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Mozilla

Mozilla Has Stopped All Commercial Development On Firefox OS -- Explains What It Plans To Do With Code Base (google.com) 97

Posted by msmash from the end-of-things dept.
Mozilla announced last year that Firefox OS initiative of shipping phones with commercial partners did not bring the returns it sought. The company earlier this year hinted that it intends to shut the project. It is now sharing how it will deal with Firefox OS code base going forward. From their post: We would stop our efforts to build and ship smartphones through carrier partners and pivot our efforts with Firefox OS to explore opportunities for new use cases in the world of connected devices. Firefox OS was transitioned to a Tier 3 platform from the perspective of support by Mozilla's Platform Engineering organization. That meant as of January 31, 2016 no Mozilla Platform Engineering resources would be engaged to provide ongoing support and all such work would be done by other contributors. For some period of time that work would be done by Mozillaâ(TM)s Connected Devices team. We had ideas for other opportunities for Firefox OS, perhaps as a platform for explorations in the world of connected devices, and perhaps for continued evolution of Firefox OS TV. To allow for those possibilities, and to provide a stable release for commercial TV partners, development would continue on a Firefox OS 2.6 release. In parallel with continued explorations by the Connected Devices team, we recognized there was interest within the Mozilla community in carrying forward work on Firefox OS as a smartphone platform, and perhaps even for other purposes. A Firefox OS Transition Project was launched to perform a major clean-up of the B2G code bringing it to a stable end state so it could be passed into the hands of the community as an open source project. In the spring and summer of 2016 the Connected Devices team dug deeper into opportunities for Firefox OS. They concluded that Firefox OS TV was a project to be run by our commercial partner and not a project to be led by Mozilla. Further, Firefox OS was determined to not be sufficiently useful for ongoing Connected Devices work to justify the effort to maintain it. This meant that development of the Firefox OS stack was no longer a part of Connected Devices, or Mozilla at all. Firefox OS 2.6 would be the last release from Mozilla. Today we are announcing the next phase in that evolution. While work at Mozilla on Firefox OS has ceased, we very much need to continue to evolve the underlying code that comprises Gecko, our web platform engine, as part of the ongoing development of Firefox. In order to evolve quickly and enable substantial new architectural changes in Gecko, Mozilla's Platform Engineering organization needs to remove all B2G-related code from mozilla-central. This certainly has consequences for B2G OS. For the community to continue working on B2G OS they will have to maintain a code base that includes a full version of Gecko, so will need to fork Gecko and proceed with development on their own, separate branch.
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Mozilla Has Stopped All Commercial Development On Firefox OS -- Explains What It Plans To Do With Code Base More

Mozilla Has Stopped All Commercial Development On Firefox OS -- Explains What It Plans To Do With Code Base

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  • I want investor fun money.

  • (Gecko = "Web platform") = WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zontar The Mindless ( 9002 ) <plasticfish@info.gmail@com> on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @10:38AM (#52969793) Homepage

    There's your problem right there. How about concentrating on giving us a good *browser* instead, like you used to?

    • Re:(Gecko = "Web platform") = WTF (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @10:46AM (#52969855)

      It's hard to justify a multi-million-dollar budget if you're only making a web browser.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Given that Mozilla makes hundreds of millions per year by auctioning off the default search engine on Firefox, and given that this money is proportional to market share (currently at 8%), I'd say that a multi-million-dollar budget is easily justified for only making a web browser.

    • Re:(Gecko = "Web platform") = WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @11:29AM (#52970135)

      Do we want Mozilla to 'improve' Firefox further? Mozilla's best application is Thunderbird, and the reason for that is because they stopped working on it. Had they continued development of Thunderbird you'd need about twenty extensions just to make it usable, as you do with Firefox.

      I don't think there's much hope for the future of Firefox. Mozilla have shown they're completely out of touch with what users want, and as such Firefox's market share on the desktop has dropped from about 25% to 7.69%, and is continuing to drop at an average at a rate of about 0.5 percentage points per month. Firefox isn't competitive in terms of performance so it does need improving, but the last thing you want is Mozilla's idea of improvement, so whatever happens it appears that Firefox will continue it's not-so-slow death.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In a LOT of ways, firefox is now just a watered down Chrome (coloquially speaking) and there are vanishing reasons to use it.

        Case in point: "Save to pocket" was added to the context menu.

        Who the FUCK asked for that? Fuck you and your ill-advised hairbrained schemes, Mozilla.

    • There's your problem right there. How about concentrating on giving us a good *browser* instead, like you used to?

      That's exactly what they are doing, they are stopping other projects (Thunderbird, Firefox OS) to concentrate on severe refactorings of their core product, Firefox and the underlying Gecko, to catch up again with Chrome, and deliver a better browser. It is harder to restructure a codebase if you need to maintain several products that depend on it.

  • This certainly has consequences for B2G OS. For the community to continue working on B2G OS they will have to maintain a code base that includes a full version of Gecko, so will need to fork Gecko and proceed with development on their own, separate branch.

