
Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones - kevining
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/08/mozilla-will-stop-developing-and-selling-firefox-os-smartphones/
======
gkoberger
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.

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.

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.

(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.)

Mozilla is a non-profit with a mission ([https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/)). It's
time they start acting like one again.

~~~
bpicolo
Outside of hacker news, I haven't heard of Firefox OS even once. They had no
marketing to speak of, and you have to complete HARD on marketing to get into
that market.

"If you build it they will come" isn't a valid benchmark when there's already
two options with massive market share that consumers are more or less happy
with.

(Since it's talked about in some replies, I live in the US).

~~~
mootothemax
Just as a counterpoint, I regularly saw Firefox os+phone ads on giant
billboards in central Warsaw.

 _If_ there was to be any market interest, I thought their targeting and
marketing efforts like this were pretty spot-on.

~~~
gedrap
Oh yeah, I've read about them targeting some specific countries (Spain,
Brazil, Poland, etc). So it might be that the parent commentator lives
elsewhere and didn't get targeted :)

~~~
mahouse
Telefónica, the major carrier in Spain, sold some Firefox OS phones years ago
under the promise that there would be a version of WhatsApp for Firefox OS
soon. That never happened. They eventually stopped selling them.

(Not implying there is any correlation between those two last facts.)

~~~
niutech
There is Whatsapp client Loqui IM.

------
johansch
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:

[http://imgur.com/on4gHdi](http://imgur.com/on4gHdi)

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.

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.

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

~~~
gsnedders
To be fair, the "low-end" devices Firefox OS were targeting were miles more
powerful than what Opera Platform targeted a decade prior, and JS VMs are far
quicker than they were a decade prior… I'm not sure it's so obvious that low-
end devices doomed it to failure (of course, you actually worked on this stuff
unlike me!).

I think it's worthwhile to remember at the time Firefox OS launched much of
Android ran on the Dalvik VM, so it wasn't so clear cut that the approach was
so doomed to fail.

~~~
johansch
(Hi Geoffrey, ltns! :) )

The execution of the code, be it javascript on some modern engine or
Java/Dalvik bytecode - that isn't typically the performance bottleneck. It is
fast enough now.

I'm not an expert on this (this is where I thread on thin ice), but my
understanding is that the HTML/CSS logdoc/layout tree model is inherently non-
performant compared to a more traditional hierarchical windowed object
oriented model. It is too easy to write HTML/CSS that is not performant (it's
way too easy to accidentally cause performance issues), while it is a lot more
natural to write performant windowing/OO code. And inversely, harder to write
code that is not performant.

~~~
gsnedders
(Hi. :))

It depends a lot on what you're doing, and how much data you're processing. If
we go by the premise that you're processing more data locally than you would
in a web app (because you don't need to worry about the latency and you don't
have a server to do the pre-processing and filtering of the data before it
reaches the client), then actual VM performance is more significant. The last
time I looked at any profiles of browsers on Gmail or FB, JIT'd code actually
accounts for several of the most expensive functions (and you _will_ notice if
you disable the JIT). JS performance _does_ matter—even if DOM performance
dominates in the case of the common website (and note that Mozilla has
actually been doing quite a lot of interesting work around teaching the JS VM
more about the DOM, including rewriting parts in JS, which allows JIT
optimisation to happen).

It's definitely true that it's easier to write non-performant code using
HTML/CSS (and <canvas> and WebGL don't really help here—because it's hard to
ensure data gets correctly passed to accessibility layers), but I think that
the majority of mobile apps are simple enough for it to not be a concern.

~~~
johansch
I haven't done profiling of firefox os on a crappy device...

but my suspicion is that it really is as simple as: even really-well-optimized
html/css/js that needs to go through a browser core will suffer performance-
wise compared to something with 10-15 less layers of indirection. (Like a
traditional windowing toolkit.)

The Android UI toolkit isn't exactly efficent (ha!), but still seems to beat
Firefox OS on super-low-end hardware judging from the reviews I have seen.

The internal windowing toolkit and java-like mini language with a VM that we
made for Opera Mini 5/Opera Mobile 10 with both J2ME and C VM implementations
was like 3x faster than the Android UI toolkit with Dalvik for typical
windowing tasks. Without any super-fancy optimizations...

~~~
pcwalton
The indirection is a problem with existing browser implementations (and some
spec issues, such as lack of Typed CSSOM, which is the current subject of work
in the WGs). There is no fundamental reason that I can see as to why there
needs to be a gap between the hardware and the graphics and layout of Web
apps.

~~~
johansch
That sounds intriguing. But.. how?

