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> There's no Schrödinger about it, FFOS is alive. Is it, though? It's pivoting from being an OS for mobile phones, which is something that billions of people u

> There's no Schrödinger about it, FFOS is alive. Is it, though? It's pivoting from being an OS for mobile phones, which is something that billions of people use and understand, to being an OS for "internet of things" devices, which are… uh… internet-connected thermostats and refrigerators and stuff? I guess? But even if smart fridges are really going to become a thing, are we not not anticipating Firefox OS not facing the same challenges it did in the phone market? That is, if I'm gonna make a smart fridge, why would I choose FFOS over Android, especially since devs for the latter are far more common?

hardwaresofton 11y ago
Obviously, I'm incredibly biased, but I think it's reasonable to see the shift as applying FFOS to a different thing. The OS they've created is flexible enough to go on a completely different device, where as I don't think android belongs many places outside of phones and tablets. I think that flexibility is what lets them avoid calling this a failed project, and more of a pivot. By the way, FFOS hasn't become any LESS of a phone OS just because they're focusing on applying it to IoT stuff -- It still runs great, and you can flash it to a lot of flagship phones without any problems. The best thing about FFOS is that it doesn't require buy in to some closed platform. Your connected fridge apps and your connected microwave apps are just going to be webapps, which take advantage of an in-browser (knowing the devs at mozilla, most likely well documented, open an reasonable) API. While I definitely don't know what manufacturers actually go through (I'm not one), I might choose FFOS over android because of ease of app creation, lack of having to deal with Google, and more thoroughly open OS. If I want to spin my own version of gaia (the frontend for FFOS), it's incredibly easy (and of course, styling HTML/CSS, and adding some JS is in my opinion, easier than dealing with the Android ecosystem)
- epoch1970 11y ago
  > The OS they've created is flexible enough to go on a completely different device, where as I don't think android belongs many places outside of phones and tablets. I'm confused by this claim. Doesn't Firefox OS use the Linux kernel, like Android does? Doesn't Firefox OS incorporate part of the Android HAL into Gonk? And how does Gecko really differ that much from Blink in this scenario? I find it strange to think that Android isn't suitable for this use, but somehow Firefox OS is, although they're so similar.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Actually FFOS uses everything Android that is below the Java VM. I think recently there was an apk released that allows you to try out the UI part of FFOS as an Android launcher.
    - hardwaresofton 11y ago
      Yes: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/2.5/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/2.5/ 2.5 allows you to download an Android app and try out FirefoxOS
  - soapdog 11y ago
    The main difference is that gecko with the web apis to access hardware features provide a very nimble layer that makes quite easy to develop apps with JS that previously could only be developer with Java or Obj-C/Swift. Its like phonegap without wrappers. Imagine if your web app could directly talk to hardware sensors, disk and phone features if the user gave it permission. The difference is that blink does not offer such APIs not this tight integration with the OS to the point where gecko is the OS. It used to be called "boot 2 gecko" for a reason
  - hardwaresofton 11y ago
    You're right, it's a weak/bad point. What I wanted to convey was that with the flexibility in layout/design that HTML/CSS brings, along with the relative simplicity of the FFOS code base, I think it would be easier for someone writing custom UI to do it on FFOS (like a custom fridge UI) than it would be on Android. What I'm assuming is that whoever is writing something like a fridge UI might have a tendency to go outside what android allows you to do is going to want to go outside what Android lets you do in a view. But I dunno, a case could be made that they're just equivalent but different troubles. There's also the case of qualifying for gapps and what not, there are less strings attached to FFOS.
purpled_haze 11y ago
> why would I choose FFOS over Android Updating JS apps is a bit less tricky than updating Android apps perhaps? The primary problem with the IOT though is updating the firmware/OS and/or apps on all the devices in an ongoing and secure way. Neither Android or FFOS solve that.
- creshal 11y ago
  > Updating JS apps is a bit less tricky than updating Android apps perhaps? Except that FFOS already has a worse fragmentation than Android, because no hardware vendor ever bothered to properly support their FFOS phones. It's been dead on arrival as far as the mobile market is concerned.
bobajeff 11y ago
If I'm not mistaken the pivot is from being a branded platform with a central app store to being a "white label" platform that any company can build their own system with (like what J2ME was).

