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Firefox OS is two things: an idea, and a particular implementation of that idea. The idea is that you write apps in HTML/js/etc, using some well-defined APIs t

Firefox OS is two things: an idea, and a particular implementation of that idea. The idea is that you write apps in HTML/js/etc, using some well-defined APIs to access the underlying hardware capabilities. The implementation is an underlying Linux system (Gonk), and Firefox's rendering/javascript/etc engines. If you ask, 'can it run alternate browsers', what exactly are you asking? The browser app of FF OS is written the same way other apps are -- in that sense you definitely can. But it'll still be running on top of Gecko et al. Ok, so can you replace Gonk/Gecko with some other underlying implementation? Well, that's kind of the whole idea! But if you do that, you won't be running FF OS anymore. The reason we care about alternate browsers is choice. FF OS enables choice by promoting standards. They want an app written for the system to work just as well on Chrome or Safari (whenever Google/Apple get around to implementing the same APIs.)

msh 14y ago
so if IE promoted standards it would be ok by you if they disallowed other browsers on windows?
- callahad 14y ago
  That's not analogous by any stretch of the imagination. Policy around web standards in IE would have zero bearing on why people are actually locked into Windows: the non-portable, native applications.
  - devcpp 14y ago
    Exactly. If they called it Internet Explorer OS, why not? But not while abusively using the Windows brand name that most people would blindly get because they don't know better.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
> They want an app written for the system to work just as well on Chrome or Safari (whenever Google/Apple get around to implementing the same APIs.) I'm a fan of what Mozilla is doing, but I encourage you to go look at Gaia code and then come back and repeat this. None of it will run in other browsers for two reasons: 1) They use JavaScript 1.7 features that no other browser is going to implement until ES6. 2) They use -moz prefixes in their CSS but don't include the other vendors: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/apps/calendar/style/ui.css https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/apps/calenda...
- shardling 14y ago
  These seem somewhat moot points while there aren't any other implementations. (Which is what I find really odd about the whole "will it run other browsers" question.) It would be kind of premature to provide other vendor prefixes while it was impossible to test whether the app worked or not! If someone steps up and wants to provide an alternate middle layer under Gaia, I really doubt Mozilla will stand in their way.
- jlongster 14y ago
  A lot of that is simply because we need to ship 1.0. Many of the apps will be heavily improved in a short period of time once we get stuff shipping.
  - MatthewPhillips 14y ago
    But you're not going to do a sed -i 's/const/var/g' * right? So I'm not sure how any of the Gaia apps are going to run on non-Firefox browsers until other vendors start implementing ES6, so a year from now at least.
    - jlongster 14y ago
      Definitely not, I believe the plans are to significantly refactor the apps (carefully) because there's a bunch of good practices that they don't follow. It's true that they probably won't run in other browsers for a while though.

msh 14y ago

so if IE promoted standards it would be ok by you if they disallowed other browsers on windows?

callahad 14y ago
That's not analogous by any stretch of the imagination. Policy around web standards in IE would have zero bearing on why people are actually locked into Windows: the non-portable, native applications.
- devcpp 14y ago
  Exactly. If they called it Internet Explorer OS, why not? But not while abusively using the Windows brand name that most people would blindly get because they don't know better.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

> They want an app written for the system to work just as well on Chrome or Safari (whenever Google/Apple get around to implementing the same APIs.) I'm a fan of what Mozilla is doing, but I encourage you to go look at Gaia code and then come back and repeat this. None of it will run in other browsers for two reasons: 1) They use JavaScript 1.7 features that no other browser is going to implement until ES6. 2) They use -moz prefixes in their CSS but don't include the other vendors: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/apps/calendar/style/ui.css https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/apps/calenda...

shardling 14y ago
These seem somewhat moot points while there aren't any other implementations. (Which is what I find really odd about the whole "will it run other browsers" question.) It would be kind of premature to provide other vendor prefixes while it was impossible to test whether the app worked or not! If someone steps up and wants to provide an alternate middle layer under Gaia, I really doubt Mozilla will stand in their way.
jlongster 14y ago
A lot of that is simply because we need to ship 1.0. Many of the apps will be heavily improved in a short period of time once we get stuff shipping.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  But you're not going to do a sed -i 's/const/var/g' * right? So I'm not sure how any of the Gaia apps are going to run on non-Firefox browsers until other vendors start implementing ES6, so a year from now at least.
  - jlongster 14y ago
    Definitely not, I believe the plans are to significantly refactor the apps (carefully) because there's a bunch of good practices that they don't follow. It's true that they probably won't run in other browsers for a while though.