Comment by hardwaresofton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hardwaresofton | Hacker News Reader

tl/dr: ffos is not dead, it's open source, and it's already a product, not a PoC.

I probably read like a broken record at this point:

Despite Mozilla dropping development on it, FirefoxOS is still not "dead". Open source things only die when no one has interest in them any more. AFAIK FirefoxOS is still the most open mobile operating system. If some other company decides to take up where mozilla left off, fork FirefoxOS, and do stuff with it, they can make a run at it (this is extremely unlikely).

The platform itself is pretty amazing already - It does all the actual "phone" stuff just great -- making calls, texting (minus a snafu with SMS group messaging on the version I'm on). The apps are web apps. The phone is almost literally one huge browser. There isn't that much more to add! Yeah it'd be nice if it had more "native" app support, but honestly, any site with a mobile website (or responsive design) has "native" app support. If you've used version 2.x, you're probably pretty satisfied with what your phone does now anyway. I know I am.

FirefoxOS will still be useful as long as people keep making apps for it (and again, apps are basically webpages, so even if it's not distributed on the marketplace, people can still webpages to homescreen), and it will be useful as long as people want to use it. It is already viable open source mobile OS. I am grateful to mozilla for taking the time to make it.

I'm excited to see what they do in connected devices, because despite the moves mozilla has made recently (hello, pocket, addon signing requirement), I still would much rather have them build software that was running on my toaster than anyone else.

[EDIT] - Also, check out the comments on the site. They're great.

So, are there anyone that are working on developing FFOS further? If not, it's dead for all practical purposes. Just like WebOS is dead even though that was open sourced as well.

I'm not excited at all to see what they do with connected devices, because I expect them (and their partners) to have a go at it for a couple of years and then shut it down when the next shiny new market opportunity appears.

I have no idea why Firefox would have an advantage in this space over Google/Android. I'd also trust them more, but I just don't see it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WebOS was open sourced after it started failing, and it was only parts of webos that were first "open sourced". I think the contexts are different, from day one b2g has been open source, and has had a contingent of supporters.

Plus, WebOS never actually got as far as FirefoxOS did on physical devices -- FFOS is powering phones for people all across the world right now. From what I remember WebOS got mostly relegated ot tablets.

I understand and share some of your frustration with their seemingly indecisiveness and willingess to drop certain projects to chase other ones. But can you blame them? They're trying to stay profitable.

So I think they'd have a little bit of an advantage becuase they've essentially ported the web model to run on embedded devices, and I think that could make it easier for manufacturers to integrate. Instead of learning to make some special kind of android app (+ ide support of course), manufacturers only have to worry about making webpages, and using some `window.mozFridge.changeTemperature` API, rather than something heavier.

My statement was more about trust than some implicit advantage in IoT (though I think the case could be made that they do have some advantages).

WebOS had the AWESOME phone: Palm Pre

I really wanted this phone, but I was skeptical as to whether it could make a big enough dent given Apple and Android.

The card system that Google now uses IIRC was because one of the designers left WebOS and joined Google.

Sure thing. You can say about BSD as not all major players today deploy BSD servers, but the community is strill thriving. But I bet to you FFOS is going to be a much smaller community over time and eventually so small only those people are dogfooding themselves. Code will live on but nothing else and that's why people called it dead.

There is a difference between dead in popular perception and dead eternally. Eventually you will left with maybe one person looking at the code and then nobody ever looking at the code even on a monthly basis.

Who knows.

Sure. But do you think FFOS will be closer to FreeBSD or closer to WebOS?

I'd say WebOS if I have to choose one. I don't know the reputation of WebOS, but given Mozilla is behind FFOS, a lot of the contributors are drawn from existing active Mozilla contributor pool. I don't expect an immediate drop of contributions but I can bet within a year many contributors (paid or not) will put time into other new Mozilla-branded open source projects. Just look at Persona, huge community love, but very little activity (there is always something you can improve but why so few?) Because so few people actually use Persona at large scale (maybe a few), and those who do have to seek for a migration path.

Wish I could give this more upvotes.

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