“We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release” • Hacker News Board

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#51

Post by carussell » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #46

JohnTHaller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO, Mozilla should absorb the Tor project Tor has too many legal and ethical issues around it for Mozilla to take that kind of risk. > And stop attacking the Linux distros for the Firefox trademark (forcing them to create the Iceweasel fork) or including proprietary services (e.g. Pocket) forcing the creation of the Icecat fork. Debian made a bunch of changes to Firefox and was still calling it Firefox. Debian al…

I don't think Debian "objected". Mozilla's trademark rules are not compatible with the DFSG, therefore Debian can't distribute an officially branded Firefox. I do think the ideal thing would be for Mozilla to distribute Firefox packaged in such a fashion that the branding can easily be swapped out (in the same way that e.g. Redhat isolates its trademarked material to a couple of packages and documents exactly what yo…

Two things:

1. It's true that the Debian didn't initiate the schism. Mike Connor (Mozilla) told the Debian folks to stop distributing branded builds that weren't QAd by Mozilla.

2. When doing a build, it has always been trivial to create an unbranded version. Unbranded versions are what you'd get by default. At this point, I haven't run a build in years, but it would be surprising if this weren't still the case.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#52

Post by listic » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #47

pjmlp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. As for FirefoxOS I never understood the point of it. OpenMoko tried to be an open smartphone platform and failed. Nokia did it for Symbian OS with web widgets and it failed. Palm did it with WebOS, with the plus side of allowing C++ bindings for games, and it failed. Android and iOS allow for web widgets and cordova like apps and there usually have bad f…

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

One can choose from the older models, then, or use a monitor. I don't want the crappy smarts in my devices.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#53

Post by mhurron » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

blux wrote: post #47

pjmlp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. As for FirefoxOS I never understood the point of it. OpenMoko tried to be an open smartphone platform and failed. Nokia did it for Symbian OS with web widgets and it failed. Palm did it with WebOS, with the plus side of allowing C++ bindings for games, and it failed. Android and iOS allow for web widgets and cordova like apps and there usually have bad f…

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

If you don't allow it access to your network, it's a dumb TV again.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#54

Post by epoch1970 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #42

matzipan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which part of replacing the Firefox brand with Iceweasel is coherent branding?

Mozilla wants people to be able to trust the Firefox brand. They don't even use "Firefox" branding on their own nightly or dev builds. They only put it on software that's been through their own QA. So you're free to use the code, but they won't let you put the name or logo on any forks or even builds they haven't signed off on.

I think at this point that the Firefox brand has been tarnished, unfortunately.

For many average users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the slow browser they used to use before switching to Chrome.

For more advanced users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the browser that includes ads (even if these are being removed), has unnecessary functionality built in (Pocket, Hello), and has undergone questionable UI changes (Australis).

For web developers, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the extra effort they still need to expend to test their creations in a browser that fewer and fewer people are using.

For others, the term "Firefox" will now remind them of this failed mobile OS project.

"Firefox" as a brand had a great reputation 5 years ago. But that reputation has eroded away since then.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#55

Post by hardwaresofton » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #40

i80and wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Firefox OS 2.0 is actually pretty dang good. Update policy is still busted of course.

I wouldn't know, my phone was supposed to get it 15 months ago and still hasn't.

You could... update it yourself?

I totally get that it's in a pretty shitty state if it can't update itself in 15 months, but for those of us that are technically able, it seems like an easy fix?

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#56

Post by izacus » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #48

blux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

There's also the choice not to buy a TV. A large high quality monitor hooked up with a chromecast is far better, imo.

And where do you get those in sizes of 50"+ with proper remotes, color reproduction (HDMI color range!) and other functionality expected from a TV?

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#57

Post by hardwaresofton » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #4

The title is beyond editorializing into the factually incorrect territory, as they are not saying they're killing Firefox OS? The pivot from phones to "connected devices" was already announced before[1] and this is just fleshing out that. The language sounds a lot more like corporate-speak than what Mozilla's external communications usually are, I wonder if this is standard fare or if this team is coming from differe…

Completely agree, please someone change the title.

Something like "Mozilla stops FirefoxOS development to focus on IoT"

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#58

Post by izacus » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #53

blux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

If you don't allow it access to your network, it's a dumb TV again.

Unless it shows "you need to connect me to internet to finish the setup wizard" like bunch of other smart devices do.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#59

Post by izacus » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

listic wrote: post #52

blux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just buy plain old dumb TVs, no need to worry about anything. This is a bit short sighted. In the near future, we will only have 'smart' TVs to chose from.

One can choose from the older models, then, or use a monitor. I don't want the crappy smarts in my devices.

Again, where do we find one of those? Pretty much all stores carry only smart TVs in decent sizes.

Re: “We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the 2.6 release”

#60

Post by hardwaresofton » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

tl/dr: ffos is not dead, it's open source, and it's already a product, not a PoC.

I probably read like a broken record at this point:

Despite Mozilla dropping development on it, FirefoxOS is still not "dead". Open source things only die when no one has interest in them any more. AFAIK FirefoxOS is still the most open mobile operating system. If some other company decides to take up where mozilla left off, fork FirefoxOS, and do stuff with it, they can make a run at it (this is extremely unlikely).

The platform itself is pretty amazing already - It does all the actual "phone" stuff just great -- making calls, texting (minus a snafu with SMS group messaging on the version I'm on). The apps are web apps. The phone is almost literally one huge browser. There isn't that much more to add! Yeah it'd be nice if it had more "native" app support, but honestly, any site with a mobile website (or responsive design) has "native" app support. If you've used version 2.x, you're probably pretty satisfied with what your phone does now anyway. I know I am.

FirefoxOS will still be useful as long as people keep making apps for it (and again, apps are basically webpages, so even if it's not distributed on the marketplace, people can still webpages to homescreen), and it will be useful as long as people want to use it. It is already viable open source mobile OS. I am grateful to mozilla for taking the time to make it.

I'm excited to see what they do in connected devices, because despite the moves mozilla has made recently (hello, pocket, addon signing requirement), I still would much rather have them build software that was running on my toaster than anyone else.

[EDIT] - Also, check out the comments on the site. They're great.