4 ms·

This is one of the worst comments I've seen around here lately. It makes lots and lots of assumptions, doesn't back them up, and then jumps to stupid conclusion

by pestaa 13y ago

This is one of the worst comments I've seen around here lately. It makes lots and lots of assumptions, doesn't back them up, and then jumps to stupid conclusions. A platform being open is not merely academic. It makes future open source software exponentionally better just like it did in the past decades. In fact, if this gets mainstream it will be the first to be truly open. Android has an open source license, but Google has never been really open about it. http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/55247-android-not-so-open-open-source http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/55247-... And why does relying on a publicly specified language with vibrant ecosystem make the platform less open? You argued that by using proprietary languages? Though I completely agree JS needs to mature... a lot. I trust Mozilla's vision that they're doing the right thing to move the web forward by putting efforts into desktop or mobile or whatever they find worthwhile.

rednukleus 13y ago
There is a shocking amount of anti-hacker sentiment on this forum. There are so many people here that are desperate to make money out of the big new closed ecosystems that they are only too eager to badmouth open alternatives at every turn.
- embolism 13y ago
  Some of it may be dissonance - people (especially in the open source community) have been proclaiming Android as open for so long that anything that challenges that idea must be denied.
  - nullc 13y ago
    Though there is no need for dissonance. Openness comes in degrees: Android is pretty open compared to IOS. Firefox OS seems more open than Android. The FSF would point out something like that the Firefox OS devices still use binary blob video drivers. Without the basic hardware/software ecosystem that android has supported it isn't clear that Firefox OS could (so easily) exist. Modern smartphones have substantially reduced platform openeness and freedom compared to the desktops of old, but the ratchet doesn't only click one way.
    - embolism 13y ago
      No disagreement, however the dissonance is that those who have for so long championed Android, would now have to switch to criticizing it.
      - PommeDeTerre 13y ago
        I'd gladly switch to Firefox OS if it were a superior mobile operating system. I'd gladly criticize Android if it couldn't compete with this hypothetical version of Firefox OS that's better. I'm sure many others here are in exactly the same boat. But we can't do that, because Firefox OS is clearly inferior to Android in so many significant ways. Its performance appears to be a problem. Its functionality is quite limited. Its "openness" is overstated. It provides an awful environment for developers, in terms of language support, compared to other mobile OSes. Basically nobody is actually using it yet, so there's little incentive to target it. It appears comparatively hostile toward anyone wishing to merely recoup the cost of creating an app, never mind make a profit. Until Firefox OS gets its act together, it will face criticism and negative comparisons with Android. I hope that people like you are capable of seeing what's truly behind this (that is, the inferiority of Firefox OS compared to Android), rather than misattributing it to "dissonance", or "shilling", or some other nonsensical reason like that.
        embolism 13y ago
        If you read my other comments, I have made the similar criticisms - I.e. Firefox OS doesn't bring anything better to the table. I'm not misattributing anything and putting words like 'shilling' into my mouth is cheap. The fact that Android was hailed as open by the community clearly diminishes the impact of the major selling point of Firefox OS. Even if Firefox OS was on par with Android in all aspects of performance, people would still have no reason to use it, and the argument 'because it's open' is no longer persuasive.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
PommeDeTerre 13y ago
I don't see how Firefox OS is necessarily any more open than Android is. Firefox OS still has a very centralized, limited-access organization behind it. This organization basically completely controls the development of Firefox OS. In practice, the wider community doesn't really have any say over the functionality that's supported, or the direction that's taken. This has become pretty apparent with desktop Firefox, for instance. There have been many poorly-thought-out decisions foisted upon its users lately, without them having any say. This has accelerated since Firefox 4 was released. Just look at the one from today about removing the ability to easily disable JavaScript in Firefox 23, for example. I don't see things being any different with Firefox OS, and I don't consider this to be a form of "openness". The same goes for JavaScript. In practice, it really isn't more "open" than C, or C++, or Java, or Objective-C, or C#. Unless you're part of certain teams at a very small number of organizations, you're not going to have any influence at all on JavaScript. This is very different than the situation with, say, Python, where unaffiliated individuals can actually make a difference. But I wasn't even referring to standards when it comes to JavaScript. That's peripheral to the lack of choice that exists under Firefox OS. It's not a very "open" platform when the only language you can practically use is JavaScript. Android gives us the option of using Java, or using C and C++ via the NDK, for example. That's far more choice than we have under Firefox OS. Maybe my comment was harsh, but we are discussing reality here, not some academic fantasy. The evidence just isn't there to back up Firefox OS being more "open", or even practical in any way.
- Yoric 13y ago
  You seem to misunderstand how Mozilla works. Of course non-Mozilla devs can contribute code and new features that haven't been specifically ordered by a "centralized, limited-access organization". This happens all the time. Add to that the fact that every repository is public, that commits are visible in real-time rather than through opaque code-drops, and you get a project that's as open as it goes. I won't discuss the openness of JavaScript vs. that of other languages, since this doesn't seem to be the purpose of your message. Yes, JavaScript is the only way to get code executed on FirefoxOS. However, considerable steps are being taken by both Mozilla and third-parties to ensure that this does not limit (too much) your choices. These days, dozens of languages can be compiled to JavaScript, directly [1] or indirectly [2], including C, C++, Objective-C, Java, C# or Python. That doesn't mean that all your applications can be ported immediately to FirefoxOS, as you'll need some library support that may or may not be available for the platform, but it's hardly limiting. As for your "academic fantasy" paragraph, well, let's just politely ignore that trollbait. Caveat: I'm a Mozillian. [1] https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... [2] https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki
pmelendez 13y ago
> "A platform being open is not merely academic. It makes future open source software exponentionally better just like it did in the past decades." That's very arguably at the very least. As a Ubuntu user at work I can tell you how annoying are all the little bugs, all the drivers issues and hardware incompatibilities. Yeah, you can tell me that is not linux/open source community fault, but in any case it is preventing to make future software "exponentionally" better. Other example? I really can't stand GIMP (It is usable but really a good alternative to Photoshop)
- bad_user 13y ago
  > As a Ubuntu user at work I can tell you how annoying are all the little bugs, all the drivers issues and hardware incompatibilities. 1) What laptop are you using? Ever tried building a Hackintosh? Seems to me that either you or your company bought a computer and expected it to just work. In many cases it does so perfectly (for example on my Thinkpad it worked perfectly out of the box), in some cases it doesn't. 2) If you're so annoyed about Ubuntu, why do you keep using it? So you can bitch and moan about it?
- zanny 13y ago
  I'm sick of people criticizing gimp. If photoshop is so much better, either: A. Use photoshop, and pay the absurd license cost. B. Spend what you would on photoshop to pay some starving GNU developer to implement some features you like from PS in gimp. C. Fix the problems you have with it yourself since it is FOSS and development is open.