~~~
pcwalton
Look at Servo and WebRender (disclaimer: I work on both), or just read "Fast
and Parallel Webpage Layout", Meyerovich 2010 for much of it :)

------
gedrap
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).

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.

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.

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.

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 :)

~~~
garrettr_
Agreed, my favorite thing about Firefox OS was always the "blank-slate"
approach to writing apps for it, based on web technologies. Of course, that
was good and bad - there was more room for experimentation, but you had to do
more work to get the widgets and smooth animation that come for free from
iPhone/Android SDK.

------
Animats
A few days ago, it looked like they were ditching Thunderbird so they could
concentrate on their phone products. What's left besides Firefox?

\- "WebMaker", whatever that does.

\- Rust.

\- The $60 Mozilla hoodie.

\- Their world tour of meetups.[1]

\- The really fancy headquarters overlooking SF bay.

A tight focus on Firefox might be a win. I'm looking forward to an all-Rust
browser.

[1] [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/contribute/events/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/events/)

~~~
steve19
Besides the HQ, what else is left is a $1 million/year Chair (up from $801k
the year before), a Director on $874k (up from $779k) and a Treasurer on $908k
(up from $613k) [0] [1]

I __do not __begrudge high their salaries in the slightest, but I can 't help
but think bringing on folks with half the salary of the above employees would
buy enough coders to do more innovation, which they really need. The Technical
Lead in 2013 got $179,000 (the job is not listed in the financials in 2014).

The those three top job cost the equivalent of 20% of the Foundations revenue
in the 2014 year ($13.5 million, more or less evenly split between donations
and "program service revenue").

[0] Year end 2013 Financials: [https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2013_Mozilla_Found...](https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2013_Mozilla_Foundation_Fed_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf)

[1] Year end 2014 Financials: [https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2014_Mozilla_Found...](https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-
US/pdf/2014_Mozilla_Foundation_Fed_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf)

Edit: revised 2014 figures higher as I was not looking at total compensation.

~~~
wodenokoto
The foundation doesn't do any engineering work on Firefox. Paid coding is
funded from the 300 million or so dollars a year the Mozilla corporation makes
in search revenue.

[http://www.computerworld.com/article/3009646/search/mozilla-...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/3009646/search/mozilla-
revenue-climbs-5-in-final-year-of-google-search-deal.html)

------
Apocryphon
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:
[http://firefoxoscentral.com/2015/12/firefox-os-is-dead-
firef...](http://firefoxoscentral.com/2015/12/firefox-os-is-dead-firefox-os-
is-alive/)

------
sp332
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.

~~~
johansch
That sounds like a post-rationalization to me. All I heard was that this was
how they expected to survive without Google. It was expected to bring a lot of
revenue.

~~~
bad_user
Source?

~~~
zbraniecki
You can read the original announcement with the list of goals here:
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platf...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mozilla.dev.platform/Booting$20to$20the$20Web/mozilla.dev.platform/dmip1GpD5II/CzJSSUMq5HsJ)

there used to be a website - arewemobileyet.com which listed the API's that we
identified as necessary to make FxOS possible.

You can find it in web.archive -
[http://web.archive.org/web/20140401194921/http://arewemobile...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140401194921/http://arewemobileyet.com/#)

We successfully standardized most of them! :)

~~~
johansch
Those were the publicly announced goals. You must be really naive if you think
those were the actual goals.

~~~
zbraniecki
Those were the actual goals.

Next time you want to spread theories and rumors, check background of who you
are questioning ;)

Source: I work at Mozilla and on Firefox OS project.

~~~
johansch
I got that. I am just questioning whether you and the executive management at
Mozilla had the same goals.

~~~
zbraniecki
I'm pretty sure about it. Please, remember that B2G for quite a while was a
"homemade style" experiment started by Andreas.

It took Mozilla quite a while before executive team started considering it and
investing in it.

The post I linked sums up the vibe from the very beginning. I believe that
there was time when the goals have shifted to aim at producing a real product
and gaining market share etc., but the original goals are stated in the post
and I believe we are very successful in accomplishing them.

------
kevining
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.

I think that Firefox OS as a phone operating system will always be available
for hackers to port and install on their own devices.

~~~
ris
"The IoT space is a mess right now"

But is also almost entirely vapour.

Seeing this news gave me relief that Mozilla might be pulling their heads out
of the clouds chasing fantastical dreams of mobile platforms, but if anything
IoT is worse!

