It’s stated that FirefoxOS will no longer be developed by Mozilla. I didn’t really dig deep to analyze the backgrounds and if it will be kept alive by the community but it’s too late now and I need to sleep. Just wanted to share/mention it here.
Does the Fairphone-Software-Team have any news or details on this?
It would be pretty sad and I would love to al least try it on my new FP2 as soon as it’s available.
Hello, I am new here. I am interested in the project but I don’t want to buy a FP2 before being sure there will be another offer than Android as OS. Now Firefox OS is out, why not go for Ubuntu Touch or Tizen?
I currently own a Jolla phone and I am very pessimistic about Sailfish OS future since Jolla, the company that develops it, lacks money (one thread in the forum talks about it).
We got some news from Mozilla where they say they regret the news of yesterday and that they are still committed to the development of Firefox OS.
Their announcement was that they would not do new carriers partnerships. This unfortunately got spinned into “Mozilla is shutting down FxOS”, which is not the case.
[quote=“douwe, post:11, topic:11240, full:true”]
We got some news from Mozilla where they say they regret the news of yesterday and that they are still committed to the development of Firefox OS.[/quote]
OOOHH this is very good!!! Now I’m still hoping for a Firefox OS version on Fairphone 2
So, uhm, why would Mozilla announce they won’t do new carriers partnerships if they were committed to continue developing Firefox OS in the long run? Sorry, trying to understand the background and implications of this, but haven’t done much digging…
Thank you. I have to say the first announcement was far from being clear if it is what they wanted to say. in fact, it changes nothing for the FP2 if I understood well since the porting is made by the community.
The official version is that they will “stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels”, not only putting a halt on new partnerships.
Here a full statement from Ari Jaaksi, Mozilla’s SVP of Connected Devices, according to Techcrunch:
“We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow.
Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the Web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs. However, we weren’t able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels.
We’ll share more on our work and new experiments across connected devices soon.”
This does not sound like this was simply a question of misreporting, and I think it’s anyone’s guess now as to what will happen to FirefoxOS on phones in general and FP2 in particular.
If I take Sailfish OS as an example, Jolla helps only one partner, Intex, but the community made it available for many other smartphones. And I wonder at which point this is not also true for Cyanogen Mod.
It seems it is quite a lot of work to make work an OS on a specific hardware and that Mozilla doesn’t want to pay people for this task.
Ubuntu mobile has no (good) track record yet and hence not suitable for the John/Jane Does amongst us (http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/24/ubuntu-phone-review/) Tizen is in theory open standards OS (not open source!), but mostly Samsung-controlled (Samsung has it’s own flavor; similar to the Symbian OS that was also open standards but in the end 100% controlled by Nokia).
The (only) criteria for a sustainable mobile phone eco-system: great apps, both free and commercial; so it’s either iOS or a (personalized) Android flavor.
In general I have the impression that you underestimate the effort needed to develop a solid mobile phone OS for a smart phone. OS development for the iPhone started in 2004 (first iPhone 2007); Android development started in 2005 (first Android device 2007). That was all for relatively simple phones. Maemo/Meego OS (one of the ancestors of Sailfish, developed by Nokia) has also a long history that is worth reading
So basically 3 years of focused development by 1000s of developers full time with virtually unlimited budget before you have a stable OS. Not a realistic option for a startup of 25-30 people
True. I would argue it’s even not that important if it was a case of misreporting or not. The news is out, the trust is gone. Even when looking at the last months, it seems clear that are is no foreseeable future for Firefox OS on phones.
There was a switch away from low-cost devices, a communicated change of focus in development, a switch from the dedicated development devices Flame to the Xperia Z3 for internal developers etc. Now with this announcement, there is no reason anymore for any hardware manufacturer to invest in Firefox OS.
I can imagine FxOS in devices like smart tvs, maybe Point-Of-Sale screens etc, but no longer on the phone. And I could very much understand if Fairphone stops putting is valuable and scarce development resources into a OS that has no longer the trust of it’s developers.
