There is something magical about Firefox OS • Hacker News Board

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#141

Post by wprater » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:29 PM UTC

Sounds a lot like webOS; huge amounts of potential, only to be plagued by 'being ahead of the game'. Probably still 5 years out, sadly. I really like the idea of a JavaScript OS.

Why was webOS not mentioned in the article? They have a very nice linux stack, telephony, and radio interfaces as well. Not to mention it's been open sourced (both OS and framework)

https://github.com/openwebos http://enyojs.com

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#142

Post by kibwen » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:29 PM UTC

akrymski wrote: post #137

So it's an OS that requires apps to be written in JavaScript (an interpreted language that was designed by Netscape for web scripting and nonprofessional programmers) and HTML (a markup language designed to display static documents in the browser). None of these technologies were designed to help developers create software applications, so why is this magical? Let's look at few possible reasons: 1. JavaScript/HTML/CS…

To be clear, the OS is not written in Javascript. It's simply Mozilla's Gecko platform (the same engine used by Firefox, written in C++ since time immemorial) running directly on top of Linux. Nothing was rewritten to get this to work: Gecko was originally designed to be a portable application platform rather than "just" a layout engine (and it was this concomitant complexity that led Apple and Chrome to use Webkit (which is just a layout engine) for their own browsers).

It's literally just a web browser running directly on a smartphone. Any web apps that you're using right now will Just Work on Fx OS. No rewrites required.

One last point: it seems intuitive that Java would be more processor-efficient than Javascript, but SpiderMonkey is waaaaay more mature than Dalvik (Android's Java VM). I'd like to see some hard performance numbers before making that call.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#143

Post by ktizo » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:31 PM UTC

sixothree wrote: post #136

zacharyvoase wrote: post #4

> In short, Firefox OS is about taking the technologies behind the Web, like JavaScript, and using them to produce an entire mobile operating system. Just let that sink in for a moment — it's a mobile OS powered by JavaScript! This kind of happened before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_webOS What went wrong? Well, apparently[1] there were some big performance issues—and IIUC Gecko has some of those already. [1]: ht…

The world can only process the introduction of so many mobile operating systems at once? I get the impression it was seen as competition to Android, but failed because Palm was a two-bit player in comparison to the Google juggernaut. Maybe if it were being introduced today it would stand more of a chance. edit: oh and as to the failing of the author to acknowledge WebOS speaks to the author's knowledge or honesty, ta…

I pick option 3. The author probably knows about WebOS and didn't think that it was necessary to go over it for this article.

[edit] If someone offers you n options, always pick option n + 1.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#144

Post by timparker » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:31 PM UTC

I just wish Firefox wasn't coping iOS. Slide open, 4 x 4 grid with a dock, swipe between panes. It's just sad that companies think this is the 'standard' for any phone os and stick to it. Metro gets some respect from me for taking a fresh approach, this, unfortunately doesn't.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#145

Post by neutronicus » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:31 PM UTC

podperson wrote: post #103

mtgx wrote: post #92

Mozilla, please don't allow carriers or manufacturers to modify your OS! You need to set the right tone from the very beginning. Otherwise you'll never get that kind of power back later on. Sell it to them as an alternative to Android. That's all they need to know if they want it or not. If they want more, you can go elsewhere.

If it's an alternative to Android that doesn't let Carriers "add value" then it's an alternative they won't use . Open Source, in this case, becomes a race to the bottom in every respect. We need carriers to be dumb pipes we buy data plans from; then this entire class of problem goes away. Until then, any platform that doesn't let carriers charge us different amounts for bits from different places is going to die on…

How is owning infrastructure anything other than a low-margin hot-potato if you let yourself be turned into a dumb pipe?

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#146

Post by bornhuetter » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:32 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #131

bornhuetter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we going to be able to load Fx OS onto our own SGS2s when it's released?

AFAIK you can do it right this minute, if you'd like. Here's a guide for dual-booting B2G and Android on SGS2 (though I have no idea how up-to-date it is): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gec...

Wow, thanks. I might give this a go.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#147

Post by benwerd » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:37 PM UTC

Yes. I was introduced to Firefox OS in detail at Mobile 2.0 the other day, and I instantly fell in love. This is what the world needs: an open platform designed for the people who don't already have an Internet connection, let alone an iPhone. If they succeed in their mission, and current partnerships with telcos like Telefonica suggest that they will, then they could quite possibly change the world. I'm sold, and completely on board.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#148

Post by pkolaczk » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:39 PM UTC

robhawkes wrote: post #17

tsahyt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. Sounds like a big waste of performance to me.

You'd be surprised at how well JavaScript performs when allowed.

It performs well, until the code is too complex for the JIT compiler to get type inference / speculative optimizations right. Then it suddenly performs very, very poor, because it falls back on dynamic (very slow compared to inline) dispatch and doubles instead of ints.

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#149

Post by icebraining » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:42 PM UTC

NegativeK wrote: post #115

mtgx wrote: post #92

Mozilla, please don't allow carriers or manufacturers to modify your OS! You need to set the right tone from the very beginning. Otherwise you'll never get that kind of power back later on. Sell it to them as an alternative to Android. That's all they need to know if they want it or not. If they want more, you can go elsewhere.

It's open source. Mozilla can't (and shouldn't be able to) prevent carriers and manufacturers from tinkering. And per the article, one of the benefits of the OS is the ability to modify the GUI and default apps with simple HTML+CSS+JavaScript.

They can prevent them from calling it FirefoxOS, though; in fact, they do just that with regular Firefox (see Iceweasel).

Re: There is something magical about Firefox OS

#150

Post by bzbarsky » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

macavity23 wrote: post #8

It's an interesting project, and I'm all for competition, but honestly I don't see the value proposition for an OEM to put this on a phone instead of Android. Rendering JavaScript faster is great, but does that really outweigh all the benefits of the Android ecosystem?

Part of the value proposition is that instead of waiting for the big code drop (from Google, in Android's case) and then having to scramble to do whatever they need to customize for their phones an OEM can be involved in Firefox OS development all along. And some are.

See also item two in the list at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_spot_openwashing...