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What they lacked is support for Android apps, since obviously expecting everyone to rewrite all apps for a new platform is a non-starter. If Mozilla had simply

by devit 9y ago

What they lacked is support for Android apps, since obviously expecting everyone to rewrite all apps for a new platform is a non-starter. If Mozilla had simply acquired LineageOS, worked on MicroG to reach feature parity with Play Services, added Firefox for Android and their own app store in addition to Google Play via MicroG, and resold flagship Android phones with that as well as offering it to OEMs, they would have had significant success at very little cost. In fact, they still could do that.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
The problem is that would still be Android. Which means they'd still be beholden to Google, having to support their code, maintain compatibility with their design decisions, etc. That's not a good place for any serious business to be in.
- devit 9y ago
  Because writing a whole OS from scratch competing with giant companies and having to somehow magically go from 0 to a million apps (while being unpopular due to the few apps) is a good place to be in? Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free. It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform, since Google doesn't offer a version that can be installed by users and also doesn't offer their version to OEMs with no strings attached. Again, they still can do that now, since there still isn't a version of Android that runs on any phone other than LineageOS, which is relatively underfunded. [obviously what Mozilla would gain from this is market share for Firefox for Android]
  - stonogo 9y ago
    Who on earth wants an android phone but is waiting for a fork from some random company before they make the switch? Your argument applies to approximately nobody. If someone wants an android phone right now they can pick from literally thousands of devices. On the other hand, I'm already a KaiOS customer because they power the phone I want: the one that makes calls and handles text messages, and then gives me a high-speed network for my computer. I spend about a quarter of my time in India; while there I got a Jio phone and liked it so much I found a KaiOS device that works in the US as well.
  - bitmapbrother 9y ago
    >Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free. No they wouldn't have. They would not get Google Play Services and your MicroG "solution" is ridiculous from a commercial perspective and a violation from a TOS perspective that would be shut down by Google. >It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform I don't think you understand the army of developers it takes to maintain and enhance Android on an annual basis nor the millions of dollars it costs Google. To even suggest that they would have overtaken Google and become the steward of the Android platform is ridiculous.
    - eadmund 9y ago
      > They would not get Google Play Services If I have Firefox and thus can load up any Google web page, do I need Google Play Services?
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        As a strange event, I actually upvoted bitmapbrother, we agreed on something! As he says, MicroG is a hack, and there's no reasonable point where someone is going to take stewardship of Android away from Google. (Other than antimonopoly action.) There's no point in having Android if you can't run Android apps, and most Android apps users want are now dependent on Google's proprietary libraries (Play Services). So why would you want an Android fork if you aren't going to be able to run Android apps? Might as well go with KaiOS at that point.
      - bitmapbrother 9y ago
        What does a browser have to do with Google Play Services? Google Play Services, like the name implies, supplies services to apps and games. Without these services a large majority of apps that rely on them will cease to work on an Android phone without Google Play Services.
        eadmund 9y ago
        I was thinking that with a browser the need for on-phone apps is significantly reduced. If one does want or need native apps (e.g. for security), then is it possible for a third party to emulate Google Play Services? Or do they use a certificate to prevent third-party clones?
greenhouse_gas 9y ago
1. Companies distributing Google Play Services has to sign an agreement not to ship (or even build) a non-Google Android-derived phone. So, while Samsung may ship Tizen and Windows Phone, they may not build phones for Amazon (which caused Amazon a lot of problems back in the day - where will you find a company making portable electronics that will make them a white-label product and not making android phones). 2. MicroG depends on Google's servers, so Google can pull the carpet out of them at any time. And where will you get those millions of apps if Google doesn't let you access the App store? Look at the difficulty Amazon has at getting apps into its store, and it's a larger company willing to pay devs to switch apps to Amazon store. And all the hacks that people use will be closed by Google once they get popular. Now sure, you can use MicroG as a porting library (so if I have a closed source app relying on firebase I can trivially switch to relying on MicroG and Mozilla's back end - kind of like wine), but you'll still have to recreate all of Google's apps anyways (there's no way Google will publish their apps on an Android fork) and also those apps written by those who don't care to port (unlike wine - where I can use the OEM CD or EXE from the OEM website, there's no official way to get apks out of Play Store)
- pjmlp 9y ago
  And yet they don't use that power to threat OEMs to lose contracts if they don't behave nicely regarding updates.
- devit 9y ago
  Smartphones are commoditized and there are non-Google Android smartphones on the market, so they should be able to get some made. Also, they can just buy any unlocked phone at retail, replace the OS, rebrand and resell (obviously this limits the market due to high price, but also requires no upfront investment). As for Play Services, they could just have a team whose job is to make MicroG work exactly like Play Services so that all apps work including the Google apps. The only Google app that you need to replicate is the Play Store client (or really, the downloader, since you can just use the Play Store website for the UI) and then the user can install all the Google apps from the Play Store. As for getting developers to put apps in their store, it's certainly much easier than getting them to write another app.
bitmapbrother 9y ago
>If Mozilla had simply acquired LineageOS Why would they need to acquire LineageOS when they can just fork it for free? >worked on MicroG to reach feature parity with Play Services That would have been a TOS violation and would have been instantly shut down by Google. >their own app store You can't really compete with the Play store and developers wouldn't bother with it. >they would have had significant success at very little cost. No they wouldn't have. It would have reached the same outcome as their Android based FireFox OS did and even faster due to the TOS violations your suggesting.

