Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it.<p>FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It filled no real need, and nobody wanted it.<p>For Mozilla to stay alive, they need to pick a space that is currently desperately needed but being ignored by large corporations and the government: privacy and identity. Mozilla could be the champion of the Snowden era, yet instead they're distracting themselves with IoT, VR and other shiny new toys.<p>(And yes, I realize that users don't care about privacy. But nobody cared about web standards, either: it's all about packaging. That's Mozilla's strength.)<p>Mozilla is a non-profit with a mission (<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/</a>). It's time they start acting like one again.
Most of you are probably not aware that Opera Software (where I spent a decade on Opera Mini/Mobile) went down the same rabbit hole around 2002-2006, spending many many man-years building a web-based (pre-smartphone) phone UI platform using web technologies. The product name was "Opera Platform". Here are some screenshots:<p><a href="http://imgur.com/on4gHdi" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/on4gHdi</a><p>It failed for the same, predictable reasons: Yes, there are many web developers in the world compared to the number of (in this example) embedded rtos UI C/C++ developers. However, on resource-constrained platforms (as phones tend to be, since they are battery-powered) it's really hard and requires brilliant developers to be able to build web-based UIs that can compete in performance with non-web-based UIs built by (in comparison) not-so-brilliant developers.<p>And on top of this, Mozilla decided to shoot for (super) low-end devices as their main target - presumably because their bizdev people had spotted a theoretical opportunity, but failed to connect with engineering, or vice-versa. The first time I saw that I just laughed out loud, to be honest.<p>They actually have a time-honored tradition of following in the footsteps of Opera when it comes to ways of making money. Those sponsored tiles introduced in Firefox last year? Opera did that in 2008/2009-ish. (Not to mention the concept of a graphical speed dial on the new tab page itself...) That Google search field to the right of the URL field? Opera pioneered that business model in 2001 - followed by Mozilla and Apple half a decade later. Sorry, I get carried away. :D
It was interesting to follow this experiment but have to admit it was against the odds since day 1 (and it's especially easy to say so in retrospective).<p>In terms of regular users, there are tons of dirt cheap chinese no-name android devices that more or less work. For 100 euros, you can get an acceptable Android phone from a major manufacturer (LG, etc). FirefoxOS was competing in a similar price range, however offered much less to the end user. I guess it's fair to say that it didn't deliver any extra value.<p>When I was using FirefoxOS and poking around the code base, I saw potential in their web-first platform as an introduction to programming. It's much easier to write some basic HTML, CSS and JS than to figure how to do the equivalent in Java for Android, etc.<p>However, things like ionic or phonegap and reasonably good, and it's hard to compete with them as they produce something fairly acceptable and available to run on the vast majority of the smartphones.<p>At the end of the day, I really appreciate Mozilla's work on this project. Thanks to all the volunteers who contributed to the project. You are amazing people :)
A few days ago, it looked like they were ditching Thunderbird so they could concentrate on their phone products. What's left besides Firefox?<p>- "WebMaker", whatever that does.<p>- Rust.<p>- The $60 Mozilla hoodie.<p>- Their world tour of meetups.[1]<p>- The really fancy headquarters overlooking SF bay.<p>A tight focus on Firefox might be a win. I'm looking forward to an all-Rust browser.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/events/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/events/</a>
So it seems like Firefox OS itself will continue to be iterated upon, it's just that Mozilla will no longer try to use it as a means to create a third commercial way as opposed to iOS/Android: <a href="http://firefoxoscentral.com/2015/12/firefox-os-is-dead-firefox-os-is-alive/" rel="nofollow">http://firefoxoscentral.com/2015/12/firefox-os-is-dead-firef...</a>
Remember, the point of Firefox OS was not to challenge or take over the market with Firefox OS devices. It was to develop web APIs for phone things, like the dialer, video, voice, accelerometer, etc. And they succeeded! That's why the statement says "We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform". Other browsers adopted the tech, and all phone browsers are better off for the project. That's a win.