by pestaa 13y ago

rednukleus 13y ago

There is a shocking amount of anti-hacker sentiment on this forum. There are so many people here that are desperate to make money out of the big new closed ecosystems that they are only too eager to badmouth open alternatives at every turn.

embolism 13y ago
Some of it may be dissonance - people (especially in the open source community) have been proclaiming Android as open for so long that anything that challenges that idea must be denied.
- nullc 13y ago
  Though there is no need for dissonance. Openness comes in degrees: Android is pretty open compared to IOS. Firefox OS seems more open than Android. The FSF would point out something like that the Firefox OS devices still use binary blob video drivers. Without the basic hardware/software ecosystem that android has supported it isn't clear that Firefox OS could (so easily) exist. Modern smartphones have substantially reduced platform openeness and freedom compared to the desktops of old, but the ratchet doesn't only click one way.
  - embolism 13y ago
    No disagreement, however the dissonance is that those who have for so long championed Android, would now have to switch to criticizing it.
    - PommeDeTerre 13y ago
      I'd gladly switch to Firefox OS if it were a superior mobile operating system. I'd gladly criticize Android if it couldn't compete with this hypothetical version of Firefox OS that's better. I'm sure many others here are in exactly the same boat. But we can't do that, because Firefox OS is clearly inferior to Android in so many significant ways. Its performance appears to be a problem. Its functionality is quite limited. Its "openness" is overstated. It provides an awful environment for developers, in terms of language support, compared to other mobile OSes. Basically nobody is actually using it yet, so there's little incentive to target it. It appears comparatively hostile toward anyone wishing to merely recoup the cost of creating an app, never mind make a profit. Until Firefox OS gets its act together, it will face criticism and negative comparisons with Android. I hope that people like you are capable of seeing what's truly behind this (that is, the inferiority of Firefox OS compared to Android), rather than misattributing it to "dissonance", or "shilling", or some other nonsensical reason like that.
      - embolism 13y ago
        If you read my other comments, I have made the similar criticisms - I.e. Firefox OS doesn't bring anything better to the table. I'm not misattributing anything and putting words like 'shilling' into my mouth is cheap. The fact that Android was hailed as open by the community clearly diminishes the impact of the major selling point of Firefox OS. Even if Firefox OS was on par with Android in all aspects of performance, people would still have no reason to use it, and the argument 'because it's open' is no longer persuasive.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

