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The thing that's probably second most upsetting about Firefox OS is this: If you say what you've just said right now, you'll be told you have the benefit of hi

The thing that's probably second most upsetting about Firefox OS is this: If you say what you've just said right now, you'll be told you have the benefit of hindsight working in your favor. On the other hand, if you had the ability to go back in time to make your argument back then, even with perfect omniscience about how things would turn out, then you would have been subjected to claims that there is no market for such a thing, that you're trying to satisfy your own nerd niche itch, and whatever post hoc rationale that the Firefox product team could have (and regularly did) come up with to reassure themselves that their track is the right one.

chris_wot 10y ago
The difference is that Google was able to commercialise and sell their product. You don't need hindsight to realise that competing in the phone markplace is the wrong place to start. You start with the desktop and then make gradual adaptions that allow your operating environment work well on tablets, phones and laptops.
- eli 10y ago
  There is a lot of competition in the phone market because that's where the customers are. Desktop OSes are becoming less and less relevant.
  - bobajeff 10y ago
    This is true. It may not be a truth people in professional circles like to here. But PCs used to be mass market consumer products in the 90s (during the internet boom) but now Smartphones, tablets and in some cases set top boxes have taken their place.
    - carussell 10y ago
      This is exactly the kind of argument I'm trying to burn to the ground in the second part of my comment above (see "nerd niche itch"). You write this, thinking that you're revealing some uncomfortable truth that the bubbleheads don't understand. But the real truth is that Chromebooks are killing. The penetration Chromebooks have made in education is huge. And even if it were an entirely no-profit/break-even situation, the idea of millions of students and public library patrons doing work on a "Firebook", and that it would be a serious contender to Windows-based PCs in a number of IT departments, is so perfectly aligned with Mozilla's ideals that it makes me sick to think about, especially juxtaposed with the hundreds of millions that Mozilla Corp has thrown away in the go-nowhere endeavors that it did pursue.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        That is an US phenomenon, there are hardly any queues of people buying Chromebooks outside US, let alone having them on display.
        chris_wot 10y ago
        He wasn't talking about consumer purchases - he was talking about education.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Still an US only phenomenon, I haven't seen anyone in education related domains with a Chromebook, specially since in Europe it is up to the students to care for their own hardware, as consumer purchase.
        Baeocystin 10y ago
        If I am reading this article correctly, it looks like the %/market that Chromebooks have managed to capture in the field of education is large worldwide. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3058517 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3058517
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Ah, one of those Gartner studies that companies buy from 2015, yet we don't see them on the stores. When we do happen to see one, if it is a store we visit regularly, what we see is the same device on display being discounted to death until the store finally manages to get rid of it. I must have seen around 5 like that, so I don't get where Gartner is getting their values from.
        Sacho 10y ago
        I'm all for skepticism of statistics, but you're offering an anecdote to refute it...
  - niftich 10y ago
    This is mostly marketing bullshit [1][2] and misses the point entirely. There is competition on mobile because it's a captive market: the device ships with an OS with integration into first-party services like search and maps, and the default first-party app and content store, where the house takes a cut. Whoever controls the platforms gets the eyeballs, thanks to the power of defaults. Until recently, the highest marketshare desktop OS, Windows, was a utility and not a content-monetizing platform, but Windows 10 brought it up to the level that was long standard on mobile. Google Search, Chrome the Browser, Chrome OS and Chromebooks are Google's progressively vertical takes on inviting a user into the Google data ecosystem in a non-mobile form factor, proving that Windows's weakness was that Google could monetize these users without having to control the hardware, but getting cheap first-party hardware into the hands of people is always a plus. In all likelihood, the same would've happened to Firefox OS anyway if it had become successful -- the celebrated 'open' mobile OS would be just another entry point into the same exact platforms that managed to rise to prominence on Windows -- a proprietary but laissez-faire ecosystem where anyone could run an application to do just about anything. Over time, a few players bubbled to the top, and now they're shipping their own hardware to cut out the middleman. [1] http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/ http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketi... [2] http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-owne...
BuckRogers 10y ago
I had perfect omniscience on this one. At least I thought that was the direction they were taking FirefoxOS. In fact, I sent a product request over to Panasonic to make a FirefoxBook about 6 years ago[0] and made sure I mentioned it to Eich as well[1]. Since they were integrating it into their TVs I figured they were my best bet to push the product idea onto. I'm a Mozilla fan and wanted a privacy respecting, libre thin-client that kept advertising money coming into Mozilla's coffers so they can continue their mission. Focusing on that and Firefox was the way. Unfortunately, Mozilla is a little lost. [0]https://twitter.com/yenic/status/493525970628771842 https://twitter.com/yenic/status/493525970628771842 [1]https://twitter.com/yenic/status/502297565199872000 https://twitter.com/yenic/status/502297565199872000
- endemic 10y ago
  Is it too late for them to try such a strategy? It seems Google has proven there's a market for this sort of product. Or is Google Docs (etc.) an additional part of the appeal of Chromebooks? I know there's been backlash regarding student usage tracking with ChromeOS; seems like a point of differentiation for Mozilla. It also would seem to have more synergy with improving the desktop Firefox client.
  - BuckRogers 10y ago
    Pretty much that's it. A lot less conflict of interest with a MozillaBook. They're really the only ones who should be doing such a thing at all. I don't think it's too late but Mozilla isn't listening to me. You raise a great point about synergy between development of Firefox and FirefoxOS. The phone and tablet thing is a joke, the world needs and wants FirefoxBooks (they just don't know it yet).
- pjmlp 10y ago
  No thin-client OS that depends on the web is privacy respecting, as applications run on other people's computers. I have to trust them as much as the closed source native applications on my computer, and I know which ones I would prefer.

