Mozilla Puts An End To Firefox OS

[crystall]

The article is flat-out wrong. This isn't about discontinuing Firefox OS development, it's about decoupling Firefox OS development from carriers/vendors. Basically Mozilla won't be working anymore directly with carriers and vendors with the goal of producing commercial phones. Firefox OS development will be focused only as an entirely open source project which is naturally open to use to carriers/vendors and anybody else. Firefox OS builds will also be made available on a rather wide range of existing Android phones for users to use and hack.

[Cerberus]

The article is flat-out wrong. This isn't about discontinuing Firefox OS development, it's about decoupling Firefox OS development from carriers/vendors. Basically Mozilla won't be working anymore directly with carriers and vendors with the goal of producing commercial phones. Firefox OS development will be focused only as an entirely open source project which is naturally open to use to carriers/vendors and anybody else. Firefox OS builds will also be made available on a rather wide range of existing Android phones for users to use and hack.

It is dead in the sense of commercially available mobile OS, it is out of the game figuratively speaking, it can survive as a platform for people or companies to experiment with, but as a competitor in the mobile market it is dead as there will be no more phones sold with FirefoxOS. If you have no phones available with your OS on the market then your OS is no longer a competitor in the mobile market. The way their announcement is worded it seems they will try to adapt FirefoxOS for IoT and similar things.

[MartinN]

Good riddance. Firefox OS was one of these things I'd never looked at and likely will have never become interested in. They need to focus on Servo, killing Firefox and making sure Rust succeeds by giving developers what they need in terms of APIs, language support, documentation, etc. They spread themselves too thin and this is welcome.

[Maxjen]

Were they in the future to continue this venture with higher-grade hardware and a servo-based browser instead of Gecko, I'd support that in a heartbeat.
Realistically, Servo is probably Mozilla's only real chance at catching up with, and quite likely passing, Google Chrome and I hope they throw more resources at it.

Agreed. And there is WebAssembly, which should also help by making web applications much faster.

[tigerroast]

Ubuntu Touch is not trying to compete with Android, Canonical knows that is nearly impossible, what Canonical is trying to do is to provide an open source OS with a new paradigm and abilities like convergence, aimed at geeky users which is quite a large potential user base world wide,[...]

I don't see something as niche as Ubuntu Phone appealing to any "large" demographic, so unless you quantify that state, I'll have to disagree with you on the notion that there aren't many people within Ubuntu Phone's target audience. Mainly due to Ubuntu's inability to grow that target audience from lack of proper marketing.

yes Microsoft's Continuum will have something similar to convergence but not quite, it is not able to run full desktop applications, Ubuntu Touch will be able to run desktop applications via XMir thus providing full desktop experience.

Now, if only one of those companies could actually market their superior form of convergence (polish and execution notwithstanding), then maybe it won't end up like the Amiga of mobile devices.

There are already demos of Firefox and Libre Office running on Nexus 4 connected to a monitor.

This brings visions of the Ubuntu Edge back in mind and tears to my eyes...if only...

Their strategy is something like this in my opinion, launch the OS for enthusiasts on existing Android phones to cut costs, let them tinker with it and report bugs, improve the OS with time and complete convergence, get the few most popular applications like Viber and WhatsApp ported on Ubuntu Touch and then sell them via carriers.

That seems to be the big picture, yes. However, looking at the machinery in place at the moment, I remain unconvinced of Ubuntu Phone's bright future.

Currently they are in the "improve the OS with time and complete convergence" phase.

Oh, trust me, I already know they made beta-testers out of the current user-base. Seems to be the cool new thing many tech (particularly, game) companies seem to like doing. Not saying they're wrong in this instance, though. It's the principle of it.

I bought the first phone in one of the flash sales and I can tell you they work hard on the OS, the phone improved significantly in the past months with OTAs that come out every 6 weeks. Currently its a pretty comfortable experience using it as my daily phone, when it came out it was buggy and sometimes unstable, now it is no longer so, still needs some work and a few features added but the progress they are making is tangible.

Well, I suppose that's the silver lining of the whole thing, ain't it? At the end of the day, at least they're improving. My thing is, hit the ground running, man. Come out the gate swinging. That way, all you gotta do is maintain the momentum. Regardless of all my hating, glad to see they're actively making progress.

[ElectricPrism]

Once again Mozilla branches out into some new territory and doesn't stick with it. Not to mention the loss of time, resources, energy and money that obviously may have improved Mozilla's existing gammut of products.

Mozilla needs to cut out the fat and refocus, their flagship product is up in flames and a joke right now.

