Mozilla OS Looking Grown Up On Its Own Developer Phone 114
An anonymous reader writes "It's no secret that Mozilla has been working on a mobile OS. Previously codenamed Boot2Gecko, the project focused on a purely HTML5 based system that worked in many ways like current mobile devices. As the project grew into Mozilla OS, the company has laid out a partnership with ZTE that will have real world devices in certain markets early next year. Testing for this OS had previously consisted of a compiled ROM that would be flashed over a handful of Android devices. Now, Mozilla has moved into full fledged product evaluation mode with their own custom developer phone."
Three cheers for Mozilla (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose there will be a degree of negativity about boot to gecko, along the lines of "they've already lost" and "they should focus on fixing the browser".
Personally, I wish them every success. Firefox has been great, and the idea of a phone OS built by a non-profit whose only agenda revolves around standards, privacy, user control, openness and general sanity will be a refreshing change from the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. It actually seems to be happening, too, unlike so many other projects we hear about.
(But if you want some negativity - given that they're primarily funded by Google, and presumably don't have a massive patent war chest, they'll probably be sunk if they ever get anywhere. Time to donate!)
Browser Based OS (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason this haven't ben discussed on Slashdot before is because it's been Google that has been developing fully browser based OS, and Google fanboys have de-routed every intelligent discussion about the merits of Chrome/Firefox OS.
Sorry, but in my opinion we must stop this development here and keep our native open and closed source apps. You can't even disassemble browser apps, all you have is the front-end. At least with Windows and MS apps I know they are going to stay around and work when I need them.
Re:Browser Based OS (Score:3, Insightful)
HTML5 applications can work offline. They already have interfaces for sandboxed filesystems and built in SQL DBs. Granted, apps that have an online component(most of them probably) don't have to release the source for their server software. That is the case with native apps as well though. I suggest you spare some time to review the HTML5 specs. It's actually a pretty good development platform. You may even like it
Re:Didn't WebOS try this already (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Facebook did just retreat from HTML 5. However, the difference there is that they were attempting to support how many different hardwares, screen resolutions, browsers, etc.
Mozilla here can work with it because they are vertically integrated. They can optimize the apps for their phone alone, not worrying about other phones' screen sizes, resolutions, processors, etc. That's not to say it's not still risky. HTML5 is scarcely grown up, IMO.
How is it "negative" to want Firefox improved? (Score:1, Insightful)
How is it negative to want Firefox improved, rather than having them waste resources on some half-assed "operating system" for phones?
Firefox is a product that many millions of people actually use on a daily basis. It's also a product that exhibits poor performance and excessive memory usage. That means it's a perfect candidate for improvement. The need for improvement is clearly there, and there are many people who would benefit from said improvement.
Yes, it is better now than it was several years ago, but that's mainly because of extreme competition from Chrome. It could still be so much better, however. Its users are still BEGGING for Firefox's performance to be improved, and its memory usage to be reduced. Nobody is begging for yet another a mobile "operating system", especially not one from Mozilla.