by devit 9y ago

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

The problem is that would still be Android. Which means they'd still be beholden to Google, having to support their code, maintain compatibility with their design decisions, etc. That's not a good place for any serious business to be in.

devit 9y ago
Because writing a whole OS from scratch competing with giant companies and having to somehow magically go from 0 to a million apps (while being unpopular due to the few apps) is a good place to be in? Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free. It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform, since Google doesn't offer a version that can be installed by users and also doesn't offer their version to OEMs with no strings attached. Again, they still can do that now, since there still isn't a version of Android that runs on any phone other than LineageOS, which is relatively underfunded. [obviously what Mozilla would gain from this is market share for Firefox for Android]
- stonogo 9y ago
  Who on earth wants an android phone but is waiting for a fork from some random company before they make the switch? Your argument applies to approximately nobody. If someone wants an android phone right now they can pick from literally thousands of devices. On the other hand, I'm already a KaiOS customer because they power the phone I want: the one that makes calls and handles text messages, and then gives me a high-speed network for my computer. I spend about a quarter of my time in India; while there I got a Jio phone and liked it so much I found a KaiOS device that works in the US as well.
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  >Instead, they could have gotten all the Android apps and the popularity of Android essentially for free. No they wouldn't have. They would not get Google Play Services and your MicroG "solution" is ridiculous from a commercial perspective and a violation from a TOS perspective that would be shut down by Google. >It's even possible they could have overtaken Google and became the effective steward of the Android platform I don't think you understand the army of developers it takes to maintain and enhance Android on an annual basis nor the millions of dollars it costs Google. To even suggest that they would have overtaken Google and become the steward of the Android platform is ridiculous.
  - eadmund 9y ago
    > They would not get Google Play Services If I have Firefox and thus can load up any Google web page, do I need Google Play Services?
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      As a strange event, I actually upvoted bitmapbrother, we agreed on something! As he says, MicroG is a hack, and there's no reasonable point where someone is going to take stewardship of Android away from Google. (Other than antimonopoly action.) There's no point in having Android if you can't run Android apps, and most Android apps users want are now dependent on Google's proprietary libraries (Play Services). So why would you want an Android fork if you aren't going to be able to run Android apps? Might as well go with KaiOS at that point.
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago
      What does a browser have to do with Google Play Services? Google Play Services, like the name implies, supplies services to apps and games. Without these services a large majority of apps that rely on them will cease to work on an Android phone without Google Play Services.
      - eadmund 9y ago
        I was thinking that with a browser the need for on-phone apps is significantly reduced. If one does want or need native apps (e.g. for security), then is it possible for a third party to emulate Google Play Services? Or do they use a certificate to prevent third-party clones?

greenhouse_gas 9y ago

1. Companies distributing Google Play Services has to sign an agreement not to ship (or even build) a non-Google Android-derived phone. So, while Samsung may ship Tizen and Windows Phone, they may not build phones for Amazon (which caused Amazon a lot of problems back in the day - where will you find a company making portable electronics that will make them a white-label product and not making android phones). 2. MicroG depends on Google's servers, so Google can pull the carpet out of them at any time. And where will you get those millions of apps if Google doesn't let you access the App store? Look at the difficulty Amazon has at getting apps into its store, and it's a larger company willing to pay devs to switch apps to Amazon store. And all the hacks that people use will be closed by Google once they get popular. Now sure, you can use MicroG as a porting library (so if I have a closed source app relying on firebase I can trivially switch to relying on MicroG and Mozilla's back end - kind of like wine), but you'll still have to recreate all of Google's apps anyways (there's no way Google will publish their apps on an Android fork) and also those apps written by those who don't care to port (unlike wine - where I can use the OEM CD or EXE from the OEM website, there's no official way to get apks out of Play Store)

pjmlp 9y ago
And yet they don't use that power to threat OEMs to lose contracts if they don't behave nicely regarding updates.
devit 9y ago
Smartphones are commoditized and there are non-Google Android smartphones on the market, so they should be able to get some made. Also, they can just buy any unlocked phone at retail, replace the OS, rebrand and resell (obviously this limits the market due to high price, but also requires no upfront investment). As for Play Services, they could just have a team whose job is to make MicroG work exactly like Play Services so that all apps work including the Google apps. The only Google app that you need to replicate is the Play Store client (or really, the downloader, since you can just use the Play Store website for the UI) and then the user can install all the Google apps from the Play Store. As for getting developers to put apps in their store, it's certainly much easier than getting them to write another app.

bitmapbrother 9y ago

>If Mozilla had simply acquired LineageOS Why would they need to acquire LineageOS when they can just fork it for free? >worked on MicroG to reach feature parity with Play Services That would have been a TOS violation and would have been instantly shut down by Google. >their own app store You can't really compete with the Play store and developers wouldn't bother with it. >they would have had significant success at very little cost. No they wouldn't have. It would have reached the same outcome as their Android based FireFox OS did and even faster due to the TOS violations your suggesting.