@Rusty @snow like #FirefoxOS?
#FirefoxOS
@fschaap @netopwibby yeah, but why is it in the drawer (besides #FirefoxOS being let to die prematurely)...
We may be aware of Firefox OS' existance in the past but it was never even tried to be sold anywhere to any effect.
- And believe me, both @fuchsiii and I tried to get our hands on any device that came with it and I've never heard of the #ZTE Open C before, much less any device being sold in #Germany which is absolutely flabberghasting to me given that in the late 2000s and early 2010s #Mozilla #Firefox was the dominant #Browser in Germany and thus had the best chance to leverage that customer base with good integrations like #MozillaPocket / #FirefoxPocket.
I still love #Fennec aka. #FirefoxMobile but I'm still mad at @Mozilla for not even trying to sell me a device, cuz I was at the time literally shouting: "#ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney!" and searched the (back then 4) MNOs' and their (half a dozen) MVNOs' stores (both retail and online) and never came across a Firefox OS device.
- Same with (online) electronics retailers: NONE of them even had a single listing when I looked for those.
Which reminds me of the (coined by me term) "#RedBlueIndex" [named after the parent company that owns both #Saturn and #MediaMarkt, the two biggest, spechalized electronics retailers]:
- If you can't find a product on shelf at Saturn/MediaMarkt, it doesn't exist in the minds and conciousness of the average #consumers!
@dado @manuel #firefoxos era poco più di un esperimento, ora equipaggia i #nokia feature phone (forkato, ovvio)
Per dire che serve adozione
Per ora mi aspetto più un #waydroid su #ios, almeno in Europa dove il sideloading è abilitato, non mi ci vedo l'intero #fdroid a ricompilare per #ios, troppo diverso
@ciourte @netopwibby Needless to say I've only heard of some Spanish low-cost #MVNO offering one device only in a #prepaid #bundle when #FirefoxOS was unveiled at the #MWC in #Barcelona based off coverage in @ct_Magazin at the time.
- Cuz I remember #WebDevs like @fuchsiii really loving it because it was the then hot & fresh #HTML5 + #JS6 + #CSS3 combo to make it super-easy to do #Apps. All one needs to build an app was #Firefox as Browser and the ability to basically zip' it.
Alas @Mozilla deciding on purpose to literally splinter the market by letting #MNO|s and MVNOs run their #AppStore|s instead of a #centralized model, making the situation worse than in the "P.R." #China where there are several vendor-independent #AppStores for #Android.
- "Conspiracy Theorists" even suggested that this was deliberate self-sabotage to benefit #Google and #Android, tho needless to say Firefox OS aimed at devices & specs that were too low for Android.
Still, I'm #StillMad at #Mozilla for faceplanting Firefox OS cuz it had the easiest way to get started and a good architecture being every #App is just a #WebApp and all the system calls were standard #HTML5 permissions and nothing fancy.
- Basically #PSvita - Syndrome, but worse as in #OpenMoko #Freenunner:
@netopwibby OFC #FirefoxOS would've been a success if people exited about it (like me) and #developers (like @fuchsiii) were ever abke to legally obtain any device with FirefoxOS on it.
- AFAIK the only Firefox OS #phone offered in the #EU was a #SimLock'd / #NetLock'd #Prepaid device sold in #Spain, where they demanded #KYC for the #SIM, making it impossible to legally obtain it back then without having to fly down to #Spain, ID at a store, fly back and then be overcharged for #DataRoaming!
Firefox OS's story from a Mozilla insider not working on the project
https://ludovic.hirlimann.net/2024/01/firefox-oss-story-from-mozila-insider.html
#HackerNews #FirefoxOS #Mozilla #Insider #TechHistory #OpenSource #WebDevelopment
Firefox OS's story from a mozilla insider not working on the project
https://ludovic.hirlimann.net/2024/01/firefox-oss-story-from-mozila-insider.html
Sometimes I browse the #KaiOS phone catalog and imagine what #FirefoxOS could've been.
@nilz meine wirklich verwegene Philosophie: Was nur mit Gurgle Play geht, brauch ich nicht.
Hier #crdroid_rom + #nogapps + #IzzySoftRepo
Schade, dass #firefoxos nicht weiter entwickelt wird. Denn, wie du schreibst, würde alles im Browser gehen (Web APP). Da hatten wohl die US Techs was dagegen. ;-(
Ma fille a besoin d'un téléphone : c'est l'occasion de ressortir le ZTE Open C avec #FirefoxOS et qui marche très bien après 9 ans. Pour du SMS et des appels, ce sera parfait.
Improbable mais vrai. Le libre, ça fonctionne et ça dure.
Packing for the move. Just found my OpenMoko FreeRunner and my GeeksPhone Keon. [Sigh] Sunrise Sunset. #linuxphones #smartphones #firefoxOS #ethicalphones
@JessTheUnstill @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii Exactly...
Coincidentially, that's why #Android (and #iOS) doesn't let users have #root access because billions of devices owned by mostly "#TechIlliterates" that hardly get #SecurityUpdates would be an even bigger risk if they didn't boot a locked-down #ROM image, thus only allowing for #malware in user-privilegued userspace!
- I'd even go so far that I'd wish for @torproject to basically merge fmr. #FirefoxOS / #KaiOS & @tails_live / @tails / #Tails to build a #privacy-focussed #ROM for #Smartphones and #Tablets i.e. "#TailsMobile" or sth.
Cuz having a mobile OS that shoves everything through #Tor and only allows #userspace-Apps in the form modern web technologies would be a big #security and #privacy gain.
@bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen That's exactly the problem, cuz #KaiOS nee #FirefoxOS was a good and solid basis not just for #LowEnd-Devices but could've been excellent for a more #secure mobile OS, as it has good potential for #sandboxing and #KISS-principle'd #Apps that are lean and efficient.
But then again when enthusiasts like @fuchsiii and I were shouting "#ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney!" to #Mozilla, they basically refused to sell any #device, and then we get the "#PSvita-Effect":
- Noone's gonna build an #App for a platform that is essentially a rounding error from the start!…
@punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii Yeah and #Symbian is used with cheap phones of a brand named #Swisstone.
Case in point: #KaiOS nee #FirefoxOS is now drowned in obscurity because of #Mozilla mismanagment and hamfisted approach compared to #Android.
@ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii Maybe had #Mozilla actually cared they could've convinced #Nokia to do #FirefoxOS and we'd not have the shitty #Duopoly of today, but as we all know the decisions were made by #TechIlliterate suits that are just #HornyForMoney"…
@ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen yes, and to add insult to injury #Mozilla didn't even wanted to sell people like @fuchsiii or me a #FirefoxOS device, with the only one being "launched" in the #EU being a #SimLock'd & #NetLock'd #prepaid phone in #Spain one could only attain in-store with all the "#KYC" nonsense they had, demanding a legal address in Spain back then.
- So whilst Firefox OS had the most "#accessible" #Development #tools (literally using #Firefox for it and having every #App as #WebView|s / #HTML5+#JS5+#CSS3 files in a container), they didn't even sold us said devices, making it a worse flop than #UbuntuTouch which at least still gets some devices made that support it...
And #nerds like myself are far from the "#consoomer #Normies" for whom stuff that isn't on shelves at Staturn/MediaMarkt, BestBuy, Walmart, ... doesn't exist. I'm used to importing #tech that I want!
- Feels even more half-assed than #MobileCoin in hindsight…
@ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill also #BlackBerry's #PlayBook #Tablet was released as a accessory screen for their Phones, which gave it "#WiiU-Effect" in terms of marketing.
- Plus #RIM relying hard on business clients and their proprietary applianced mail systems and having big carriers upsell to business people made them look outdated & quite literally out of touch once #iPhone went mainstream.
I mean, the hardware was never their problem and #SMS-Typists swear by their #BlackberryCurve's #keyboard but BlackBerry's #toolchain - just like #SymbianOS's - was just hideous to the point that devs like @fuchsiii didn't even want to try making #Apps for those devices.
- Unlike #Mozilla fucking up #FirefoxOS by refusing to sell devices to #developers, by the time RIM & #Nokia came from their high horses, their market shares had been squeezed into mere "rounding errors" by #iOS and #Android as it was way cheaper and easier to get #Apps developed, tested, sold, bought and use them than on their devices.
#Sony even released some #Symbian #S60 devices but since they didn't have the same signing keys, one couldn't even #sideload apps (not to mention they didn't had the #OviStore on those either!)...
@Rusty @dragonarchitect I disagree re: webOS and FirefoxOS.
#webOS failed due to lack of market penetration (there was only like 1 Tablet from #hp) and #FirefoxOS failed because @mozillaofficial didn't even offer to sell devices to folks like me and @fuchsiii that wanted one.
- The only devices with #Firefox OS in the #EU were a few #NetLock'd #prepaid phones that got sold in Spain (reqiring ID for no valid reason!) and which were essentially useless for anyone outside of Spain.
Add to that the absurdity that #Mozilla basically expected carriers (!!) to maintain and provide the #AppStore|s themselves and you get market fracturing worse than the "P.R." #China (!!!)…
It was mismanaged and self-sabotaged in the worst possible way.
- Similar to how #OLPC never sold the #XO1 in retail and didn't even offer the "Give one, Get one" deal in most places...
The #Duopoly of #Android & #iOS wasn't unavoidable, but an outcome of #SelfSabotage and halfassed non-commitment by competitors!
@Rusty @dragonarchitect well, it's because @mozillaofficial fucked up #FirefoxOS, #SailfishOS was run into the ground, #webOS got neglected, #Microsoft halfassed #WindowsMobile and #Apple refuses to license #iOS to 3rd parties.
- Thus #Android is the only option if you device doesn't want to look like it's from the early 2000s...
El año pasado el meme era “mi imperio romano es… [inserte tema aquí]”
Mi imperio romano lo es Firefox OS: lo que fue, lo que pudo ser y no llegó.
Logré tener un teléfono ZTE con FirefoxOS en #PuertoRico. Funcionaba bien excepto por la lentitud.
Justo cuando logré aprender más o menos a hacer web apps, se murió todo. Se cayó el soporte y el proyecto entero lo guardaron justo en la mesita que tiene la cafetera en el HQ de Mozilla.
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