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KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

kaiostech.com

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Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#21

Post by Snild »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already…

> who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google

I don't think KaiOS will be. It seems that Google is one of the main investors in KaiOS Technologies[0][1].

[0]: https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-ro... [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kai-technologies#sec...

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#22

Post by jsjddbbwj »

ForHackernews wrote: post #6

For those who don't know, KaiOS is a closed-source proprietary fork of Mozilla's abandoned FirefoxOS for mobile devices. It's become extremely popular for low-end feature phones in the developing world. https://www.androidauthority.com/kaios-phone-review-979286/

How can it be closed source? What licence was FirefoxOS originally released as? Or you mean that they added new bits to it and kept them closed source? In that case, what's their rationale?

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#23

Post by ForHackernews »

jsjddbbwj wrote: post #22
ForHackernews wrote: post #6

For those who don't know, KaiOS is a closed-source proprietary fork of Mozilla's abandoned FirefoxOS for mobile devices. It's become extremely popular for low-end feature phones in the developing world. https://www.androidauthority.com/kaios-phone-review-979286/

How can it be closed source? What licence was FirefoxOS originally released as? Or you mean that they added new bits to it and kept them closed source? In that case, what's their rationale?

I think FirefoxOS was under the MPL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License

> As such, it allows re-licensing. MPL software can thus be converted into a copyleft license such as the GPL, or to a proprietary license (example:KaiOS).

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#24

Post by hajile »

badsectoracula wrote: post #13
hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already…

Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it…

Web-based seems to make a lot of sense. Something like 90% of all apps in both the Apple and Google store are already web apps. WASM makes this idea even more appealing.

webOS in 2009 isn't even a comparison for a few important reasons.

* They were primarily RAM restricted at only 256mb.

* The then new v8 engine was about 4x slower than the current iteration (not to mention using much more RAM). Webkit is also much, much faster today

* They used QtWebkit -- a slow and grossly outdated version of webkit that offered bad performance even back then.

* There team seemed to have zero experience in actually using and optimizing a Linux OS.

A single-core 1GHz A5 chip was a crazy idea. The ZTE Open C came out 6 months later *at the same price8 and had a better screen (480x800 instead of 320x480), twice the RAM (512mb instead of 256mb), and probably close to 4x the CPU power (2x A7@1.2GHz instead of 1x A5@1GHz -- for reference, AMD runs an A5 as their security coprocessor on their x86 chips).

The ZTE Open was simply a mistake. It would have been a mistake no matter the OS or native vs web apps.

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#25

Post by hardwaresofton »

badsectoracula wrote: post #13
hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already…

Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it…

I think it should be a web-browser based platform for a few reasons:

- ease of development

- leveraging gains in the platform development

At this point, the web is already the biggest app store the world has ever seen. FFOS succeeded in one of the most difficult areas of building a new platform -- getting companies to write progressive web apps that ran on the phone. I even spent time writing little utilities, a tinder clone, and an instagram clone for the platform.

There are at least 3 big companies with huge dedicated teams to making that platform better and faster. Slowness can definitely be an issue but that's a lot more solvable than a dearth of applications or a lack of open interest in improving the platform. Optimization is a long-tail problem, and it's clear by android's dominance and the progressive slowing of apple software every year that you just have to be good enough, but hardware goes a long way to help.

Even more than this the biggest problem was the market FFOS was aimed for didn't give FFOS time to go down the optimization path. You can mask inefficient software with beefy hardware, and I actually had two firefox phones that worked wonderfully -- the Flame[0] and the Fx0[1]. Those two phones only scratched the surface of how powerful the hardware could be, and I didn't have any of the problems you mention. I still have 2 (!) FX0s in my closet somewhere.

[0]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox_OS/Flame

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/B2G_OS/Phon...

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#26

Post by hardwaresofton »

timw4mail wrote: post #5
hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already…

Servo is essentially Mozilla's Rust browser test ground, and my understanding is that it is not meant to stand on its own as a browser engine.

I saw it more that servo is the codebase they want firefox to be, but changing out the engine in a humongous codebase like FF is extremely difficult so they're taking it a step at a time. They merge bits and pieces in from time to time[0] and I expect that to continue until firefox is servo in as many places as possible.

Looks like servo might only be a breeding ground for ideas after all.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)#Relationship_...

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#27

Post by hardwaresofton »

Yizahi wrote: post #7
hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already…

Companies can't survive on high-end products only, unless there is a monopoly or external cash. (I do want new platform of course, like everyone else)

I'm not sure this is true, especially in the era of free-flowing VC cash and low interest loans.

Maybe KaiOS/Mozilla's (now defunct) mobile department in particular can't, but companies can definitely survive on high end products only.

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#28

Post by badsectoracula »

hajile wrote: post #24
badsectoracula wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it…

Web-based seems to make a lot of sense. Something like 90% of all apps in both the Apple and Google store are already web apps. WASM makes this idea even more appealing. webOS in 2009 isn't even a comparison for a few important reasons. * They were primarily RAM restricted at only 256mb. * The then new v8 engine was about 4x slower than the current iteration (not to mention using much more RAM). Webkit is also much,…

ZTE Open ran Firefox OS, not webOS. Though my point was that a much older an MUCH weaker ARM-based phone that didn't try to pretend the web is a platform but instead used native code managed to both outperform and be a much more usable device.

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#29

Post by badsectoracula »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #25
badsectoracula wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it…

I think it should be a web-browser based platform for a few reasons: - ease of development - leveraging gains in the platform development At this point, the web is already the biggest app store the world has ever seen. FFOS succeeded in one of the most difficult areas of building a new platform -- getting companies to write progressive web apps that ran on the phone. I even spent time writing little utilities, a tind…

I don't know about you, but i always see my ZTE Open as hardware that was horribly abused. I do not see it as weak or anything, the hardware was more than capable since - as i mentioned - much weaker hardware could do much more. It is the software that was garbage.

Re: KaiOS Technologies and Mozilla partner to enhance Gecko engine for KaiOS

#30

Post by hardwaresofton »

badsectoracula wrote: post #29
hardwaresofton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should be a web-browser based platform for a few reasons: - ease of development - leveraging gains in the platform development At this point, the web is already the biggest app store the world has ever seen. FFOS succeeded in one of the most difficult areas of building a new platform -- getting companies to write progressive web apps that ran on the phone. I even spent time writing little utilities, a tind…

I don't know about you, but i always see my ZTE Open as hardware that was horribly abused. I do not see it as weak or anything, the hardware was more than capable since - as i mentioned - much weaker hardware could do much more. It is the software that was garbage.

And my point is that the ZTE open is nothing compared to the hardware modern (even mid-range) phones are shipping. All software is shit (to varying degrees) and other platforms mask their inefficiency with beefy hardware, and continuous fucking updates that almost don't run on older phones.

If an analysis of FFOS being bad depends on (in my opinion) running good-enough software on terribly slow hardware, the wrong question is being answered.

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