Sure I would buy a Ubuntu or Jolla phone or Tablet, I'm still waiting on availability in the US on some level. Shuttleworth is too much of adventurer as-well, always starting things and leaving it to others to complete while ignoring the Flagship product.

[Daktyl198]

Once again Mozilla branches out into some new territory and doesn't stick with it. Not to mention the loss of time, resources, energy and money that obviously may have improved Mozilla's existing gammut of products.

Mozilla needs to cut out the fat and refocus, their flagship product is up in flames and a joke right now.

Sure I would buy a Ubuntu or Jolla phone or Tablet, I'm still waiting on availability in the US on some level. Shuttleworth is too much of adventurer as-well, always starting things and leaving it to others to complete while ignoring the Flagship product.

You seem to misunderstand something. FirefoxOS was based on the Firefox codebase, especially Gecko. FirefoxOS contributed towards things like micro-optimizations and letting Firefox run even better on lower-end hardware than it currently does. Not to mention it spawned a bunch of interesting WebAPIs meant to help build better webapps.
Besides, like somebody said, they're not stopping development, they're merely done partnering with carriers to sell phones with FFOS pre-installed.

Also, Mozilla (while I don't agree with their decisions 90% of the time) ARE cutting down on what they do. E.g. they've essentially decided to hand over Thunderbird to the community and not throw their developers at it anymore. There are a few other examples as well recently.

[FishB8]

This is unfortunate. I was hoping to see how the Firefox OS based Runcible would turn out. http://mono.hm/runcible.html Even if it is released, it doesn't sound like it has much of a future if the OS is no longer developed.

[Cerberus]

I don't see something as niche as Ubuntu Phone appealing to any "large" demographic, so unless you quantify that state, I'll have to disagree with you on the notion that there aren't many people within Ubuntu Phone's target audience. Mainly due to Ubuntu's inability to grow that target audience from lack of proper marketing.

Linux users, technology geeks, privacy conscious people etc are a decent potential audience, though they of course plan on targeting the average user as well to an extent. Ubuntu isnt targeting any new audience at the moment, so their marketing didnt start at all so to speak, as the OS is still in development phase there is not much point in advertising it to the masses, those who are the target audience now, the geeks and Ubuntu fans, they know of them already. They want to perfect the OS and then go to carriers and marketing, and that is perfectly reasonable, nothing worse than throwing your phones to the mass market with a product that is not fully complete yet or lacks applications that most people expect to have. Once the OS is considered fully complete then mass market will be tackled via carriers, and probably a marketing campaign, Mark Shuttleworth claims they have some carriers interested, I guess we will see whether thats true in the future.

Now, if only one of those companies could actually market their superior form of convergence (polish and execution notwithstanding), then maybe it won't end up like the Amiga of mobile devices.

Microsoft's Continuum is supposedly ready, Ubuntu convergence is not yet ready, however I am pretty sure Ubuntu will use convergence heavily in marketing because the full desktop experience is something no one else has, Continuum doesnt have full desktop, it is more like a glorified mobile experience at the moment.

This brings visions of the Ubuntu Edge back in mind and tears to my eyes...if only...

Convergent device that is coming next year will be produced by BQ, not an Edge but it will likely be powerful. Edge is supposedly a possibility in the future, if the phones reach mass market and achieve some form of success I am guessing that Edge might be resurrected as some kind of superphone with convergence that everyone will be jealous about. But first things first.

That seems to be the big picture, yes. However, looking at the machinery in place at the moment, I remain unconvinced of Ubuntu Phone's bright future.

In my opinion the whole future of Ubuntu phones hangs on two applications, Viber and WhatsApp, that is what people need, especially the average user, if they can bring those to Ubuntu phones and complete convergence I believe Ubuntu Touch will succeed, it wont threaten big players but it will grow steadily into a niche. Without those applications no open source alternative mobile OS has a chance.

Oh, trust me, I already know they made beta-testers out of the current user-base. Seems to be the cool new thing many tech (particularly, game) companies seem to like doing. Not saying they're wrong in this instance, though. It's the principle of it.

Canonical was honest about it, people were warned that the phones are for early adopters and enthusiasts, one of the reasons for flash sales in the beginning, to prevent average Joe from buying the phone and complaining how it sucks and doesnt have Viber and WhatsApp. Personally I think it is a good strategy, geeks and fans like to tinker and make good willing beta testers. That approach is ok as long as the company warns the buyers that they will probably run into problems.