~~~
vdnkh
>almost entirely vapour

I work for an M2M company whose been around for 25 years now, in some form or
another. M2M is the backbone of IoT and while it isn't as glamorous, it's a
large space. Industrial gases, especially helium, are very lucrative right
now.

~~~
striking
M2M makes sense. It's great for devices that are not classically connected via
the Internet to communicate with each other. It's very helpful in the
industrial and medical fields.

However, IoT devices should not be consumer-facing tech. IoT devices are on
average far more expensive and have shoddy software/firmware. Even when the
software is fixed, IoT will remain a niche range of products until their
quality surpasses that of the traditional version of the product. From a
business perspective, anything IoT hardly makes sense as a standalone product.

M2M is a fantastic field. But IoT is not.

------
hardwaresofton
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.

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.

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).

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.

------
Apocryphon
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.?

Did not expect that Sailfish OS would outlive Firefox OS.

~~~
criddell
If you want an open source smartphone OS, why not just use Android (AOSP)?

~~~
rockdoe
Because the apps ecosystem is getting more and more locked into Play Services,
which are not part of AOSP.

~~~
criddell
And how is the app ecosystem on other open source mobile operating systems?

~~~
rockdoe
The internet is pretty fine, except for a prevalence of webkit only sites on
mobile.

~~~
criddell
Do you really think so? What are some of the best internet apps?

I think a native app will always give a better experience because they can
always just contain a browser view (it's basically a superset). Plus native
code will always be more efficient and in mobile, that matters.

~~~
rockdoe
A native app is already lost at the start because it requires the user to
install it. Also at least on Android I don't buy the efficiency argument at
all, Java and JavaScript are both JITed. You think Java JITs better than
asm.js?

The integration argument is decent, but it's only really relevant for apps
that get a lot of use, not the long tail of stuff that you use once or twice.

~~~
criddell
> A native app is already lost at the start because it requires the user to
> install it

The _billions_ of installed apps indicates that the friction isn't
significant.

> I don't buy the efficiency argument at all, Java and JavaScript are both
> JITed

That's how everything worked back in the Gingerbread days. Android's ART
system compiles applications to native code when they are installed. You can
also install actual native code with Android's NDK.

If you like the idea of asm.js, then you should check out Go on Android. It
does the same thing - offers a restricted set of the language that runs very
fast.

There's definitely a subset of apps that work very well in a browser. But you
can do more, faster, with lower power consumption with native apps.

------
dcw303
Linux as a platform took off because it was possible for a smart user to
install it on hardware they already had.

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.

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.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Yup. That was one thing I was really hoping Ubuntu Touch would give me a
chance with, their whole "install on Android" thing. But it's supported on a
pittance of device options.

Currently mobile hardware is in a space where the OS has to be custom built
for the hardware choices of that particular phone manufacturer, unlike PCs
which have a robust system of drivers you have some manner of control over as
a user. Seems to be the biggest limitation.

------
pjmlp
I love the work of Mozilla in the browser space, Thunderbird, Rust and online
freedom.

Having web pages as native apps goes back to Web Widgets on Series 60 phones,
followed by WebOS.

On the Series 60, almost everyone favoured native Symbian and J2ME apps to web
widgets.

WebOS sadly failed to gain major traction.

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.

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.

------
daleharvey
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.

------
wiremine
Is anyone actually surprised by this announcement? It feels like Mozilla tries
a lot of things, but rarely gets traction on any of them.

Mean while, Firefox isn't getting that much better and seems to be loosing
marketshare.

What's the long-term plan?

~~~
bronson
Shovel more crap like Pocket and Hello into their flagship product and pray
that something sticks?

Agreed, it seems like they're rapidly running out of options. It's getting a
little concerning.

------
AdmiralAsshat
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.

~~~
Steko
Every Firefox OS article on HN seems to have gotten 50 comments from excited
people. These are apparently the 50 phones they sold worldwide.

~~~
zbraniecki
I wish we got that percentage of satisfied users ;)

------
Rapzid
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.

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?

I can tell you that if I could load up Windows10 on my nexus5 even if just for
a test drive I certainly would.

------
spinchange
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.

~~~
striking
What would that solve that a Chromebook wouldn't?

Chromebooks already run Linux when so coerced, and are the most bulletproof
computing platform for education and business. What could be special about the
FirefoxBook?

