great blessing to the efforts of the Free Software community.

The problem is that such an OS cannot easily get widespread adoption, because it would have no apps. That is the problem of every new phone OS today, people develop for iOS and Android, and that's it.

That's what makes it so hard for Bada and Windows Phone and WebOS to get any traction - developer attention is all on the top two mobile OSes, and users buy those OSes to get those apps.

So inventing a new development platform is incredibly hard, and that's what using Linux as a development platform would get us. The only real way to get around that is to leverage an existing development platform. The best existing such platform is the web - it's open, has multiple compatible implementations, is royalty-free, and a lot of effort is going into it (look at recent advances in web browsers).

That's why B2G, WebOS and Tizen are all using the web as their development platform. It's the only approach that has a chance.

They are all also using Linux underneath - it's the best OS for that. But it's not the best app development platform.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#49

Post by there »

stonemetal wrote: post #47
tomjen3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you put everything on the web? Right now it is not powerful enough for 3D rendering but that is mostly a limitation of Javascript and people using old browsers. Other than than I don't see any program which is used by ordinary people today that you couldn't put on the net. Most of them properly already should have been.

Why can't you put everything on the web? Why would I want to? I really don't see the point of trying to run a real time industrial automation control from a javascript engine inside fire fox. It might be a fun hack but I fail to see any real use.

Why would you be running a real time industrial automation control from a phone?

This is about making mobile phones and tablets that have the ability to run web browsers, not replacing all computers with web browsers.

Re: Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device

#50

Post by tomjen3 »

stonemetal wrote: post #47
tomjen3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you put everything on the web? Right now it is not powerful enough for 3D rendering but that is mostly a limitation of Javascript and people using old browsers. Other than than I don't see any program which is used by ordinary people today that you couldn't put on the net. Most of them properly already should have been.

Why can't you put everything on the web? Why would I want to? I really don't see the point of trying to run a real time industrial automation control from a javascript engine inside fire fox. It might be a fun hack but I fail to see any real use.

Well obviously you need someway to write to the physical wires and if true real-time is required you will have to skip Javascript, but I can't see the issue with having the user facing part of the system be a webapp -- in fact it would properly be easier to do and would be safer too since the system is better walled of from things like viruses and malware.
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