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Comment by sleepyhead | Hacker News Reader

CardDav should be #1 priority. If I can't sync my contacts what use is a phone with FirefoxOS?

#1 https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia feel free to work on it. Any contribution will be appreciated.

2# this is not marketed as a substitute to iPhone or even Android. It's mean for people that can't afford high end phones. People that if the choice is a $25 phone without contacts sync or a $100 phone with sync they will take the former.

3# A lot of people are working hard on this project improving it every day. Dismissing it like that for a quite minor thing, yes minor, seems quite childish to me.

He's commenting on a feature he would want that's not there. IMO, that's feedback (if a little harshly worded), and should be taken as such.

It wasn't harshly worded at all. A phone is a communication device. Being able to quickly and easily add the contact details of other people is a very basic and critical feature to have in a phone these days. If such functionality is lacking, then the phone can indeed be considered useless.

When a potential user expresses a very legitimate desire for some missing functionality, it leaves a very bad impression when that user is then told to add the functionality himself or herself.

It also doesn't help to refer to that very legitimate feature request as "childish", especially when it involves core functionality that's very critical to many users.

And one wonders themselves why GNU/Linux never got to the average joe/jane desktop.

GNU/Linux was never aimed at average people - it exists to solve some problems average people just don't have.

Funny, I use computers for almost 30 years now and that is how it was being sold since the early days.

As the alternative to the evil empire of corporations for all types of users, including average people.

It's been usable by the average user for a long time now, but first the average user needs to get it. Average users usually need a lot of help to obtain operating systems that are not sold in boxes or that don't come preinstalled. That and the selection of compatible hardware, which has not always been easy. Luckily, most hardware makers are a little better at building compatible computers these days. Worst: average users have a lot to unlearn.

My mom (she's 78) is on Linux since 2006 or so. Moved from Windows to Mac and then to Linux. Never had an issue.

The key is what the user expects. If you approach Linux wanting a seamless transition from Windows, you'll be frustrated. Everything makes sense, but it's different. Your software won't run. If you approach Linux without expecting it to be like Windows, you'll be happy. The average user overestimates how much they know about computing and bring their own baggage. That baggage holds them down. They want to download Nero to burn a CD. They want to download Firefox from the firefox.org website. The whole idea of a package manager is completely alien to the average user (or was, until the advent of the app store).

Sorry but this looks like a copy paste comment from around 1995, funny how some things never change.

This feedback (CardDav support) isn't a dismissal. It's a key feature, even for a low-end smartphone. We're not talking advanced BT profiles, or Facebook sync - this is basic contacts stuff, and thanks to the CardDav standard it's pretty straightforward.

If FirefoxOS is to have any chance at adoption by the general public that attitude has to go. How many people will be happy with responses like yours when they ask a very reasonable question? Not too many.

You can read all about it here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=859306

Please add your vote to the issue.

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