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Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

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Re: Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

#23

Post by LowDog »

I'm really glad Firefox OS is getting attention and this post highlights the features that Mozilla should be advertising in more developed countries instead of just focusing solely on appealing to developing nations. Competition is good and there really needs to be another player in the game apart from Apple, Google, and Microsoft. We especially need a completely transparent and open mobile operating system like Firefox OS, so I really hope this project succeeds.

I would also really like for Mozilla to focus on higher end hardware and to also address some core features that are completely absent from the OS. Some issues regarding these missing features have been sitting open for YEARS on Bugzilla, and it has prompted me to start learning how to develop for the OS, but I have a long while yet before I can make any meaningful contribution.

I got a ZTE Open C as my first smart phone, and I was really impressed with how capable it is, but there are some incredibly annoying issues that seem like they are never going to be addressed. For one, the screen brightness returns to 100% every single time I wake my phone up front standby. I really hope Mozilla partners with more manufacturers down the line because I've heard nothing but negative things about the Geeksphone and ZTE phones, and my experiences so far confirm these findings.

Re: Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

#24

Post by Pwntastic »

niutech wrote: post #22

Another benefit is that Forefox OS is fully open source, so you know it is not spying on you and you can customize every aspect of the OS.

The phone OS may be open source, but is the sim? The sim card can run applications directly without the phone being aware of it.

Re: Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

#25

Post by cbtacy »

appenin wrote: post #14
pudo wrote: post #6

I think one basic problem with Firefox OS being a "developer-first" thing is the devices it's being shipped on. Of course, a $33 phone is a very cool thing to be able to do. But as a developer, a lot of my disposable income is going to be directed towards gadgets and a $33 phone is just a decade behind the types of phones I would actually use myself. I think that to attract developers, Mozilla should aim to find a pa…

Not all developers live in the first world :)

I wish I could upvote this a thousand times....

Re: Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

#26

Post by sobkas »

niutech wrote: post #21
sobkas wrote: post #20

Only if there was a ssh client for it...

There is one - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1006954

If using a ssh client involves setting up anytermd daemon then it's not a ssh client but an anyterm client.

There is a difference between two.

ps. line like this makes me eager to base my security on it:

../scripts/mk_static_content.sh anyterm.html anyterm.js anyterm.css copy.png paste.png copy.gif paste.gif > static_content.cc

Re: Firefox OS is a developer's best friend

#28

Post by scarecrowbob »

Someone1234 wrote: post #16
DanBC wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then those developers will develop for that new phone, creating a bunch of stuff that will not run on the older phones. Since those older phones are Mozilla's target market it would be an odd choice to make. It's a little bit like the WWW where people (rightly) develop on very powerful hardware but often (wrongly) fail to test on a range of normal hardware. (This is also ignoring the fact that stuff written for t…

To your last point: It is extremely hard to test your HTML/etc sites on a range of hardware unless you happen to work for someone with deep pockets and a dedication to broad support (e.g. Google). Is there a cost effective way to do so? Other than just getting a RaspberryPi and seeing if that can render it?

I do a lot of testing to support web apps in IE variants using a VM... I generally assume that this would be possible for testing lower performing machines as well.

Also, I do some testing for android and iOS browsers in xcode and the android sdk, (I have an actual iPhone and android tablet, too).

It's not hard or expensive, it just takes a whole lot of time, especially when you're trying to actually fix bugs.

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