ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge | Hacker News Reader

ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge

tomshardware.com

23 pointsgaoprea9 comments

I understand that some (relatively small) parts of the code are shared with Android. It will be interesting to see if Google then considers this an "incompatible fork" of Android and threatens to boot ZTE out of the Open Handset Alliance as they did with Acer/Aliyun. Given the parts of the code shared (only low level device driver / HAL type stuff) are so distant from "core" Android and so minor it would seem pretty extreme for them to try and claim this. Nonetheless they might technically have the right to do so, so it will be an interesting test of whether they are truly motivated by desire to keep Android compatible or are actually being anti-competitive and wielding OHA membership as a club to keep potential rival OSes from emerging.

The main android part that are shared are the kernel parts, bionic (the libc) and vold, AFAIK.

Most other components are common to most Linux based OSes.

Is Firefox OS set to be completely open source?

It has been from day one. Just clone https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/B2G to start!

Who is carrying the phone though? Will it be rooted from the get go?

Disclaimer: this is all hearsay..

Telefonica in Brazil is one of the first carriers to distribute it, but I believe unlocked phones will be very common.. plus I've heard you could get an Android device and reflash it with B2G (it's Linux based and should work on the same devices as Android)

Nexus S and SGS2 seem to work. I heard pandora and raspberry pie also work. there's probably other phones too

I really want to switch to this even if it is only 70% as good as Android on my GNex.

I've always been a Windows guy, never cared about free software and such, because it seemed like it was happening without too much fuss, but then, boom. Locked down phones, tablets, etc become the norm. And if our current phones become our future computing devices we are fucked.

I'm really glad to hear this argument for open source, and doubly so to know you plan on voting with your money. I'm looking forward to the Firefox OS, I hope it gets a ton of traction. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting one too. Cheers.

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