PommeDeTerre 13y ago

I don't see how Firefox OS is necessarily any more open than Android is. Firefox OS still has a very centralized, limited-access organization behind it. This organization basically completely controls the development of Firefox OS. In practice, the wider community doesn't really have any say over the functionality that's supported, or the direction that's taken. This has become pretty apparent with desktop Firefox, for instance. There have been many poorly-thought-out decisions foisted upon its users lately, without them having any say. This has accelerated since Firefox 4 was released. Just look at the one from today about removing the ability to easily disable JavaScript in Firefox 23, for example. I don't see things being any different with Firefox OS, and I don't consider this to be a form of "openness". The same goes for JavaScript. In practice, it really isn't more "open" than C, or C++, or Java, or Objective-C, or C#. Unless you're part of certain teams at a very small number of organizations, you're not going to have any influence at all on JavaScript. This is very different than the situation with, say, Python, where unaffiliated individuals can actually make a difference. But I wasn't even referring to standards when it comes to JavaScript. That's peripheral to the lack of choice that exists under Firefox OS. It's not a very "open" platform when the only language you can practically use is JavaScript. Android gives us the option of using Java, or using C and C++ via the NDK, for example. That's far more choice than we have under Firefox OS. Maybe my comment was harsh, but we are discussing reality here, not some academic fantasy. The evidence just isn't there to back up Firefox OS being more "open", or even practical in any way.

Yoric 13y ago
You seem to misunderstand how Mozilla works. Of course non-Mozilla devs can contribute code and new features that haven't been specifically ordered by a "centralized, limited-access organization". This happens all the time. Add to that the fact that every repository is public, that commits are visible in real-time rather than through opaque code-drops, and you get a project that's as open as it goes. I won't discuss the openness of JavaScript vs. that of other languages, since this doesn't seem to be the purpose of your message. Yes, JavaScript is the only way to get code executed on FirefoxOS. However, considerable steps are being taken by both Mozilla and third-parties to ensure that this does not limit (too much) your choices. These days, dozens of languages can be compiled to JavaScript, directly [1] or indirectly [2], including C, C++, Objective-C, Java, C# or Python. That doesn't mean that all your applications can be ported immediately to FirefoxOS, as you'll need some library support that may or may not be available for the platform, but it's hardly limiting. As for your "academic fantasy" paragraph, well, let's just politely ignore that trollbait. Caveat: I'm a Mozillian. [1] https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang... [2] https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki

pmelendez 13y ago

> "A platform being open is not merely academic. It makes future open source software exponentionally better just like it did in the past decades." That's very arguably at the very least. As a Ubuntu user at work I can tell you how annoying are all the little bugs, all the drivers issues and hardware incompatibilities. Yeah, you can tell me that is not linux/open source community fault, but in any case it is preventing to make future software "exponentionally" better. Other example? I really can't stand GIMP (It is usable but really a good alternative to Photoshop)

bad_user 13y ago
> As a Ubuntu user at work I can tell you how annoying are all the little bugs, all the drivers issues and hardware incompatibilities. 1) What laptop are you using? Ever tried building a Hackintosh? Seems to me that either you or your company bought a computer and expected it to just work. In many cases it does so perfectly (for example on my Thinkpad it worked perfectly out of the box), in some cases it doesn't. 2) If you're so annoyed about Ubuntu, why do you keep using it? So you can bitch and moan about it?
zanny 13y ago
I'm sick of people criticizing gimp. If photoshop is so much better, either: A. Use photoshop, and pay the absurd license cost. B. Spend what you would on photoshop to pay some starving GNU developer to implement some features you like from PS in gimp. C. Fix the problems you have with it yourself since it is FOSS and development is open.