FirefoxOS tried to ride on an Android-base to help solve device-support and being able to focus on the user-facing aspects of the platform. As a result they we

FirefoxOS tried to ride on an Android-base to help solve device-support and being able to focus on the user-facing aspects of the platform. As a result they were stuck with a combination of the terrible Android-build system and the complex Firefox build-system. That alone probably wasn't the reason it failed, but it certainly didn't help people who wanted to contribute (like me).