
Firefox OS may live on in a TV stick and Pi-powered keyboard - jonbaer
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/24/firefox-os-leaked-connected-devices/
======
josteink
What's sad about this, is that all those markets already exist and are
partially taken. At least Mozilla is honest enough about this and say they
target "late adopters".

What aspects here supports the free & open web? What part about providing a me
too web-browsing experience to elderly and late adopters helps promote the
free web?

What's worse is that some of their "me too" efforts are already compromised by
Mozilla admitting they need to support DRM, so what new freedom do we gain?
What's better or freer about their product?

Where is the effort to bring back the power-users which built Mozilla's
original user-base? Are _pensionists_ more important to Mozilla than the
people actually building the web? I just don't get it.

And the Firefox Hub seems to have nothing to do with any existing Mozilla-
technology and only seems to be Firefox in name. That is: until proven
otherwise (and the effort with Firefox OS makes this a reasonable position)
this is 100% vapourware where the "Firefox"-name is used purely for branding
and marketing.

I don't see how any of these would be successful, and if they were, how they
would align with Mozilla's stated goals.

Poor Mozilla. They really seem to be struggling for a sense of direction and
purpose these days. I wish they would just go back to making a kick-ass
browser.

(Signed developer, Firefox user, desktop & mobile)

~~~
fulafel
There is no shame for a FOSS platform in entering an existing market. Firefox
was always an alternative to the incumbents, so debuting a Chromecast
replacement sounds logical to me.

~~~
josteink
There's something about chicken and egg going on here too.

The Chromecast was wildly successful because it rode on the back of an already
successful browser (50% market share) with support out of the box.

It also featured dedicated support for specifics apps and platforms, like
YouTube and Android, both within Google's control.

Coupled with a low price, this was enough to make the stick sell on its own,
and that again compelled developers to implement dedicated Chromecast support
in their own apps.

In short: Google had both the chicken and the egg. Problem solved.

But if Firefox is to make their own free-er stick... They now have 15-16%
browser market share which they can leverage and no on-line services which
they can use to further increase the value of that stick.

If they can make it "Chromecast compatible" that's obviously a different
story, but that means Chromecast apps now also need to be compatible with the
Gecko rendering engine.

Looking at the sorry state of the mobile web in the end of 2015, we can
already see a significant amount of developers whose only mobile test-target
is Webkit. Some even skip testing Android completely, focusing only on Ios and
Mobile Safari.

And do we expect developers to bother 1. getting and 2. testing for a
Chromecast-compatible device with a sub 1% marketshare when there are already
millions of chromecasts out there?

To me this just smells like Firefox OS all over. Maybe a good idea, but it's
too late, and it probably wont win any developer mind share from the
established platforms.

------
kevining
These are not juicy "internal documents", these were freely circulated on
public mailing lists. Mozilla is very open about product development and
direction. I believe these were early concepts, but may actually see some
additional prototyping since the change in direction.

~~~
alphapapa
Mozilla is not so open as you might think. They make many decisions behind
closed doors, without even a hint of the discussion in any public forum. For
example, the decision to bundle Pocket, which has been highly controversial
and objectionable to many loyal users, came completely out-of-the-blue. There
were no publicly visible internal musings, much less public discussion or RFC.

Mozilla has lost its way.

~~~
r3bl
My favorite example is the bug report when they have decided to remove
browser.newtab.url from their about:config window. In the bug report[0] they
have basically decided to hide every single comment from powerusers that was
against this change (including mine) and marked it as advocacy, off-topic or
abusive.

0 -
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1118285](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1118285)

~~~
pcwalton
Bug trackers aren't a good place to express advocacy, because there are other
forums for that. What's wrong with removing advocacy, off topic, and abusive
comments?

There are comments in that bug that are clearly from people who were against
the change that were not removed.

------
darklajid
'Firefox conceded that the device "must have DRM and content partnerships to
be successful."'

No, it doesn't. Actually the failed Matchstick claimed to be DRM free
initially/had DRM as an optional 'stretch goal' that was bolted on and lead to
the poor excuses in the end. "We want to support Netflix etc. and failed,
sorry people"

Plenty of backers asked for the device, sans DRM, because that's what they
(and me) shelled out their money for.

I don't give a damn about DRM and content partners, I wanted a 'beam something
to my TV' option. Sad to see that these plans were completely scrapped for
another random Chromecast clone..

------
bergz
I might be mistaken, but I think the FirefoxTV is a kill. Everything they
describe about it sounds a lot like the Matchstick. After a strong financial
backing, several months being overdue, the team reigned unsuccessful and had
to refund backers.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-
the-streaming-stick-built-on-firefox-os).

~~~
fulafel
Ideas usually fail the first N times. Execution &luck are deciding factors.

