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michaelwww

> Developers are now forever beholden to the big corporates.

Not if FireFoxOS gets enough support

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/partners/

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Yes, and if Diaspora replaces Facebook. Fat chance.

About as much chance as Facebook replacing MySpace

No, it really isn't. Facebook offered something that users want that MySpace didn't. Diaspora offers nothing that users--not privacy advocates, users--want.

I was referring to FireFox OS competing with iOS or Android. It's a long shot. I don't know anything about Diaspora -- Facebook will probably do a FF OS version.

I realize what you were referring to. What does FirefoxOS provide that users want?

It offers a solution to the problem indicated in the post. FireFox OS users can install apps without going through a store. The only thing that Mozilla will maintain control over are apps that use the phone portion of the device.

Which can already be done on Android with zero problems--and which statistically-nobody cares about.

Because when you think about it installing the app not from app store is the problem, not the other way around.

Not nothing. It offers aspects, which allow you to group your friends into different categories so you can easily choose who to share what content with. Google found them useful -- at least enough to rename them circles...

This is a very weak feature to be touting as a reason to move...

Aspects were not the feature they touted as the reason to move. That would be decentralization. But the parent post said there were literally no features besides privacy, and I wanted to point out that that isn't strictly true.

Especially as you can share with self-defined groups in FB.

What was the chance of FFx browser winning the browser race, when more than 95% computers already had IE pre-installed?

With FFxOS, web designer and developers can leverage their web design & development skills. All system calls are exposed via javascript API (aka open Web APIs). See more details here (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS)

  > What was the chance of FFx browser winning the browser
  > race, when more than 95% computers already had IE pre-
  > installed?

Pretty good, because IE development has stopped and the team deisbandled. The situation in mobile OS market is nothing like that.

Yes.

It wasn't so much that FF was good (although it was), but that IE sucked so unbelievably hard. The difference made the switch a given for anyone with a passing understanding of computers.

Firefox OS ? You mean that OS that basically doesn't allow to do anything at all outside of a browser?

Mozilla has ranted about Microsoft restrictions preventing them from making a decent competing browser in WP8. Well, go make a competing browser in FFOS...

Mozilla has tricked everybody into thinking "Web technologies" meant "open", but this is absolutely not true.

Oh, but maybe it will at least solve distribution of apps you can make? Because, you know, everybody knows there will be no distinctions between apps installed from their store and other places, right?

Yeah... Let me tell you how it actually works. Mozilla has finally figured that mobile security is hard, so they have decided to have permissions. There are two kinds of permissions. The first one is those that they think users can understand (for instance "use the camera"). For them, the device asks the user if they grant them, problem solved.

And then there is the second kind of permissions, those that they think are too hard to explain to the average user. For instance, "make a request to another domain" (systemXHR). For those your app has to be in their app store and validated by Mozilla. Does that ring a bell?

So no, Firefox OS is definitely not the answer. Android way is better on that front, actually. Another interesting project could be Sailfish.

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