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.
Hey guys! No fear! You’ll have FirefoxOS running on Fairphone 2… I already have one running
And for those who love playing with compilers, linux, and other torture tools, you can build FirefoxOS from scratch by your own, right now!. Instructions here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Building_and_installing_Firefox_OS
There’s still some parts that need to be fixed, like flashing through flash.sh script but they will be fixed pretty soon.
Stay tunned!
Is the Firefox OS user base big enough to support ongoing development without Mozilla staff involvement? Or is it useless now, to build Firefox OS for the Fairphone 2?
As feared, but better read for yourself. Mozilla is doing the Canonical dance … I wonder how healthy Ubuntu Phone is right now … I better check. Here are some quotes, the source is listed below.
“We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the version 2.6 release.”
"Therefore we are announcing our plan to end-of-life support for smartphones after the Firefox OS 2.6 release. This means that Firefox OS for smartphones will no longer have staff involvement beyond May.
We will continue to assess the stack to determine fit with new projects coming through the innovation process (outlined below). Of course, Boot to Gecko (b2g) always has been and will continue to be an open source operating system open to contribution."
Thank you. Regarding the Canonical dance … I was more thinking about all these top down management decisions, by the way. I hadn’t had the time to read about all the Firefox OS decisions yet (looks like it’s happened a day or two ago) but it looks like upper management decision without much community involvement. I think they even handed out Sony(!, OMG) phones a while ago.
What about if do we make a crowdfounding campaign in order to maintain Firefox OS live?
For instance, Mozilla could says that to maintain Firefox OS alive at least for some devices like Fairphone 2 needs X money per year. I think that it will not be so difficult to achieve such goal.
Yeah, why not, it’s worth a try. I think there are quite some people in the Fairphone community, which would support this campaign with some money. Can you get in touch with Mozilla?
I think they offered “shadowing” the developers for a while so that others can learn more about it. But they want to “use” their developers for something else (IoT). I fear the only thing that would work is employing more people working at the software at FP … and that is something the FP project will not/cannot do, so we would be back at square one. And this is a pretty complex software as well. I fear fixing Android all the time and waiting for Qualcomm to come up with fixes upstream is easier and cheaper.
I can keep in touch with Mozilla, but the point is in which way? Maybe you as Fairphone worker have more influence than me. Can you provide to me many information about how to contact Mozilla and especially who have I to contact?
Ok you are right, but you can suppose that in order to maintain Firefox OS alive they need X developers that is about X times the revenue of a developer per year. Then we can open a campaign on one famous crowdfunding website of better directly into Mozilla website. Maybe could be enough that 1000000 make a donation of 1€. Only Mozilla can make the exact estimation.
I fear they already made that estimate … and came to the decision that it’s not worth it ;( But it will not hurt to ask. At the end of the article people that can be contacted are listed, if you want to give it a try.
Ok.
Mozilla is the only software house that takes care of privacy and freedom on the web. Instead of silently shut down several services as Firefox OS, Personas and Thunderbird, what about making a crowdfunding campaign every year as done by Wikipedia for maintaining their wonderful enciclopedia.
For instance, Mozilla can make the following estimate:
Firefox OS: FX developers required, FY other stuff required. Total amount to go on for one year is FM money.
Persona: PX developers required, PY other stuff required. Total amount to go on for one year is PM money.
Thunderbird: TX developers required, TY other stuff required. Total amount to go on for one year is TM money.
Then Mozilla can open a campaign directly into its website and see what will happen. I think that free and open source community together with normal people are willing to make donation to maintain you go ahead without taking money from bad source or stopping the projects.
Let me know if I can help you in some way
Best Regards
Salvatore
EDIT
The community of Mozilla is organizing itself in order to continue to development of Firefox OS No more FirefoxOS? - #39 by erotavlas
Moreover, there a document on which you can add your own ideas and proposal to save Firefox OS Etherpad Mozilla
glad to hear that.
Hope they see the same need of Fair Hardware as i do as well…
FP2 as Referencephone wold be a realy clear statement to Fair, Opensource & independant.
Mozilla is doing the Canonical dance … I wonder how healthy Ubuntu Phone is right now … I better check. Here are some quotes, the source is listed below.