Perhaps, instead of expending that much effort to engineer a new tablet
entirely from scratch, find an Android tablet and put a Mozilla sticker on it.

~~~
spinchange
Literally nothing except a different form factor. FWIW, I wish there were
Chrometablets too. The Pixel C is headed this way in form, but unfortunately
toward Android and native apps instead of ChromeOS and the Web.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The Pixel C is headed this way in form, but unfortunately toward Android and
> native apps instead of ChromeOS and the Web.

The web -- though not Google's non-standard Chrome apps through the browser,
as yet -- works quite well on Android.

~~~
spinchange
Indeed. I use Android devices and think the market is headed toward native vs.
the web too, I just hope it's not zero sum. ChromeOS is arguably less
functional than Android, but there are use cases for it, and its stripped-
down, web-only nature, in many respects is a feature, not a bug. I also really
don't like commercial app stores. Discovery is terrible and then who wants to
try a couple different versions of an app, before finding the best in class,
if not immediately obvious? At least with web apps discovery is easier and
switching costs much lower. Native apps also feel less configurable, less
extensible, silo'ed off, and don't offer the freedom software provides for on
a desktop anyway. I know this all may change in the future - I'm hopeful it
does!

------
pmontra
> “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.

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.

------
hackuser
What is the future of Mozilla and of open platforms?

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).

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?

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?

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.

------
tacojuan
I bought one of the Fx0 phones last month.

Sad to hear this news. I wanted to move away from Android and iOS, and saw
FFOS as the only viable option.

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...

------
benlower
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.

------
listic
Looks like Smart Feature Phones won't materialize :(
[https://youtu.be/JIiIjjIsuzc](https://youtu.be/JIiIjjIsuzc)

Though they aren't quite saying that, I guess there'll be no new Firefox OS
Smart TV's, too? [http://www.techradar.com/news/television/6-best-smart-tv-
pla...](http://www.techradar.com/news/television/6-best-smart-tv-platforms-in-
the-world-today-1120795/2)

------
Mikeb85
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.

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.

Anyhow, hopefully Mozilla refocuses their efforts on Firefox, Rust and
Webassembly, and regain relevance.

------
BinaryIdiot
That's too bad but like everyone else said pretty obvious what the outcome
would be.

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.

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).

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.

~~~
reddotX
Ubuntu Phone looks interesting and has great potential with the conergence

~~~
pritambarhate
It will be good to know how resource hungry Ubuntu Touch OS is. That's one
problem with Android. It requires a Hexa Core processor and 3GB RAM for super
smooth performance. Almost all flagship Android devices have heating issues
and they seem to need much bigger batteries than iOS devices.

------
anonyfox
Thunderbird: stopped.

FirefoxOS: stopped.

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).

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.

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.

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.

~~~
pcwalton
> 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).

How are Rust and Swift in the same language niche at all?

------
newscracker
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.

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.

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! :)

------
jbiddy
Hugely disappointing. Actually love my Open C once I upgraded it to FxOS 2.2

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.

------
giancarlostoro
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.

~~~
wmf
Try Jolla so your dreams can be crushed twice.

~~~
Apocryphon
I wonder if Jolla has a higher chance of survival, because it's niche enough
to be focused, rather than chasing after a world market. Sailfish OS might
outlive Ubuntu Touch.

~~~
raphman_
Jolla is pretty much insolvent at the moment. Does not really look good.
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/20/jolla-running-out-of-
runway...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/20/jolla-running-out-of-runway-for-
its-android-alternative/)

------
efes
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..

------
SwellJoe
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.

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.

------
fiatjaf
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?

------
contingencies
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.

------
endemic
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".

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.

------
zdkl
I'm writing from my buggy, crashing ZTE Open C... And this is the final straw:
I've had it Mozilla.

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.

Now to finally remove the slow, crashing behemoth that has become Firefox...

------
issaria
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)?

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.

~~~
pcwalton
> Not to mention rust, it's adoption is nowhere comparable to Java

By that metric, no language produced in the past 10 years has been a success.

~~~
kibwen
By that metric, and considering absolute numbers, there's a good chance that
no other language ever produced has been a success. :P

------
erikpukinskis
A federated web payment infrastructure would be the holy grail Mozilla could
build a life around.

------
ausjke
Lots of headlines at HN from Mozilla these days.

Tried Firefox OS emulator and it's fine, but not impressed enough to actually
to get a real device.

Yes they better focus on privacy/identity and revamp Thuderbird to make it a
unique product.

~~~
rockdoe
_Lots of headlines at HN from Mozilla these days._

They're having a developer conference so big announcements are concentrated.

