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Mozilla Hitting 'Brick Walls' Getting Firefox on Phones
meteorit writes "Mozilla has been working on a mobile version of Firefox since last year, and is now looking to repeat the success of Firefox on the PC. Although development seems not to have been completed, it is known that informal negotiations have already started with mobile network operators. Firefox Mobile is scheduled to be launched by the end of the year and the inaugural version will be compatible with the Linux and Windows Mobile operating systems. Work is already underway to determine what the browser's UI will look like. In the meantime those negotiations seem to be hitting 'brick walls', as cellphone operators resist the intrusion of the open web onto their platforms."
As a loyal Firefox user, I'd LOVE to see a mobile version if it can compete with the speed of Opera.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
There's certainly room for it on the iPhone as well. Safari is all nice, but I would like adblock on it, especially on the edge network when every byte counts.
Sheldon
So let's assume that the title of his little rant is indicative of what he thought he was writing about. Somehow he seems to be drawing the conclusion that, sans an open-source web browser, people aren't allowed to browse websites of their own choosing! I'd love to see Firefox on mobile platforms; but really - even my friends with Windows Mobile phones are checking their Gmail; I see them looking at all sorts of odd pages; and I have never heard them complain that their carrier won't let them visit any arbitrary page. I do hear them complaining about the crappy internet experience they're having, due to the poor design of the browser; but that's a completely different subject (and while Firefox could potentially address that, Safari already does - and it's got nothing to do with the openness of the browser, per se, anyway).
When the web was first getting onto mobile phones, I realize people weren't given free reign in their browsing habits - but c'mon, that was three or four years ago.
#DeleteChrome
Not exactly, it's because mobile phone companies think that having complete platform control is a lot more important than allowing an open browser to upset their applecart.
And from their perspective -they're right. If you don't control the application you want to make sure that the people who do control it are either under your influence, or have similar goals. Open source isn't under their influence, and the goals of open source are diametrically opposite of the manufacturers'.
I thought we owned all own phones like we do computers? