"FFOS is a solution in search of problems, unfortunately those are problems which already have better solutions."
I have to disagree. Firefox OS offers many things that are important and needed right now, lets pick some stuff that is not served elsewhere:
* A platform that is developed in the open and accepts contribution. Firefox OS is the ONLY MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM where all the source code is open including our built-in apps and services. Its not only available but its constructed in public with people being able to contribute and see what is being done.
* A platform that doesn't limit your freedom. You're free to build and distribute your apps without walled gardens. You don't need to pay to place an app on Firefox Marketplace.
* A platform that embraces the web which is one of the major achievements of the internet. Instead of the "you can't do this with HTML5" we're fixing the web platform so that you can have apps that work equally between platforms. It means that apps will be able to work on the web, desktop, mobile regardless of OS as vendors implement the WebAPIs.
* A platform where HTML5 is a first-class citizen.
> Firefox OS is the ONLY MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM where all the source code is open including our built-in apps and services.
Not entirely true, your drivers are still closed source.
> A platform that doesn't limit your freedom. You're free to build and distribute your apps without walled gardens. You don't need to pay to place an app on Firefox Marketplace.
The same is true of Android.
> A platform where HTML5 is a first-class citizen.
I would argue that's a bad thing. I'm overjoyed at all the lovely native mobile APIs and apps out there. Few APIs are as bad as the web ones.
>> A platform that doesn't limit your freedom. You're free to build and distribute your apps without walled gardens. You don't need to pay to place an app on Firefox Marketplace.
>The same is true of Android.
This is a small nitpick, but you do need to pay a one-time $15 fee to become a developer to have your app listed in the store. Beyond that publication is free, though.
I meant that nothing stops you from distributing your application through a different channel, like selling the .apk on your website or one of the alternative app stores.
Ah. I misunderstood. Though I'm really surprised you can't do that with iPhone apps. Can you not distribute an iPhone package (whatever the extension is) via alternative means?
These sorts of arguments or claims aren't very convincing, or don't appear to hold true in practice.
The claim that the development of Firefox OS is somehow more "open" is very suspect. Even if the source code is publicly available, and outside contributions may be accepted, Mozilla is still going to act as a gatekeeper, which inherently limits which contributions will or will not make it into Firefox OS. That doesn't strike me as being any more "open" than the development of Android or iOS is. A contribution to Firefox OS is a suggestion at best, but one that can be unilaterally disregarded by Mozilla without any sort of consequence to Mozilla. That's no different than making a suggestion to Google about Android, or to Apple about iOS.
The recent tendency of Mozilla to force totally unwanted changes (like Australis) upon Firefox users, even after very vocal objections to such changes, further makes me skeptical about how much openness there truly is when it comes to their products. Any objections, suggestions, feedback or contributions that aren't compatible with the direction that Mozilla has already decided to take appear to be ignored. "Openness" means that non-Mozilla parties can actively influence the development and future of Firefox OS. Merely being able to provide non-binding feedback or suggestions, even if in the form of code, is not really openness.
Likewise, the claim that Firefox OS "doesn't limit your freedom" is suspect, too. How can that claim be made when developers are pretty much forced into using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to build apps? I don't consider myself to have "freedom" if, as as developer, I'm forced into using JavaScript or some half-baked "transpiler" that attempts (usually poorly) to target JavaScript.
It's also odd to claim that these apps will somehow be portable to other platforms, especially if they're using APIs that only Firefox OS currently supports. Even if there have been efforts to standardize these APIs, the fact that they aren't widely implemented by other browsers or platforms renders them as proprietary to Firefox OS, in practice, at least for some time. A standard that exists but isn't widely implemented probably shouldn't be considered a standard.
And the "HTML5 is a first-class citizen" distinction seems quite irrelevant in practice, as well. If the same apps will supposedly work on other platforms, either natively or with the help of something like Cordova, then they're just as "first-class" there as they are on Firefox OS.
So as you can see, the arguments you gave are theoretical at best, and some of them don't even appear to hold true in reality.
> Even if the source code is publicly available, and outside contributions may be accepted, Mozilla is still going to act as a gatekeeper, which inherently limits which contributions will or will not make it into Firefox OS.
Even the Linux kernel has submodule maintainers, and Linus himself, who will need to approve your changes.
Your other option is to fork, apply your changes, and then use your custom-baked FirefoxOS on your phone.
