“Mozilla is creating a new kind of mobile operating system that is aligned with standards-based Web technologies. The platform, called Firefox OS, consists of the Gecko HTML rendering engine, a thin hardware enablement layer built on the Linux kernel, and a user interface layer called Gaia that is implemented entirely in HTML and JavaScript. The project was first announced in 2011 with the codename Boot2Gecko. It has matured considerably since then and is expected to arrive on handsets next year. Developers who want to get a head start will be pleased to learn that Mozilla has started producing daily builds of a B2G test environment that runs on conventional desktop computers.”
I’m very interested in this Mobil OS, and I think it has a future.
It’d be nice if it did but I doubt it, between Apple on the high and Google on every other there really isn’t any room. Heck MSFT is spending $450 a pop just to get people to pay $50 for a Lumia and can’t get any takers, what prayer does this have?
I think there is for Firefox OS. The ability to install that OS on existing Android Phone brings interest to tinkerers. Blackberry used to be on top back and now where it is.
Tinkerers aren’t the sort of people who make an OS a success.
Plus I think the ChromeOS’s lack of uptake is proof enough that people don’t want thin clients to browse the web. Not on their phones and certainly not on their PCs.
I only use web applications when no other solution is available and it is forced on me.
1 word…OpenMoko. Hackers talk a good game but when it comes to actually buying product unless you can make it uber cheap like the pi its “where’d they go?” and that’s all she wrote.
openMoko? Seriously? They never got a build out that was even remotely usable… The hardware was grosly underpowered and the software was even worse… QT had a build that was the only usable sw to use on those devices…
openMoko was a good concept, but the execution of that idea left a lot to be desired, and never really reached the ‘usable’ stage….
What about that FOSS game player, the G2P or whatever it was called? or OpenPandora? In both of those cases you had a device designed specifically to appeal to the FOSS hacker mindset and in both cases they simply couldn’t move enough units to make it viable.
Mark my words, the same excuses you just used will be used again when MozOS comes out, simply because while hackers talk a good game IRL they tend to be really cheap. Something like the Pi or the Beagleboard, where they are out little? Those sell. When we are talking mobile we are talking $600+ devices and you know the carriers aren’t gonna be offering contract discounts on a hacker friendly device.
Mark my words the hackers won’t be there because they simply aren’t gonna spend the money. hell why do you think the Linux forums are filled with guys bragging their machines were practically dumpster dived? because hackers are cheap with a capital C.
That’s kinda the point – usually such projects don’t really go far, in one way or the other. If you want more examples… it’s similar with Qt Extended, SHR, Maemo, OPIE, GPE.
Do you remember that Mozilla had two abortive attempts at mobile browser? (and the present mobile FF sees a limited success)
I thought it is going to be standalone, bootable linux image. I’m quite disappointed. How could this be names “OS”, when it need a host OS?
I may not getting something as well, but for now it just looks weak.
with that *test environment* you can test the upper layers of Firefox OS (Gecko + Gaia). but firefox OS will definitely be a full OS; it will have a custom, low-level Linux distro under Gecko (named “Gonk”. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS#Terminology ).
I see myself using Firefox OS as my personal OS in 2014. I think it is a beautiful and very powerful project.