

Mozilla unveils ‘aggressive’ Firefox OS schedule - ndesaulniers
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2013/07/20/mozilla-unveils-aggressive-firefox-os-schedule-quarterly-feature-releases-security-updates-every-six-weeks/

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null_ptr
So will all users be able to update to the latest Firefox OS as soon as it
comes out, or will there be carrier or manufacturer interference?

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rhelmer
Partners (carriers, or whoever supports the phone, e.g. geeksphone) provides
the updates, in all cases I have seen so far (Spain and Poland are the only
places that have launched AFAIK). Anyone can root their phone and install the
latest of course (assuming this is legal where you live and not breaking the
terms of contracts you agreed to etc)

I have a geeksphone and they provide a nightly channel, or I can root the
phone and install my own image - I use a T-Mobile pre-paid SIM, but could
switch to any carrier the hardware supports, who will let me use their
network. If you buy hardware under contract or some other conditions from a
carrier, I imagine things will be different. I am not a lawyer (if it's not
obvious already), I work for Mozilla but don't work with partners or have any
special knowledge of this :)

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, in order to use trademarks like Firefox
OS and logos etc. you must meet Mozilla's terms. I don't know if these
agreements are public or just between Mozilla and their partner, all I can
find from a quick search is [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/partners/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/partners/)

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tmzt
This would go a long way to preventing a problem like Android's
"fragmentation" assuming that it extended to the device firmware level.

Mozilla's strategy along with their partners in this project seems to be to
target middle-end devices and carriers, and create a consistent and
supportable target platform that won't suffer from the effects of premature
obsolescence as quickly as the latest Android devices pushed by the major
carriers.

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conroy
I don't see this working out in the long term. Unlike Firefox, which auto
updates on it's own, these Firefox OS updates will be provided to partners,
meaning it's up to handset manufacturers to push them out. I'm skeptical that
we'll see these updates every 6 months, let alone six weeks.

~~~
shardling
A typical Android update will change the drivers and other low level stuff. My
understanding is that a Firefox OS update will typically change only the upper
layers: Gecko and Gaia. That should hopefully reduce the amount of testing
necessary to push a release.

In any case, it seems unlikely that Mozilla would simply announce this without
any consultation with their hardware partners. They're in a much better
position to know what's possible than you or I!

~~~
conroy
We've seen a similar promise from Google at I/O 2011 about Android OS updates:

> [W]e're jointly announcing that new devices from participating partners will
> receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device
> is first released, as long as the hardware allows ... and that's just the
> beginning. [1]

The announced partners were Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG,
T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T. Since then, many have broken that
promise[2]. Three of them (Sprint, T-Mobile, and LG) are now Firefox OS
partners. I'm just skeptical that this time will be any different.

[1] [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-
mobi...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/android-momentum-mobile-and-
more-at.html)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-
the-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-happened-to-the-android-
update-alliance/)

~~~
ndesaulniers
This is a legitimate concern.

As part of the licensing agreement to be called a "Firefox OS phone" I believe
carriers must provide updates for a certain amount of time. For how long, I do
not know. If the duration is public knowledge, I do not know. If partners will
actually follow through, well... the articles you linked to paint a bleak
picture. Of course, since our entire OS is open source, they can just use it
on their own, and never release a single update, as long as they don't brand
it a "Firefox OS phone."

I'm prototyping an add on right now that would detect a connected device,
download updated pre-compiled images of the layers (gonk, gecko, gaia) and
allow you to update them (if I verified that the update worked on your device
beforehand, to make sure you wouldn't end up bricking your phone). Just trying
to raise awareness within the org right now to get a green light to work on
this more.

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ams6110
I'm somehow reminded of the feeling I get every time I log on to my PC and see
this in the task bar alert message: "A new version of Java is available..."

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andrewflnr
That wouldn't be so bad if the stupid downloader actually worked.

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Silhouette
I'm not convinced this policy is wise or helpful.

In the past couple of years, we've had major upgrades pushed out to three
types of mobile device here. Moving to iOS6 infamously broke things like maps.
The Android update from Samsung lost numerous settings and required more than
an hour just to reconfigure things back to roughly how they were, in exchange
for exactly no useful change in functionality for us. And the Windows Phone
one... Well, I can't tell you what it did, because it was pushed within a day
of connecting the new phone to the network, completely bricked the device, and
resulted in the whole thing going back and being replaced by something
completely different.

Move fast and break things rarely seems to work out well for users in
practice, but it's a particularly dumb idea for the core functionality of a
critical piece of equipment. Modern mobile devices are very much in that
category for the individuals using them.

As an added potential issue here, there is a question of how much integration
with/control of the underlying transmit/receive functions the Firefox OS code
would have and whether that underlying code would be affected at all by this
kind of update. I would hope the answer is that the key hardware control
functions are completely isolated, but if the design is poorly engineered then
you also have a real risk of a bad mass update literally bringing down a
national network for everyone. When these devices are how people call 911 or
the local equivalent, that is obviously not a good idea.

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medde
How long have you been using Firefox OS? Also, which major software company
doesn't upgrade often?

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Silhouette
_Also, which major software company doesn 't upgrade often?_

If you're talking about core infrastructure (operating systems, servers, etc.)
used by serious businesses then the answer is pretty much all of them are much
slower-paced. Look at how often Microsoft releases a service pack or new
version of Windows, or Debian changes stable, or Postgres bumps the minor
version. These things happen every year or two, not every month or two. Even
Android, to the extent that it has any meaningful version numbering or naming
at all, only tends to push out a major release or two per year, and in
practice people's mobile devices don't get updated that often by their
networks and many phones never get a major update within their normal
lifetime.

Of course many developers issue point releases with security patches and
important bug fixes more frequently, but changing functionality every few
weeks in infrastructure software just seems crazy to me. It doesn't work well
in Firefox-the-browser, so why would we expect it to work any better in
Firefox-the-operating-system?