    Translation: We found it is useless so we've thrown it over the fence.

  • WOW (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @10:40AM (#52969815)

    Firefox OS turned out to not be a success? Thank goodness I was already sitting down when I read this!

    • Re:WOW (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nnull ( 1148259 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @11:27AM (#52970123)
      And don't forget Ubuntu on phones. I was hoping they'd have some success with that but it seems incompetence completely rolled over that. They stopped selling the Meizu Pro 5, with all its problems, since then it has become last years phone. The Meizu Pro 6 is out and Ubuntu is just left behind, selling nothing. I hope they can change because I'm honestly tired of my Android phone tracking me ever since Google's latest maps and play store update.

  • If you people can't communicate more clearly & succinctly than that I'm not surprised it flopped. How long does it take you folks to order at a restaurant?

  • I'm sorry their investment and hard work is mostly going into the bin, but that's business.

    Mozilla's golden goose is their focus on privacy and security. Keeping Firefox cutting edge and making new tools/protocols for privacy and security should be their emphasis, not (in already over-saturated market) an operating system.

  • Mozilla is wasting money, brains, and time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @10:46AM (#52969853)

    Mozilla announced last year that Firefox OS initiative of shipping phones with commercial partners did not bring the returns it sought.

    And did anyone expect otherwise? Mozilla is an organization which has lost its purpose. It keeps chasing fads, copying the work of others, wasting money on projects that no one needed or wanted, and can't seem to figure out what to do next. Mozilla's original goal was to ensure there was an open web. Internet Explorer and Microsoft were in danger of turning the web into a monopoly. Firefox provided the fireblock to prevent this from happening. Problem is that once they accomplished that goal, they didn't know what to do next.

    I like Firefox and use it as my primary browser. It's a decent albeit imperfect bit of software. But if Mozilla really wants to make a difference they need to focus on solving actual problems instead of trying to do a second rate version of whatever Google is working on this week. They need to focus on a specific problem and do it really well. They did that for a while with browser software. Time to genuinely focus on something new.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 )
      That is what happens with organizations that literally are rolling in piles of cash and have no clue what to do next. Look at Yahoo/Microsoft/Google/etc. It took a heroic effort to get Apple back from the brink.

    • Re:Mozilla is wasting money, brains, and time (Score:5, Funny)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @11:20AM (#52970053) Homepage

      Time to genuinely focus on something new.

      OK, let's see ... running my finger down the list, we arrive at ... ah! Here we go. Internet of Things. Sharpen your pencils, everyone!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by snadrus ( 930168 )

      Mozilla excels when there is a massive project that should be open to the world (and standardized) and is not. Besides the browser and email client, PDF.js is very significant and is integrated in 1000s of sites and products because it reads PDFs safely (as safe as the JS sandbox).

      I think they should partner with Elon Musk's OpenAI effort to produce standards, software, and support. Their Project Vaani speech-to-text engine shows they are thinking this way, but lack the AI experience to do it themselves tod

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      I thought there was some small chance they could succeed in lower income countries but before they were able to get a foothold chips got cheaper and Android was able to run on equivalently low-end hardware.

      • Firefox OS was never faster or lower-end than Android to begin with. The idea that HTML+JS+CSS could ever be faster than native compiled apps (or even Java/Dalvik for that matter) was just insane. Damn near everybody knew it was a bullshit waste of money just thrown at the wall.

        • People were waiting for the 5" phones with 1GB RAM and Firefox OS 2.x (e.g. ZTE Open L)

          A big mistake was to go too much low end then fail to release upgrades fast enough. People were stuck on version 1.3, which doesn't actually offer privacy - no adblocking and no filtering. For those that were interested on technical and security grounds, it was a giant Osborne effect (that would still be going on : Web Assembly and Servo are not there yet). It did have e10s early on.
          The best part is the phone didn't requi

    • Yup. They're without a mission. And looking in from the outside, all future/current missions looks like bad plays. IoT will play out like the smart phone thing, and so on.

      So, what should they do? Well, you wait until a mission comes. You don't just cast around for one because you have money and the desire. You enhance, solidy, and perfect your current mission. Polish the heck out of FF, and wait for the next thing. It'll likely be adjacent to FF, and having an exceptional product on hand will mak

    • Problem is that once they accomplished that goal, they didn't know what to do next.

      How about maintain the balance? Maintain the small simple extensible browser. Make it efficient at what it does. Follow W3C standards. Maintain the Gecko engine. That is all.

    • once they accomplished that goal, they didn't know what to do next.

      Actually, they did know what to do next, but they do so rather aimlessly and pathetically. It seems there's nobody at the wheel.

