Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#131

Post by andrewaylett » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:17 PM UTC

mei0Iesh wrote: post #53

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

Phoenix appeared at a time when web browsers were bloated, and it was refreshing to have a minimalist app that simply browsed the web. It wasn't that potential was being stifled; other browsers had too many features. It was that we could download a small binary on dial-up, that opened up quickly and just did what we needed without any fluff. Notice that last part about downloading? That's the key. We could download P…

Actually you can, just about. I've got b2gdroid[0] installed on my Android phone, which gives you the Gaia experience as your home screen, and access to the built-in applications as well as being a launcher for your Android apps.

It's not ideal, as the integration points don't appear to be fully worked out and it doesn't always perform very well, but I'm sure it could be turned into essentially a downloadable FirefoxOS as a hook to try to get people to get a native device next time, if some development effort was available.

[0]: https://github.com/fabricedesre/b2gdroid

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#132

Post by hardwaresofton » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:18 PM UTC

tldr; sad but ultimately no problem, it's just up to the open source community to maintain b2g (boot2gecko) now. It's already a more-than-functional platform, excited to take part in porting it and maintaining it from here on out, because I'll still be using it.

As a person that runs FirefoxOS on my main phone (LG Nexus 5 running FFOS v2.5), this sucks to hear. I used to own a Flame which was the developer reference phone and basically the best ffos phone you could buy except the fx0 which is for sale only with contract in japan (or very very expensively otherwise), and it was pretty good phone, and got better with every update.

However, as far as FirefoxOS (aka b2g/boot2gecko) itself goes, it's open source, so it's got a life of it's own (though it may be significantly less contributed to from now on) -- and I'm totally OK with that. I will continue to run FirefoxOS because it still does the things it should (makes calls, text messages, use apps) -- and can be (relatively) easily ported to existing phones (some flagships).

Sad day, but also kind of fine, because they did what they set out to do, and I'm running this OS on my phone, and it's verifiably not garbage (I think it's great). Looking forward to a leaner, meaner, faster Firefox on my desktop -- I'll be getting my hands dirty with FFOS on my phone in the meantime.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#133

Post by rmxt » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:19 PM UTC

rockdoe wrote: post #107

epoch1970 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the kind of innovation that users want, nor is it the kind that they truly benefit from. In general, users don't want any ads at all showing in their browser. They don't want them as part of web pages, they don't want them embedded in videos, and they surely don't want them as part of the browser itself! This should have been obvious given the popularity of various ad-blocking extensions for Firefox. Going…

Users want to have their cake and eat it too. Following the users wishes when they're self-destructive is bad, and you should feel bad. Ads are enormously important for a lot of quality content out there to exist. Destroying them now, without good alternatives, is destructive to the web.

Call the desire to rid the web of ads "destructive" if you please, but don't call those wishes "self-destructive" from the user's perspective. It is completely within the user's prerogative to filter whatever content they wish to filter before it hits their eyeballs. Why should anyone feel bad about choosing what they want to look at it?

For a sort of analogy, the presence of pay-to-read newspapers hasn't precluded the presence of free-to-read newspapers (New York Times vs. Metro [1]), nor has free-to-read papers killed off pay-to-read newspapers, which are generally higher quality. Savvy digital content providers will find a way to still make money, even if it's not ads as they exist today.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_International

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#134

Post by efes » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:19 PM UTC

I really wanted them to merge themselves in as an alternate userland mode for cyanogenmod and any other AOSP. I'm not sure if microsoft's investment in cyanogenmod was a response to those kinds of possibilities..

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#135

Post by zanny » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #6

Guess it's up to Canonical to make Ubuntu Touch a viable open source smartphone OS - are there even devices running it that are being sold in the U.S.? Did not expect that Sailfish OS would outlive Firefox OS.

Ubuntu Touch cannot compete. It will have been 3 years since its announcement while still being a buggy disaster.

Not one of these camps alone can come close to Android. If they had worked together - Firefox, Sailfish, Ubuntu, and Plasma, even WebOS - we may not have the defeated corpses of a dozen half baked dreams but instead have a common phone platform that were truly open and community driven.