~~~
steveklabnik
It's more accurately described as an employee all-hands, with some volunteers
invited too. 1200 employees, ~200 volunteers, not really people developing
things on Mozilla platforms.

~~~
bronson
Twelve hundred employees???

And they couldn't find one or two of them to port Thunderbird to Qt.

~~~
steveklabnik
I think you seriously underestimate the amount of work that would take.

~~~
bronson
Wow, you think it would take more than a few developer-years?

------
CrackpotGonzo
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.

------
mrottenkolber
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.

Distribution of the OS was a reckless debacle and, from the perspective of a
non-technical customer, fraud, if you ask me.

------
ionised
Well that sucks.

I desperately want to drop Android and was hoping Firefox OS would continue to
mature and improve.

------
Patronus_Charm
It was doomed from the beginning, already such a crowded space. Firefox OS had
no chance at all.

------
selvan
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.

------
xylon
I never knew Firefox OS existed. Maybe they should've marketed it better?

------
coldtea
Funny, I just advised for that in a HN thread.

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.

------
znpy
It's high time Mozilla gets its shit together.

------
chris_wot
Got to ask: what is the point of Mozilla?

~~~
Splendor
I'm not sure if you're serious or not. If you are, here's a good place to
start: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/)

~~~
chris_wot
That's not very useful. I think you mean to link to this:

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/details/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/details/)

I'm going to get voted down by those who don't like dissent or opinions that
they fear are "offensive" (and certainly they probably won't participate in
the discussion or even attempt to answer the issues I raise!), but here is why
I asked the question:

Basically, I just don't see that Mozilla is actually doing anything terribly
innovative any more. Certainly anything that seems to support their manifesto
is dumped when it seems to get a bit hard. I'm specifically looking at the
following:

1\. Persona: Persona specifically fits into "build and enable open-source
technologies and communities that support the Manifesto’s principles" and also
"promote models for creating economic value for the public benefit".

They just didn't support it very well, or for long enough to make an impact.
An identity service needs Facebook-like periods to make it work - Facebook
took a LONG time to get to where it was an complete persistence of vision
against pretty much overwhelming odds.

Ultimately, that Personna failed was because Mozilla didn't have courage and
weren't willing to run with something they truly believe in. IMO, the heads of
Mozilla have no real grit and only go for short to medium term goals.

2\. Allowing EME to be implemented in Firefox. EME should only ever have been
an extension, and not baked into the core Firefox platform. EME does _not_ fit
into point 2 of their manifesto:

    
    
      2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
    

Here is an opinionated view of Mozilla initiatives:

* Rust - this is important and long-term. But it handles the underlying development of their browser, and as important as it is, it only goes so far in really making a big impact on promoting an open web

* Personna - abandoned, but this _would_ have been a key way of opening the web. A secure, cross-browser website authentication mechanism which allows a user to use a single username and password (or other authentication method) to log in to multiple sites - I just can't think of a more important initiative.

That this was abandoned shows the sort of short term mentality of those
leading Mozilla.

* Mozilla Location Service - interesting idea, but there are privacy concerns - they sell the underlying data to Combain AB, and Combain allow you to search on all sorts of things. I don't see how this helps Mozilla's underlying foundational principles!

* The MDN - now this is truly great, and does satisfy all the points of the manifesto. I hope that Mozilla keep this up!

* Firefox OS - now abandoned, but this was truly something that was needed in a market that is more and more proprietary. Evidently Mozilla have no stomach for keeping a project going for more than 2-3 years; there is no medium or long-term commitment.

So, given that Mozilla largely don't seem to want to do anything that they
will commit to in the medium to long term (with a few exceptions, though these
are already established) I have to ask: what is the point of Mozilla?

All the things Mozilla now promote (like the ad-blocker in iOS, which their
own browser can't even use) seem like things that aren't very ambitious;
certainly they won't change the world!

~~~
pcwalton
> But it handles the underlying development of their browser, and as important
> as it is, it only goes so far in really making a big impact on promoting an
> open web

Rust's safety features are designed to enhance security of Web browsers, and
its parallelism/concurrency features are designed to enhance Web performance.
I can't think of many things that are more important to the health of the Web
platform than security and performance.

------
rasengan0
Anyone remember the Facebook phone?

------
msh
Sad, but properly to be expected.

------
aswanson
When did they start?

------
ramanamit1234
Money well wasted.

------
niij
Could have seen that being a flop from outer space.

------
devilirium
Finally.

------
draw_down
I hope they can figure out something to keep them afloat. Mozilla seems
directionless lately.

~~~
flannell
Last week it was Yahoo

------
ForHackernews
Well, this comes as a huge surprise to no one.

