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Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with

Please, KaiOS -- make a high end phone and hit the market that Mozilla never did with FFOS -- wealthy developers who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google. I'm not sure what's actually interesting about this partnership, it seems obvious, but one thing I think is a huge problem is that they're mentioning Gecko so much -- they should be trying to move to Servo as fast as possible. There is already a project called servonk[0] that shows this might be very possible. [0]: https://github.com/fabricedesre/servonk https://github.com/fabricedesre/servonk

timw4mail 7y ago
Servo is essentially Mozilla's Rust browser test ground, and my understanding is that it is not meant to stand on its own as a browser engine.
- hardwaresofton 7y ago
  I saw it more that servo is the codebase they want firefox to be, but changing out the engine in a humongous codebase like FF is extremely difficult so they're taking it a step at a time. They merge bits and pieces in from time to time[0] and I expect that to continue until firefox is servo in as many places as possible. Looks like servo might only be a breeding ground for ideas after all. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)#Relationship_to_Firefox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)#Relationship_...
mfcl 7y ago
Last time I heard about servo I read that it was a proof of concept and that the good ideas would be ported to Gecko. I could be wrong. I'm still quite confused about what servo is and will be.
Yizahi 7y ago
Companies can't survive on high-end products only, unless there is a monopoly or external cash. (I do want new platform of course, like everyone else)
- hardwaresofton 7y ago
  I'm not sure this is true, especially in the era of free-flowing VC cash and low interest loans. Maybe KaiOS/Mozilla's (now defunct) mobile department in particular can't, but companies can definitely survive on high end products only.
badsectoracula 7y ago
Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it was a low end device, but here is the thing. Years before that i had a Nokia 6600 [1] which has literally less than 10% of the resources ZTE Open has, yet it was able to run multiple applications without a breeze (it was the first time i ran an IRC client on a phone) and even had several 3D games (which, imagine that, used software rendering despite the phone's limited CPU power). (and of course there were PalmOS devices that were running on even weaker hardware yet they provided UIs so responsive that put even the fastest Android to shame -- but i have very limited exposure to those to judge properly) Nokia 6600 puts in perspective how awful Android is nowadays, let alone FFOS that couldn't even manage to remain literally usable with more than ten times the resources. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6600
- hajile 7y ago
  Web-based seems to make a lot of sense. Something like 90% of all apps in both the Apple and Google store are already web apps. WASM makes this idea even more appealing. webOS in 2009 isn't even a comparison for a few important reasons. * They were primarily RAM restricted at only 256mb. * The then new v8 engine was about 4x slower than the current iteration (not to mention using much more RAM). Webkit is also much, much faster today * They used QtWebkit -- a slow and grossly outdated version of webkit that offered bad performance even back then. * There team seemed to have zero experience in actually using and optimizing a Linux OS. A single-core 1GHz A5 chip was a crazy idea. The ZTE Open C came out 6 months later *at the same price8 and had a better screen (480x800 instead of 320x480), twice the RAM (512mb instead of 256mb), and probably close to 4x the CPU power (2x A7@1.2GHz instead of 1x A5@1GHz -- for reference, AMD runs an A5 as their security coprocessor on their x86 chips). The ZTE Open was simply a mistake. It would have been a mistake no matter the OS or native vs web apps.
Snild 7y ago
> who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google I don't think KaiOS will be. It seems that Google is one of the main investors in KaiOS Technologies[0][1]. [0]: https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-round-kaios-connect-next-billion-users/ https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-ro... [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kai-technologies#section-investors https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kai-technologies#sec...

timw4mail 7y ago

Servo is essentially Mozilla's Rust browser test ground, and my understanding is that it is not meant to stand on its own as a browser engine.

hardwaresofton 7y ago
I saw it more that servo is the codebase they want firefox to be, but changing out the engine in a humongous codebase like FF is extremely difficult so they're taking it a step at a time. They merge bits and pieces in from time to time[0] and I expect that to continue until firefox is servo in as many places as possible. Looks like servo might only be a breeding ground for ideas after all. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)#Relationship_to_Firefox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(software)#Relationship_...

mfcl 7y ago

Last time I heard about servo I read that it was a proof of concept and that the good ideas would be ported to Gecko. I could be wrong. I'm still quite confused about what servo is and will be.

Yizahi 7y ago

Companies can't survive on high-end products only, unless there is a monopoly or external cash. (I do want new platform of course, like everyone else)

hardwaresofton 7y ago
I'm not sure this is true, especially in the era of free-flowing VC cash and low interest loans. Maybe KaiOS/Mozilla's (now defunct) mobile department in particular can't, but companies can definitely survive on high end products only.

badsectoracula 7y ago

Why does it have to be a web-browser-based platform? I've bought a ZTE Open[0] back when FFOS was made since i am in general a fan of Mozilla (despite their missteps now and then) since before Firefox was a thing. The phone was a disaster - applications were very slow, everything was sluggish and in some cases i lost calls because the UI had frozen due to swapping or whatever it was doing. Now, you might say that it was a low end device, but here is the thing. Years before that i had a Nokia 6600 [1] which has literally less than 10% of the resources ZTE Open has, yet it was able to run multiple applications without a breeze (it was the first time i ran an IRC client on a phone) and even had several 3D games (which, imagine that, used software rendering despite the phone's limited CPU power). (and of course there were PalmOS devices that were running on even weaker hardware yet they provided UIs so responsive that put even the fastest Android to shame -- but i have very limited exposure to those to judge properly) Nokia 6600 puts in perspective how awful Android is nowadays, let alone FFOS that couldn't even manage to remain literally usable with more than ten times the resources. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6600 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6600

hajile 7y ago
Web-based seems to make a lot of sense. Something like 90% of all apps in both the Apple and Google store are already web apps. WASM makes this idea even more appealing. webOS in 2009 isn't even a comparison for a few important reasons. * They were primarily RAM restricted at only 256mb. * The then new v8 engine was about 4x slower than the current iteration (not to mention using much more RAM). Webkit is also much, much faster today * They used QtWebkit -- a slow and grossly outdated version of webkit that offered bad performance even back then. * There team seemed to have zero experience in actually using and optimizing a Linux OS. A single-core 1GHz A5 chip was a crazy idea. The ZTE Open C came out 6 months later *at the same price8 and had a better screen (480x800 instead of 320x480), twice the RAM (512mb instead of 256mb), and probably close to 4x the CPU power (2x A7@1.2GHz instead of 1x A5@1GHz -- for reference, AMD runs an A5 as their security coprocessor on their x86 chips). The ZTE Open was simply a mistake. It would have been a mistake no matter the OS or native vs web apps.

Snild 7y ago

> who want a platform completely unburdened with apple or google I don't think KaiOS will be. It seems that Google is one of the main investors in KaiOS Technologies[0][1]. [0]: https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-round-kaios-connect-next-billion-users/ https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-ro... [1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kai-technologies#section-investors https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kai-technologies#sec...