hardwaresofton 11y ago

Obviously, I'm incredibly biased, but I think it's reasonable to see the shift as applying FFOS to a different thing. The OS they've created is flexible enough to go on a completely different device, where as I don't think android belongs many places outside of phones and tablets. I think that flexibility is what lets them avoid calling this a failed project, and more of a pivot. By the way, FFOS hasn't become any LESS of a phone OS just because they're focusing on applying it to IoT stuff -- It still runs great, and you can flash it to a lot of flagship phones without any problems. The best thing about FFOS is that it doesn't require buy in to some closed platform. Your connected fridge apps and your connected microwave apps are just going to be webapps, which take advantage of an in-browser (knowing the devs at mozilla, most likely well documented, open an reasonable) API. While I definitely don't know what manufacturers actually go through (I'm not one), I might choose FFOS over android because of ease of app creation, lack of having to deal with Google, and more thoroughly open OS. If I want to spin my own version of gaia (the frontend for FFOS), it's incredibly easy (and of course, styling HTML/CSS, and adding some JS is in my opinion, easier than dealing with the Android ecosystem)

epoch1970 11y ago
> The OS they've created is flexible enough to go on a completely different device, where as I don't think android belongs many places outside of phones and tablets. I'm confused by this claim. Doesn't Firefox OS use the Linux kernel, like Android does? Doesn't Firefox OS incorporate part of the Android HAL into Gonk? And how does Gecko really differ that much from Blink in this scenario? I find it strange to think that Android isn't suitable for this use, but somehow Firefox OS is, although they're so similar.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Actually FFOS uses everything Android that is below the Java VM. I think recently there was an apk released that allows you to try out the UI part of FFOS as an Android launcher.
  - hardwaresofton 11y ago
    Yes: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/2.5/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/2.5/ 2.5 allows you to download an Android app and try out FirefoxOS
- soapdog 11y ago
  The main difference is that gecko with the web apis to access hardware features provide a very nimble layer that makes quite easy to develop apps with JS that previously could only be developer with Java or Obj-C/Swift. Its like phonegap without wrappers. Imagine if your web app could directly talk to hardware sensors, disk and phone features if the user gave it permission. The difference is that blink does not offer such APIs not this tight integration with the OS to the point where gecko is the OS. It used to be called "boot 2 gecko" for a reason
- hardwaresofton 11y ago
  You're right, it's a weak/bad point. What I wanted to convey was that with the flexibility in layout/design that HTML/CSS brings, along with the relative simplicity of the FFOS code base, I think it would be easier for someone writing custom UI to do it on FFOS (like a custom fridge UI) than it would be on Android. What I'm assuming is that whoever is writing something like a fridge UI might have a tendency to go outside what android allows you to do is going to want to go outside what Android lets you do in a view. But I dunno, a case could be made that they're just equivalent but different troubles. There's also the case of qualifying for gapps and what not, there are less strings attached to FFOS.

purpled_haze 11y ago

> why would I choose FFOS over Android Updating JS apps is a bit less tricky than updating Android apps perhaps? The primary problem with the IOT though is updating the firmware/OS and/or apps on all the devices in an ongoing and secure way. Neither Android or FFOS solve that.

creshal 11y ago
> Updating JS apps is a bit less tricky than updating Android apps perhaps? Except that FFOS already has a worse fragmentation than Android, because no hardware vendor ever bothered to properly support their FFOS phones. It's been dead on arrival as far as the mobile market is concerned.

bobajeff 11y ago

If I'm not mistaken the pivot is from being a branded platform with a central app store to being a "white label" platform that any company can build their own system with (like what J2ME was).