Mozilla is shifting to use their web platform for connected devices and IoT efforts. The IoT space is a mess right now and I think that Mozilla could do a lot of good there.<p>I think that Firefox OS as a phone operating system will always be available for hackers to port and install on their own devices.
tldr; sad but ultimately no problem, it's just up to the open source community to maintain b2g (boot2gecko) now. It's already a more-than-functional platform, excited to take part in porting it and maintaining it from here on out, because I'll still be using it.<p>As a person that runs FirefoxOS on my main phone (LG Nexus 5 running FFOS v2.5), this sucks to hear. I used to own a Flame which was the developer reference phone and basically the best ffos phone you could buy except the fx0 which is for sale only with contract in japan (or very very expensively otherwise), and it was pretty good phone, and got better with every update.<p>However, as far as FirefoxOS (aka b2g/boot2gecko) itself goes, it's open source, so it's got a life of it's own (though it may be significantly less contributed to from now on) -- and I'm totally OK with that. I will continue to run FirefoxOS because it still does the things it should (makes calls, text messages, use apps) -- and can be (relatively) easily ported to existing phones (some flagships).<p>Sad day, but also kind of fine, because they did what they set out to do, and I'm running this OS on my phone, and it's verifiably not garbage (I think it's great). Looking forward to a leaner, meaner, faster Firefox on my desktop -- I'll be getting my hands dirty with FFOS on my phone in the meantime.
Guess it's up to Canonical to make Ubuntu Touch a viable open source smartphone OS - are there even devices running it that are being sold in the U.S.?<p>Did not expect that Sailfish OS would outlive Firefox OS.
Linux as a platform took off because it was possible for a smart user to install it on hardware they already had.<p>If there had of been a way to install Firefox OS on an iPhone or Android phone, I would have certainly tried it out. Mozilla really needed to target power users, but it was just too hard to get hold of the hardware - both hardware availability and the stupid state of carrier contracts are to blame here.<p>I don't know that Mozilla's business model works if they are not bundling their software to a licensed phone, but it's a shame that the mobile platforms can't be opened up the same way desktops are.
I love the work of Mozilla in the browser space, Thunderbird, Rust and online freedom.<p>Having web pages as native apps goes back to Web Widgets on Series 60 phones, followed by WebOS.<p>On the Series 60, almost everyone favoured native Symbian and J2ME apps to web widgets.<p>WebOS sadly failed to gain major traction.<p>Windows Phone and Android devices can be obtained by fairly low prices and have the advantage of native apps, Webviews besides the browser. On Windows Phone the WinRT is exposed to packaged web apps.<p>So although I respect their efforts, I never really understood the effort, given that they were under the same OEM constraints as Android and the reviews of the available devices weren't that great.
So the headline is fairly misleading, Firefox OS is not cancelled and development will not be stopped. The strategy of trying to push distribution via carriers has not worked so we will no longer be doing that. The "Firefox OS" team was renamed to "Connected Devices" to reflect the fact we are not only building a smartphone, TV's are already being sold and other factors (iot / wearables etc) are being looked into.
Is anyone actually surprised by this announcement? It feels like Mozilla tries a lot of things, but rarely gets traction on any of them.<p>Mean while, Firefox isn't getting that much better and seems to be loosing marketshare.<p>What's the long-term plan?
Good. I can't remember anyone other than Mozilla actually being excited about Firefox OS. It seemed like a massive sinkhole on the company's part that drew resources away from the development of the browser.
Something that has been on my mind.. A lot of commenters keep saying there are two good options out there, but really the choice is more "iPhone. Yes or No?". If you don't want an iPhone you are going to end up with an Android device. I can't put iOS on my nexus 5.<p>There is a space there for another OS that you can put on your non-iphone. I just don't think that's Mozilla's space to fill. Really, in all practicality, this is a space Microsoft needs to fill. It's almost like the world is waiting for them to step it up. Their new open source strategy is going to produce some big plays along these lines; .net in particular. Think about the native and multi-arch work being done for it.. ARM for Windows10 and .net; where is it all going you think?<p>I can tell you that if I could load up Windows10 on my nexus5 even if just for a test drive I certainly would.
