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I agree with many of your points. I just want to note that Firefox OS aligned 100% with keeping the web open. There is a vast group of users that only have a mo

I agree with many of your points. I just want to note that Firefox OS aligned 100% with keeping the web open. There is a vast group of users that only have a mobile device and can only get online through their phone. Their entire 'web' experience is through this medium. Firefox OS in its pre-shutdown iteration did not serve these people perfectly yet, but it was well on its way to be a solid choice for them. A choice that held their values first, not just the values of western consumers trimmed to fit. And now there are no 'open' choices for an open mobile internet device (below 50USD) The cheap knockoff Android phones that dominate that market are preloaded with untrustworthy applications, and ship with unverifiable firmware. The latter is almost never updateable to anything recent or patched for security. This makes for a very exploitative, dangerous web, and it grows more so as it grows more integral to peoples livelihood. I applaud Mozilla for starting it, but I think the decision to shutter the whole initiative was incredibly damaging. At the very least because now it, falsely, appears to be a cautionary tale to anyone else that may wish to attempt this initiative.

scrollaway 10y ago
I agree; see the PS I just edited in. Firefox OS (or more generally, a free phone&OS) is something I do believe is needed but Mozilla had the completely wrong approach towards it. They severely underestimated how much effort is involved. I heard from several mozillians the attitude was "we'll just do everything in HTML5 and gecko will do just fine". (Sounds familiar? It was Jobs' vision for iOS. See how that turned out.) They didn't understand how much work is involved into making not just a platform, but also an OS (with all the builtin apps, making them not suck is a prerequisite) and the hardware itself. My Flame's only redeeming quality was that the battery died after a week, which kept me from finding out more issues with it. I don't know that FxOs was ever a solid choice. It was barely ever even a choice. I wish Mozilla would've just funded or partnered with one of several existing players in that space, such as Jolla.
- niftich 10y ago
  It was the wrong approach because gobs of Javascript gives a horrible UX on low-end, first-iPhone-equivalent hardware, but it was approach they wanted because they're so invested in the notion that FirefoxOS would natively implement Web Platform APIs; conversely those platform APIs would become standard Web-(browser) APIs in the future [1]. Sadly, their ideological mission conflicted with the realities of their target market (and in this case, price-point). [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Firefox_OS/Firefox_OS_apps/Firefox_OS_device_APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Firefox_OS/...
- bobajeff 10y ago
  >I wish Mozilla would've just funded or partnered with one of several existing players in that space, such as Jolla. They did. They partnered with Meego (The Intel and Nokia lead platform.). Remember Meego?
toyg 10y ago
The answer to this problem was much easier: a solid Android browser in every Android marketplace, with an easily-extendable architecture. There was no need to go full-OS. Of course, it would have been less fashionable from a development perspective.
- boriskourt 10y ago
  Just a solid browser would not help when Android is not designed for that market. And when devices are effectively crippled by lack of support/updates, and questionable bloatware. This does need to be close to a 'from the ground up' initiative. And that has nothing to do with latest developer trends.

scrollaway 10y ago

I agree; see the PS I just edited in. Firefox OS (or more generally, a free phone&OS) is something I do believe is needed but Mozilla had the completely wrong approach towards it. They severely underestimated how much effort is involved. I heard from several mozillians the attitude was "we'll just do everything in HTML5 and gecko will do just fine". (Sounds familiar? It was Jobs' vision for iOS. See how that turned out.) They didn't understand how much work is involved into making not just a platform, but also an OS (with all the builtin apps, making them not suck is a prerequisite) and the hardware itself. My Flame's only redeeming quality was that the battery died after a week, which kept me from finding out more issues with it. I don't know that FxOs was ever a solid choice. It was barely ever even a choice. I wish Mozilla would've just funded or partnered with one of several existing players in that space, such as Jolla.

niftich 10y ago
It was the wrong approach because gobs of Javascript gives a horrible UX on low-end, first-iPhone-equivalent hardware, but it was approach they wanted because they're so invested in the notion that FirefoxOS would natively implement Web Platform APIs; conversely those platform APIs would become standard Web-(browser) APIs in the future [1]. Sadly, their ideological mission conflicted with the realities of their target market (and in this case, price-point). [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Firefox_OS/Firefox_OS_apps/Firefox_OS_device_APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Firefox_OS/...
bobajeff 10y ago
>I wish Mozilla would've just funded or partnered with one of several existing players in that space, such as Jolla. They did. They partnered with Meego (The Intel and Nokia lead platform.). Remember Meego?

toyg 10y ago

The answer to this problem was much easier: a solid Android browser in every Android marketplace, with an easily-extendable architecture. There was no need to go full-OS. Of course, it would have been less fashionable from a development perspective.

boriskourt 10y ago
Just a solid browser would not help when Android is not designed for that market. And when devices are effectively crippled by lack of support/updates, and questionable bloatware. This does need to be close to a 'from the ground up' initiative. And that has nothing to do with latest developer trends.