As it is, the only way to compete with Android is with a better software stack (the ADK and bionic / surfaceflinger stack is awful hacked togther crap, and Linux / Wayland / QT promise to be way better if they ever ship a marketable result) and an open governance model. And what about Tizen? It exists, it is even shipping on a few devices, and you can contribute upstream patches, albeit with the same kind of bullshit copyright assignment that Ubuntu and the FSF use. Why exactly aren't we supporting that platform? Because we aren't the rulers? If its open we can fork it, and its mostly GPL so nobody can close it off again.

I still think Plasma Mobile might be the salvation. Outside of the kiddish Gnome vs KDE trolls (nobody working on either project actually engages in that crap, since both projects share protocols to inter-operate most of the time via freedesktop standards) everyone should be able to get behind that as the base to put Unity 8 / Firefox / whatever Sailfish's shell is on top, plus if Shashlik ever works you get Android apps, which are pretty much required.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#136

Post by steveklabnik » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:25 PM UTC

rockdoe wrote: post #121

ausjke wrote: post #81

Lots of headlines at HN from Mozilla these days. Tried Firefox OS emulator and it's fine, but not impressed enough to actually to get a real device. Yes they better focus on privacy/identity and revamp Thuderbird to make it a unique product.

Lots of headlines at HN from Mozilla these days. They're having a developer conference so big announcements are concentrated.

It's more accurately described as an employee all-hands, with some volunteers invited too. 1200 employees, ~200 volunteers, not really people developing things on Mozilla platforms.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#137

Post by bobajeff » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

kevining wrote: post #2

Mozilla is shifting to use their web platform for connected devices and IoT efforts. The IoT space is a mess right now and I think that Mozilla could do a lot of good there. I think that Firefox OS as a phone operating system will always be available for hackers to port and install on their own devices.

I don't know if this counts as IoT but if they made a good Smart Watch I could use as a phone (standalone) and browse the web on I'd buy it. I keep waiting for someone to come out with this but still nothing.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#138

Post by rockdoe » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

rmxt wrote: post #133

rockdoe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users want to have their cake and eat it too. Following the users wishes when they're self-destructive is bad, and you should feel bad. Ads are enormously important for a lot of quality content out there to exist. Destroying them now, without good alternatives, is destructive to the web.

Call the desire to rid the web of ads "destructive" if you please, but don't call those wishes "self-destructive" from the user's perspective. It is completely within the user's prerogative to filter whatever content they wish to filter before it hits their eyeballs. Why should anyone feel bad about choosing what they want to look at it? For a sort of analogy, the presence of pay-to-read newspapers hasn't precluded t…

It's self-destructive because users who don't block ads are keeping sites alive for the users that do block them. If all the users block the ads, the site will need to scramble for a new income model, and for some the new model might not work out.

Seems like a perfect example of self-destructive/tragedy-of-the-commons behavior to me.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#139

Post by zbraniecki » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #86

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #19

Good. I can't remember anyone other than Mozilla actually being excited about Firefox OS. It seemed like a massive sinkhole on the company's part that drew resources away from the development of the browser.

Every Firefox OS article on HN seems to have gotten 50 comments from excited people. These are apparently the 50 phones they sold worldwide.

I wish we got that percentage of satisfied users ;)

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#140

Post by funkyy » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 10:28 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #98

funkyy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe instead they could just make completely new, unique product. Something like Iphone was in its first release. Firefox OS seems to be something between Android and IOS. They are trying to solve all the problems of those two but on the end are just average. Just another OS that really looks like Android for regular user. Redesign everything and rethink the basics - go the way Windows Phone went, but with open e…

They shouldn't be off doing their own thing in the "not Google / Apple / Microsoft" phone scene. Canonical, the now dieing Jolla, and Mozilla were all doing their own thing and years later Ubuntu Touch is still an unfinished mess with no forseeable legit launch worth mentioning (3rd parties have sold Ubuntu Touch phones, and the UX was awful), Jolla is bankrupt, and Mozilla just gave up. Plasma Mobile has the right i…

Once again, average user when first in touch with Plasma Phone will say "Oh, is this new Android?". All of them unique mobile OS's look the same at first glance. And first glance is most important. Windows Phone did amazing job in that, to bad they screwed almost everything else.

Also it sounds like your comment is technical point of view. Users dont care of that. If mobile system cannot attract regular users, then it is dead.