Well, I suppose that's the silver lining of the whole thing, ain't it? At the end of the day, at least they're improving. My thing is, hit the ground running, man. Come out the gate swinging. That way, all you gotta do is maintain the momentum. Regardless of all my hating, glad to see they're actively making progress.

That would be the best but Canonical is not a multibillion dollar company like Google to be able to afford so many developers and testers to develop a new OS all by themselves in secret and then simply make a grand entrance. People often seem to forget that Canonical is a small company compared to the giants in the mobile market, they are using a rogue approach and develop and test with the help of their users, creating a new mobile operating system along with convergence, Snappy Ubuntu Core, desktop, cloud and server Ubuntu versions, new display server and Unity 8 is A LOT of work for a relatively small company like Canonical, which is why its quite impressive to see all those things are progressing well, maybe its not as fast as some people would like to see, but everything is going forward.

[tigerroast]

Linux users, technology geeks, privacy conscious people etc are a decent potential audience, though they of course plan on targeting the average user as well to an extent. Ubuntu isnt targeting any new audience at the moment, so their marketing didnt start at all so to speak, as the OS is still in development phase there is not much point in advertising it to the masses, those who are the target audience now, the geeks and Ubuntu fans, they know of them already. They want to perfect the OS and then go to carriers and marketing, and that is perfectly reasonable, nothing worse than throwing your phones to the mass market with a product that is not fully complete yet or lacks applications that most people expect to have. Once the OS is considered fully complete then mass market will be tackled via carriers, and probably a marketing campaign, Mark Shuttleworth claims they have some carriers interested, I guess we will see whether thats true in the future.

What's the point of having a community without using them to your advantage, I suppose. Better than repeating the Dellbuntu days.

Microsoft's Continuum is supposedly ready, Ubuntu convergence is not yet ready, however I am pretty sure Ubuntu will use convergence heavily in marketing because the full desktop experience is something no one else has, Continuum doesnt have full desktop, it is more like a glorified mobile experience at the moment.

Was speaking chiefly of Ubuntu there. MS can take their idea of "convergence" and shove it up their Continuum.

Convergent device that is coming next year will be produced by BQ, not an Edge but it will likely be powerful. Edge is supposedly a possibility in the future, if the phones reach mass market and achieve some form of success I am guessing that Edge might be resurrected as some kind of superphone with convergence that everyone will be jealous about.

If only...*sniff*...

In my opinion the whole future of Ubuntu phones hangs on two applications, Viber and WhatsApp, that is what people need, especially the average user, if they can bring those to Ubuntu phones and complete convergence I believe Ubuntu Touch will succeed, it wont threaten big players but it will grow steadily into a niche. Without those applications no open source alternative mobile OS has a chance.

And the only reason that's the case is because everyone, their grandmas, their cats, and their frying pans use Viber and WhatsApp. Otherwise, any good VoIP program would work perfectly.

Not disagreeing though.

Canonical was honest about it, people were warned that the phones are for early adopters and enthusiasts, one of the reasons for flash sales in the beginning, to prevent average Joe from buying the phone and complaining how it sucks and doesnt have Viber and WhatsApp. Personally I think it is a good strategy, geeks and fans like to tinker and make good willing beta testers. That approach is ok as long as the company warns the buyers that they will probably run into problems.

Again, I'm not saying they're wrong about the way they went about it, nor am I disagreeing with you. I just don't like the principle of it, mainly because of what big game companies do. I shouldn't have to wait a millenium for a day-one patch. Period.

Early-release indie games are okay, but not when EVERYONE does it. <side rant over>

That would be the best but Canonical is not a multibillion dollar company like Google...

And they and Mozilla should stop trying to be like Google, stretching themselves thin, until Shuttleworth and Chris Beard have Pichai's rubber band stacks.

...to be able to afford so many developers and testers to develop a new OS all by themselves in secret and then simply make a grand entrance. People often seem to forget that Canonical is a small company compared to the giants in the mobile market, they are using a rogue approach

Never seen someone use that analogy to describe the non-brute-force method of not throwing a lot of money at something and hoping for the best. Someone likes playing as a thief in their favorite RPG.

and develop and test with the help of their users, creating a new mobile operating system along with convergence, Snappy Ubuntu Core, desktop, cloud and server Ubuntu versions, new display server and Unity 8 is A LOT of work for a relatively small company like Canonical, which is why its quite impressive to see all those things are progressing well, maybe its not as fast as some people would like to see, but everything is going forward.

Moreover, I'm pleasantly surprised to see any of those moving forward at all, considering all the projects they have on the table. I really don't wish for Canonical's downfall, unlike many a FLOSS zealot, much of the opposite.