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A typical Android update will change the drivers and other low level stuff. My understanding is that a Firefox OS update will typically change only the upper l

A typical Android update will change the drivers and other low level stuff. My understanding is that a Firefox OS update will typically change only the upper layers: Gecko and Gaia. That should hopefully reduce the amount of testing necessary to push a release. In any case, it seems unlikely that Mozilla would simply announce this without any consultation with their hardware partners. They're in a much better position to know what's possible than you or I!

conroy 13y ago
We've seen a similar promise from Google at I/O 2011 about Android OS updates: > [W]e're jointly announcing that new devices from participating partners will receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows ... and that's just the beginning. [1] The announced partners were Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T. Since then, many have broken that promise[2]. Three of them (Sprint, T-Mobile, and LG) are now Firefox OS partners. I'm just skeptical that this time will be any different. [1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-mobile-and-more-at.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-mobi... [2] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-the-android-update-alliance/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-the-...
- cpeterso 13y ago
  I think those manufactuers' broken promises are why Google is pushing the Google "Play Services" library (released at Google I/O 2013) that adds new APIs that are compatible from Froyo and above. An old device many have an outdated OS, but Google can still push new Play Services APIs from the Play Store (and Google has to deal with the backwards compatibility).
- ndesaulniers 13y ago
  This is a legitimate concern. As part of the licensing agreement to be called a "Firefox OS phone" I believe carriers must provide updates for a certain amount of time. For how long, I do not know. If the duration is public knowledge, I do not know. If partners will actually follow through, well... the articles you linked to paint a bleak picture. Of course, since our entire OS is open source, they can just use it on their own, and never release a single update, as long as they don't brand it a "Firefox OS phone." I'm prototyping an add on right now that would detect a connected device, download updated pre-compiled images of the layers (gonk, gecko, gaia) and allow you to update them (if I verified that the update worked on your device beforehand, to make sure you wouldn't end up bricking your phone). Just trying to raise awareness within the org right now to get a green light to work on this more.
DannyBee 13y ago
This is a great theory, but one of the reasons Android does this is because it is necessary for what users want: better performance, or fixes for GL driver bugs that apps need to work, or whatever. I can't see why Gecko/Gaia won't have the same problem, looking at the architecture docs.
- shardling 13y ago
  If the options are an update that fixes driver issues but is never pushed, and an update that only fixes less serious issues but is pushed -- which would you rather have? My (fairly naive) understanding is that there is nothing comparable to the Gecko layer on Android (Dalvik seems in practice to be very intertwined with lower level code) so I'm not sure what conclusion you're drawing from the docs. Feel free to school me on it, though. :)
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    But the updates that fix less serious issues are often pushed, because they get worked around in apps/whatever. As for equivalence, gecko, among other things, has the drawing layer. At least according to https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Architecture https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Architecture, Gecko is using OpenGL ES 2.0 to do drawing. This means it will be impacted by graphics driver bugs and issues, the same as Android is. (Which is not surprising, since Gonk, the layer below it, started out as Android) Look at it this way: anything that lives in Gonk will generally have exactly the same issues as Android does in terms of updates. There may be some pieces of it that are more generic than others (bluez, for example), but by and large, you will need to test on each phone model. FWIW, the Gecko layer is essentially the same as Android's framework. What functionality is provided by a high level layer differs a bit, but Android and Firefox OS are not as architecturally different as you seem to think.

conroy 13y ago

We've seen a similar promise from Google at I/O 2011 about Android OS updates: > [W]e're jointly announcing that new devices from participating partners will receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows ... and that's just the beginning. [1] The announced partners were Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T. Since then, many have broken that promise[2]. Three of them (Sprint, T-Mobile, and LG) are now Firefox OS partners. I'm just skeptical that this time will be any different. [1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-mobile-and-more-at.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-mobi... [2] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-the-android-update-alliance/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-the-...

cpeterso 13y ago
I think those manufactuers' broken promises are why Google is pushing the Google "Play Services" library (released at Google I/O 2013) that adds new APIs that are compatible from Froyo and above. An old device many have an outdated OS, but Google can still push new Play Services APIs from the Play Store (and Google has to deal with the backwards compatibility).
ndesaulniers 13y ago
This is a legitimate concern. As part of the licensing agreement to be called a "Firefox OS phone" I believe carriers must provide updates for a certain amount of time. For how long, I do not know. If the duration is public knowledge, I do not know. If partners will actually follow through, well... the articles you linked to paint a bleak picture. Of course, since our entire OS is open source, they can just use it on their own, and never release a single update, as long as they don't brand it a "Firefox OS phone." I'm prototyping an add on right now that would detect a connected device, download updated pre-compiled images of the layers (gonk, gecko, gaia) and allow you to update them (if I verified that the update worked on your device beforehand, to make sure you wouldn't end up bricking your phone). Just trying to raise awareness within the org right now to get a green light to work on this more.

DannyBee 13y ago

This is a great theory, but one of the reasons Android does this is because it is necessary for what users want: better performance, or fixes for GL driver bugs that apps need to work, or whatever. I can't see why Gecko/Gaia won't have the same problem, looking at the architecture docs.

shardling 13y ago
If the options are an update that fixes driver issues but is never pushed, and an update that only fixes less serious issues but is pushed -- which would you rather have? My (fairly naive) understanding is that there is nothing comparable to the Gecko layer on Android (Dalvik seems in practice to be very intertwined with lower level code) so I'm not sure what conclusion you're drawing from the docs. Feel free to school me on it, though. :)
- DannyBee 13y ago
  But the updates that fix less serious issues are often pushed, because they get worked around in apps/whatever. As for equivalence, gecko, among other things, has the drawing layer. At least according to https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Architecture https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Architecture, Gecko is using OpenGL ES 2.0 to do drawing. This means it will be impacted by graphics driver bugs and issues, the same as Android is. (Which is not surprising, since Gonk, the layer below it, started out as Android) Look at it this way: anything that lives in Gonk will generally have exactly the same issues as Android does in terms of updates. There may be some pieces of it that are more generic than others (bluez, for example), but by and large, you will need to test on each phone model. FWIW, the Gecko layer is essentially the same as Android's framework. What functionality is provided by a high level layer differs a bit, but Android and Firefox OS are not as architecturally different as you seem to think.