I always wondered why they didn't try a tablet first. Like the Chromebooks, but in tablet form, heavy on Firefox branding. Maybe this too is something that would've been an 'also-ran' or market failure, but I still want one even as I type this.
> “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.<p>This doesn't necessarily mean that Firefox OS is over. It means that it's over on the phone but it might move to those "connected devices". I bet Mozilla will release a more precise statement soon.
What is the future of Mozilla and of open platforms?<p>1) Without FirefoxOS, what is Mozilla's future on mobile devices? The Firefox browser, while I think it's great, has very low adoption on mobiles. I'm not sure content-blockers are enough, and they now need the platform owner's cooperation to get their product in front of users (i.e., to get into the app store and to be compatible with the user systems).<p>2) Without a future on mobile devices, what is Mozilla's future? How influential can they be while playing no role on the most popular Internet platform?<p>3) Without a player on mobile devices, what is the future of open platforms in general? On the desktop there are several mature operating systems and ecosystems but what is there on mobile? Can open platforms be relevant without a presence on mobile? Where are the BSDs for mobile? GNU tools? Vim?<p>There are Android forks, but they depend on the continued generosity of the market leader (to release AOSP, a version of Android designed for that purpose). And having looked around for a good option, I can report that the various forks are unambitious, provide little to differentiate themselves from Android, and their organization and support don't inspire confidence.
I bought one of the Fx0 phones last month.<p>Sad to hear this news. I wanted to move away from Android and iOS, and saw FFOS as the only viable option.<p>They should've mass produced whatever the developer phone was, the Flame I think? Sell it to consumers as a flagship, supported by Mozilla devs, and community devs...
I'm saddened by this because I am not a fan of the current state in mobile where everything is an app. I liked their idea of having 'apps' be about the open web. Sure, native apps can be great but I don't want to be locked in to anyone's proprietary platform.
Looks like Smart Feature Phones won't materialize :( <a href="https://youtu.be/JIiIjjIsuzc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/JIiIjjIsuzc</a><p>Though they aren't quite saying that, I guess there'll be no new Firefox OS Smart TV's, too? <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/television/6-best-smart-tv-platforms-in-the-world-today-1120795/2" rel="nofollow">http://www.techradar.com/news/television/6-best-smart-tv-pla...</a>
Hate to say it, but good. Firefox OS was going in a backwards direction. The UI was designed for low-res screens, and it ran mostly on hardware barely better than the iPhone 1, except with JS.<p>Something like this could have been the future if Webassembly was ready for prime time - you could have 'native' apps all running on top on Firefox, on top of the Android/CM base.<p>Anyhow, hopefully Mozilla refocuses their efforts on Firefox, Rust and Webassembly, and regain relevance.
That's too bad but like everyone else said pretty obvious what the outcome would be.<p>I wonder what a third player in the mobile OS market would look like and if it's even possible at this point. Microsoft is basically number 3 at this point, right? Yet they have so little market share that companies are activity leaving their marketplace.<p>I wonder if the next mobile OS isn't an OS that requires apps to survive but, instead, offers a crazy amount of integration experiences. For instance if someone came up with a way to unify how to call a car then integrate that directly into the phone (so ultimately it wouldn't matter if it was Uber, Lyft or even yellow cab).<p>Maybe not the best example but I'm getting the feeling creating a phone that needs apps to be highly functional is simply not possible at this time and another angle is needed to break in.
Thunderbird: stopped.<p>FirefoxOS: stopped.<p>Rust: as nice as the language is, I can see it become irrelevant in the rise of Swift (and tons of developers already using and praising it).<p>so the last thing that remains is the very core of mozilla: firefox. But then version 42 hit me, disabled the support for custom themes, leaving me alone with a crappy UI I can't stand any longer to the point I uninstalled Firefox forever.<p>As others have already mentioned: from several sessions of customer development out in the streets, I can confirm that privacy is something that no-one has really interest in, let alone pay a penny for it nowadays.<p>I'd love to know what Mozilla's vision of the future is, given that the points above are real and Firefox itself becomes more and more an awful "me too!" of other, better browsers.