      Mozilla helped get PNG adopted as an alternative to GIF, but that's only for still images, while GIF also does animations. Firefox first failed to promote MNG, then ensured its death by removing it from their browser, and much later introducing their own MPNG standard, which then repeated the above cycle of indeci

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I like Firefox and use it as my primary browser. It's a decent albeit imperfect bit of software. But if Mozilla really wants to make a difference they need to focus on solving actual problems instead of trying to do a second rate version of whatever Google is working on this week. They need to focus on a specific problem and do it really well. They did that for a while with browser software. Time to genuinely focus on something new.

      Actually I wish they'd go back and do something old because they had the funds without needing the hype. If there was three things you'd find on any business desktop it was IE, Outlook and Office. One down, two to go. They might have to work on an AD/Exchange too in order to really succeed. I think it's nuts that in 2016 most people still use proprietary tech for simple documents and spreadsheets.

  • I want alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @11:02AM (#52969955) Homepage Journal

    So with Windows, FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Mobile fading out, are we just stuck with Android/iOS now?

    • I've not read anything to suggest Ubuntu Touch is fading out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sailfish / Tizen? oh US, ya Android/iOS. Can't let the FCC approve phone's with OS's that aren't backdoored.

    • Re:I want alternatives (Score:4, Interesting)

      by benmhall ( 9092 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @11:53AM (#52970319) Homepage Journal

      Yes. This is exactly what we are stuck with. What's worse is that we're really stuck with Apple and Samsung, as they account for over 100% of profits from handhelds (meaning everyone else is losing money.)

      As we've lost choice in platforms, we will soon lose choose in who is offering the platforms. At the moment, LG, HTC, Samsung, Sony, BlackBerry, Asus, and a boatload of Chinese companies offer Android phones. If the second-tier manufacturers like LG, HTC, Sony can't be profitable, they'll have to exit. This will leave us with Apple with iOS, Samsung selling premium and mid-range, and everyone else squabbling for enough table scraps to stay afloat with Android.

      I applaud the effort on Ubuntu Mobile, but I'd put it's chances of succeeding as far less than BlackBerry's or even Firefox OS, which at least had good buzz and shipped devices for a couple of years.

      We've lost Symbian, webOS, BlackBerry OS already. Firefox OS is toast, and I can't imagine that Jolla has much gas left. If Microsoft wasn't Microsoft, Windows Phone OS would have died completely ages ago, and still likely will. iOS is a walled garden, Android is a sieve that sends everything back to Google for monetization. And it's still a usability disaster. It's a pretty bad state of affairs.

      • personally i dont like the top tires phones now its all a sealed throw me away a year from now setup. where lg phones still have battery's you can remove sim card slots etc.
        • sd card slots lol.

        • personally i dont like the top tires phones now its all a sealed throw me away a year from now setup.

          Dont be so melodramatic. There is no reason the top tier phones can't last many years. Indeed even the iPhone 5 from over 4 years ago is perfectly usable with the latest OS update, as is the Nexus 4, Galaxy S4 with Cyanogen, etc... If you need to throw them away after 1 year then the problem is with you, not the phone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        I applaud the effort on Ubuntu Mobile, but I'd put it's chances of succeeding as far less than BlackBerry's or even Firefox OS, which at least had good buzz and shipped devices for a couple of years.

        I flashed some Android phones/tablets with early versions of Ubuntu Mobile. Assuming that's still possible, there are more devices available than you think. Sure, flashing isn't for everyone -- but we were always years away from an Ubuntu phone being a mainstream consumer product.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Last I checked, the Ubuntu phones and tablets sell out fast. I check their site regularly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ingo Ruhnke ( 3575189 )

      Well, what's wrong with Android? It's based on Linux and somewhat Open Source. It would be nice if there would be more compatibility between desktop Linux and Android, but that's something that could be accomplished without reinventing everything. Ubuntu in fact worked on allowing you to run Android apps on desktop Linux, but they abandoned that many years ago and instead went the same "reinvent everything" route that Mozilla tried and they will probably fail just the same.

      If Free Software wants to stay rel

      • thats coming with the next android as it will have fused the chrome os code base into it.

  • "For some period of time that work would be done by Mozillaâ(TM)s Connected Devices team."

    COME ON, SLASHDOT!

    And now, a joke:
    Q: What's the difference between me and Slashdot?
    A: In the last 20 years, I've learned how to deal with common special characters.

  • Google could get the OS into thousands, if not millions of people's hands.




    And then kill it a couple of years later...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      Firefox OS is free software.
      If Google wanted it, they would have picked it up like they picked Webkit.

  • with the wild success of android to many people where jumping on the mobile os train. even google has relisted this and are doing a chrome os android fusion pretty much getting rid of chrome os and keeping the good bits for use on andorid.

  • Cheap 'poorly supported' Android smart phones with Linux underpinnings provide some licensing income for Google. Google I think also provides some funding for Mozilla. Firefox OS would potentially undermine Google's Android OS, the way Mozilla's free Let's Encrypt service is undermining over priced and deceptive SSL certificate vendors - which to me is a GOOD thing.

    Me thinks Mozilla Firefox OS has a rather large addressable market for free / low cost smart phone and TV's that Google would rather get licen

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