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Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

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Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#181

Post by prplhaz4 »

kaio wrote: post #13
yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

HP with webOS :). I really loved it. But it looks like you will need a really long breath to get attention and developers on your side for any new OS.

LuneOS is still under active development by the webOS Ports team:

https://github.com/webos-ports

Open WebOS became LG WebOS and is still around on their TVs...

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#182

Post by lotsofpulp »

ikeboy wrote: post #108
lotsofpulp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit is the relevant metric, not revenue.

Both are still profitable in the tens of billions. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/google-s-... $22 billion profit. iOS is a bit more complicated to value, but they've made more than $10 billion just in app store commissions (even not counting increased sales of hardware due to iOS). So if you consider the cost of iOS development as weighed against their hardware sales, and book the software as pro…

Google might be, but not the phone manufacturers...except maybe Samsung but it's marginal compared to what share Apple gets.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#183

Post by LukeShu »

_ea1k wrote: post #169
maheart wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Android is just the Linux kernel on the phone -- that's the issue I have with it. It comes with none of the other stuff that makes GNU/Linux great: philosophically/socially it's different, but on a technical level it's missing rest of the GNU/Linux stack (e.g. package management, and the plethora of developer tools -- including languages and libra…

Taking away those things doesn't make it not Linux. Adding those things wouldn't make it not Android. These guys could have had the best of both worlds.

He didn't say anything about it not being Linux; he said it isn't GNU/Linux, which it isn't, the GNU parts are missing.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#184

Post by vegabook »

djsumdog wrote: post #178
vegabook wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's also JVM [edit: Java] on the phone.

It's a subset of Java, with a totally different compiler, JIT, etc. Newer versions don't even use Dalvic, but compile/cache the bytecode into ELF/machine code.

What does it matter what's underneath? At the visible layer which most of us have to use, it's java.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#185

Post by skc »

twelvechairs wrote: post #14

A major shame that we are moving our technology from open playforms built to empower to walled gardens built to consume. One day maybe it will shift towards something more progressive again.

The most bizarre thing about this is that geeks now even manage to rationalize this away.

That iOS/Apple (of today) are so revered by open-systems loving folks is a little bit counterintuitive.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#186

Post by snuxoll »

skrowl wrote: post #113
maheart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big supporter of GNU/Linux on the phone. I don't care if Jolla or Ubuntu don't ever make it as "major" players in the mobile OS world. I'd be perfectly happy with GNU/Linux mobile software that's as good as the Linux desktop. I run Linux on my desktop (and laptop), and we're 1% of desktop users. I'd be satisfied with 1% mobile market share. We don't need a billion users, all I want is a hacker-friendly platform…

Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Check out Replicant. It removes most of the stuff you might find objectionable.

And the android UI framework is still garbage, having to freeze and thaw activity state just to handle screen rotation is the most insane thing I have ever heard of. Hell, even the various Symbians handled this better (I loved my Symbian S60 devices, but programming for them was an exercise in frustration).

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#187

Post by rocky1138 »

agentdrtran wrote: post #171
rocky1138 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't already, please consider the Pyra. It's a full Linux desktop in a phone-ish format and supports SIM cards for voice calling and text. https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/

You suggest using that monstrosity as a phone ?

Yes, of course. I don't remember the last time I made a voice call, so I don't care at all about that functionality.

Really, all I care about is receiving SMS.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#188

Post by aikah »

gwbas1c wrote: post #114

What was the point of Firefox OS? I never really saw any kind of marketing around it beyond "Mozilla decided to make a phone OS." From what I've gleaned, the only differentiating factor was that all apps are Javascript. Like my mom cares what languages her apps are written in.

A open source phone with web techs.

I told Mozilla people on this forum for many years that it wasn't going to work, anybody can check my history. It didn't fail because they were using web techs but because they were releasing low end phones. Firefox OS phones should have been "geek" phones, phones for people who already own 2/3 phones and want something they can "hack" and boast about. The product itself wasn't bad, the strategy was. Again targeting emergent markets was stupid, people in emergent markets either have "feature phones" or android phones, because of what's app and co, Firefox OS should have targeted geeks and hipsters , with high end models... That's how you make a brand or a product desirable.

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#189

Post by ghostly_s »

maheart wrote: post #127
skrowl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Check out Replicant. It removes most of the stuff you might find objectionable.

>> Android is Linux on the phone. It's Linux kernel with stuff on top. Android is just the Linux kernel on the phone -- that's the issue I have with it. It comes with none of the other stuff that makes GNU/Linux great: philosophically/socially it's different, but on a technical level it's missing rest of the GNU/Linux stack (e.g. package management, and the plethora of developer tools -- including languages and libra…

Is Tizen any closer to this?

Re: Mozilla has stopped all commercial development on Firefox OS

#190

Post by andyidsinga »

yoavm wrote: post #6

So we had Jolla, Ubuntu, Mozilla and even Microsoft trying to create a new major player in the mobile OSs market - all pretty much failed to do so. Is it practically impossible? Are we stuck with Android and iOS forever? This tiny selection of options worries me.

we're no more stuck with those two than we were with blackberry. things change in less than predictable ways. next big os front will be bringing embedded (read iot) from the old school to the new.
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