chris_wot 10y ago

The difference is that Google was able to commercialise and sell their product. You don't need hindsight to realise that competing in the phone markplace is the wrong place to start. You start with the desktop and then make gradual adaptions that allow your operating environment work well on tablets, phones and laptops.

eli 10y ago
There is a lot of competition in the phone market because that's where the customers are. Desktop OSes are becoming less and less relevant.
- bobajeff 10y ago
  This is true. It may not be a truth people in professional circles like to here. But PCs used to be mass market consumer products in the 90s (during the internet boom) but now Smartphones, tablets and in some cases set top boxes have taken their place.
  - carussell 10y ago
    This is exactly the kind of argument I'm trying to burn to the ground in the second part of my comment above (see "nerd niche itch"). You write this, thinking that you're revealing some uncomfortable truth that the bubbleheads don't understand. But the real truth is that Chromebooks are killing. The penetration Chromebooks have made in education is huge. And even if it were an entirely no-profit/break-even situation, the idea of millions of students and public library patrons doing work on a "Firebook", and that it would be a serious contender to Windows-based PCs in a number of IT departments, is so perfectly aligned with Mozilla's ideals that it makes me sick to think about, especially juxtaposed with the hundreds of millions that Mozilla Corp has thrown away in the go-nowhere endeavors that it did pursue.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      That is an US phenomenon, there are hardly any queues of people buying Chromebooks outside US, let alone having them on display.
      - chris_wot 10y ago
        He wasn't talking about consumer purchases - he was talking about education.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Still an US only phenomenon, I haven't seen anyone in education related domains with a Chromebook, specially since in Europe it is up to the students to care for their own hardware, as consumer purchase.
        Baeocystin 10y ago
        If I am reading this article correctly, it looks like the %/market that Chromebooks have managed to capture in the field of education is large worldwide. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3058517 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3058517
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Ah, one of those Gartner studies that companies buy from 2015, yet we don't see them on the stores. When we do happen to see one, if it is a store we visit regularly, what we see is the same device on display being discounted to death until the store finally manages to get rid of it. I must have seen around 5 like that, so I don't get where Gartner is getting their values from.
        Sacho 10y ago
        I'm all for skepticism of statistics, but you're offering an anecdote to refute it...
- niftich 10y ago
  This is mostly marketing bullshit [1][2] and misses the point entirely. There is competition on mobile because it's a captive market: the device ships with an OS with integration into first-party services like search and maps, and the default first-party app and content store, where the house takes a cut. Whoever controls the platforms gets the eyeballs, thanks to the power of defaults. Until recently, the highest marketshare desktop OS, Windows, was a utility and not a content-monetizing platform, but Windows 10 brought it up to the level that was long standard on mobile. Google Search, Chrome the Browser, Chrome OS and Chromebooks are Google's progressively vertical takes on inviting a user into the Google data ecosystem in a non-mobile form factor, proving that Windows's weakness was that Google could monetize these users without having to control the hardware, but getting cheap first-party hardware into the hands of people is always a plus. In all likelihood, the same would've happened to Firefox OS anyway if it had become successful -- the celebrated 'open' mobile OS would be just another entry point into the same exact platforms that managed to rise to prominence on Windows -- a proprietary but laissez-faire ecosystem where anyone could run an application to do just about anything. Over time, a few players bubbled to the top, and now they're shipping their own hardware to cut out the middleman. [1] http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/ http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketi... [2] http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-ownership-2015/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-device-owne...

BuckRogers 10y ago

I had perfect omniscience on this one. At least I thought that was the direction they were taking FirefoxOS. In fact, I sent a product request over to Panasonic to make a FirefoxBook about 6 years ago[0] and made sure I mentioned it to Eich as well[1]. Since they were integrating it into their TVs I figured they were my best bet to push the product idea onto. I'm a Mozilla fan and wanted a privacy respecting, libre thin-client that kept advertising money coming into Mozilla's coffers so they can continue their mission. Focusing on that and Firefox was the way. Unfortunately, Mozilla is a little lost. [0]https://twitter.com/yenic/status/493525970628771842 https://twitter.com/yenic/status/493525970628771842 [1]https://twitter.com/yenic/status/502297565199872000 https://twitter.com/yenic/status/502297565199872000

endemic 10y ago
Is it too late for them to try such a strategy? It seems Google has proven there's a market for this sort of product. Or is Google Docs (etc.) an additional part of the appeal of Chromebooks? I know there's been backlash regarding student usage tracking with ChromeOS; seems like a point of differentiation for Mozilla. It also would seem to have more synergy with improving the desktop Firefox client.
- BuckRogers 10y ago
  Pretty much that's it. A lot less conflict of interest with a MozillaBook. They're really the only ones who should be doing such a thing at all. I don't think it's too late but Mozilla isn't listening to me. You raise a great point about synergy between development of Firefox and FirefoxOS. The phone and tablet thing is a joke, the world needs and wants FirefoxBooks (they just don't know it yet).
pjmlp 10y ago
No thin-client OS that depends on the web is privacy respecting, as applications run on other people's computers. I have to trust them as much as the closed source native applications on my computer, and I know which ones I would prefer.