> Likewise, the claim that Firefox OS "doesn't limit your freedom" is suspect, too.
It respects your freedom (see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) which means that you're free to add support for programming additional languages, if you like. Your additions may never make it into FirefoxOS core, but that doesn't mean your phone can't have those additions.
> And the "HTML5 is a first-class citizen" distinction seems quite irrelevant in practice, as well.
No it doesn't. Think about your argument in terms of natural languages. There are countries where English, French, Spanish are the official languages. There are also countries, where these languages may be spoken, but they're not official.
> A contribution to Firefox OS is a suggestion at best, but one that can be unilaterally disregarded by Mozilla without any sort of consequence to Mozilla. That's no different than making a suggestion to Google about Android, or to Apple about iOS.
You are seriously saying that Mozilla's openness is no better than iOS's? That's one of the more ridiculous anti-Mozilla statements you've come up with over the years.
(disclosure: I'm an employee of Mozilla working on localization technologies for Firefox OS)
> That's no different than making a suggestion to Google about Android, or to Apple about iOS.
I believe you are wrong. There is a substantial difference between being able to send a suggestion to Google or Apple, or even being able to write a patch against an open source subset of Android codebase released months after the phone release, and being able to fork Gaia repo, patch it, and submit a pull request.
I've been helping volunteers go through their first patches for weeks now and it works great! They have helped me clean up the code base for Firefox 2.1 in many ways.
They now submitted their first patches and are skilled to start working on more complex problems and suggest features.
You are right, that that doesn't mean that anyone can submit any random feature and get his/her PR merged. That would result in chaos. But they can suggest features, work with module/app owners, and write the new features for the platform. They can participate in decision making process, weekly calls, daily meetings and day-to-day IRC conversations because it's all open and in public.
In the end, if things go wrong, they can fork the platform and start working on a fork. You may respond - hey, Android has it with CyanogenMod!
If that was your first thought, please read about struggles CM has with Google or read arstechnica article of how someone tried to use Android without Google services.
Android sources are only partially open and are released many months after product release. Firefox OS sources are available for hacking from day 0 of work, many months before the product is ready. (for example: if you fork github gaia repo, you'll have the code that will land as Firefox OS 2.1. Current stable version is 1.3).
> The recent tendency of Mozilla to force totally unwanted changes (like Australis) upon Firefox users
Did you read the studies and feedback analysis or are you extrapolating your own sentiment onto majority of users?
> "Openness" means that non-Mozilla parties can actively influence the development and future of Firefox OS.
That's exactly what is going on with the project right now. Many external contributors, both individual volunteers, and companies, are involved in the development process of Firefox OS.
> Likewise, the claim that Firefox OS "doesn't limit your freedom" is suspect, too. How can that claim be made when developers are pretty much forced into using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to build apps?
That's a fallacy. Freedom in question is referring to the freedom of the user to choose how he wants to use his device, not to programming languages that are supported on the platform. It's like saying "roads does not give me freedom if I have to drive my car on them and can't use them with my submarine of choice".
> A standard that exists but isn't widely implemented probably shouldn't be considered a standard.
You are right. I believe that it's just an oversimplification.
But the sole fact that all API's created in the process are on the standardization path is a major push toward empowering web technologies to be fully capable of handling more advanced applications and systems and does set a precedence.
We will soon live in the world where HTML+DOM+JS will be enough to write operating systems and apps that will work on multiple platforms. That's the opposite of vendor lock in that major platforms are leveraging.
"FFOS is a solution in search of problems, unfortunately those are problems which already have better solutions."
I have to disagree. Firefox OS offers many things that are important and needed right now, lets pick some stuff that is not served elsewhere:
* A platform that is developed in the open and accepts contribution. Firefox OS is the ONLY MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM where all the source code is open including our built-in apps and services. Its not only available but its constructed in public with people being able to contribute and see what is being done.
* A platform that doesn't limit your freedom. You're free to build and distribute your apps without walled gardens. You don't need to pay to place an app on Firefox Marketplace.
* A platform that embraces the web which is one of the major achievements of the internet. Instead of the "you can't do this with HTML5" we're fixing the web platform so that you can have apps that work equally between platforms. It means that apps will be able to work on the web, desktop, mobile regardless of OS as vendors implement the WebAPIs.
* A platform where HTML5 is a first-class citizen.