I was waiting for a Firefox OS phone with great hardware, but that didn't seem to materialize (AFAIK). Making both high end and low end phones together, perhaps in different volumes, could have helped. Focusing only on the extreme low end with poor hardware was probably a mistake.<p>While I'm unhappy that Mozilla is not going to focus on Firefox OS smartphones, I do consider this as an experiment that organizations like Mozilla ought to do. I'm sure there were a lot of things accomplished (like some mentioned in the comments for phone APIs) and a lot of things learned. These will in turn help other initiatives.<p>Now, please put Thunderbird back on the development track with the same priority as Firefox. :) And while you're at it, we want Persona too! :)
Hugely disappointing. Actually love my Open C once I upgraded it to FxOS 2.2<p>Dear Mozilla,
I hate IoT devices. I don't want them. They are security exploits incarnate. At least a phone is useful, why the hell do I really need a microwave with an IP address? I don't.
I must say I'm not entirely surprised, though part of me wished they had gone through with it, would of been interesting to have more than just 2 options for a phone. I am reminded of PalmOS though for some reason, similar project if I remember correctly.
I really wanted them to merge themselves in as an alternate userland mode for cyanogenmod and any other AOSP. I'm not sure if microsoft's investment in cyanogenmod was a response to those kinds of possibilities..
I was always waiting for a credible Firefox OS phone in the US; ready to buy immediately on arrival. Nothing ever arrived. The phones were weak by Android phone standards, expensive by low-end Android phone standards, and often didn't support all of the bands of my carrier and so would have had less connectivity in remote locations.<p>I'm disappointed, though. I looked forward to a more open phone built by an organization I trust. Google is barely OK. Apple is not even that. Microsoft is improving, but still out of the running in terms of openness.
That's a shame and awful. Web apps should really be winning this fight against "native". Firefox OS was our greatest warrior. Or wasn't it?
They failed because they missed the great opportunity of promoting ad-hoc and mesh applications in their API and security model as first class citizens.
I'm surprised this project didn't pivot into something more like ChromeOS. The market there, as proven by Chromebooks. As others have mentioned, Mozilla could have played up the security/privacy aspect of a "Firefox-book".<p>As a smartphone OS, I don't see what problems Firefox OS solves. Both iOS and Android have great browsers, and can pin webapps to their homescreens.
I'm writing from my buggy, crashing ZTE Open C... And this is the final straw: I've had it Mozilla.<p>It's not me, it's you. You were the symbol of informatics progress in the right direction, but now you're just another pusher of one size fits all crapware. Hope this changes again because we need a good guy in this space.<p>Now to finally remove the slow, crashing behemoth that has become Firefox...
Two days ago when Mozilla discontinues Thunderbird, people cheering "oh yeah, finally they can focus on firefoxOS", the same people are yelling Mozilla should focus on their mission (the browser)?<p>Not to mention rust, it's adoption is nowhere comparable to Java, see what happened to Sun, I would boldly say Mozilla's mission has completed.
Lots of headlines at HN from Mozilla these days.<p>Tried Firefox OS emulator and it's fine, but not impressed enough to actually to get a real device.<p>Yes they better focus on privacy/identity and revamp Thuderbird to make it a unique product.
Anyone know the status of the smart feature phone os they were talking about a few months back? I can't find anything on it but am interested in the project.
Good riddance. Firefox OS was a technical disaster. It was vulnerable by design as it had no capabilities for updating Gecko. I had hopes for it, and I will happily continue to use my first generation ZTE (70 bucks) FxOS phone, but I am happy they are no longer sold.<p>Distribution of the OS was a reckless debacle and, from the perspective of a non-technical customer, fraud, if you ask me.
FFxOS kernel is a fork of android kernal, but optimized to run on small memory footprint (128 MB RAM). Its speed on 128 MB RAM devices is commendable. Javascript is the only and primary development language for FFxOS & we get to access all hardware devices (Bluetooth, wifi, camera, etc ) via Javascript.
Funny, I just advised for that in a HN thread.<p>I guess the writing was on the wall of course -- but in case they just heard me and decided to stop it: please guys prioritize a native-UI on all platforms, servo based release for 2016.