3 ms·
I had a few Firefox OS devices to eval, and I really wanted to adopt it, but concerns at the time: * The build process was atop Android, and pulled in a massiv
by neilv 1y ago
I had a few Firefox OS devices to eval, and I really wanted to adopt it, but concerns at the time:
* The build process was atop Android, and pulled in a massive bulk of dependencies (open and closed), in various ways, and was effectively unauditable.
* I was turned off by it looking like they might be selling out the home screen in a way that threatened privacy&security. https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/firefox-launcher/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/firefox-launcher/
* I wanted a trustworthy, sustainable, open platform, and unfortunately it didn't look like Firefox OS was headed in that direction.
- rickdeckard 1y ago> I was turned off by it looking like they might be selling out the home screen in a way that threatened privacy&security This was honestly a realistic risk, not because of the link you shared but because over the course of development, the success of FFOS became increasingly dependant on the commitment of carriers, and the main interest of those carriers was to create a OS under their control...
- neilv 1y agoIf only carriers had never learned that even ringtones were a cash cow. Trying to develop software for pre-iPhone phones seemed to be a mess of barriers to ISVs, like "BREW" and carrier approval. It makes sense that carriers still want the phone locked down as much as possible, so they can extract more money from their captive customer. (Also, it's still an expensive chore to get Pixels on which a carrier hasn't locked the bootloader against alternative firmware like GrapheneOS. Lawmakers/regulators should say that carriers may only provide voice and data service, for a fee, and aren't allowed to use their position to extract money other ways.)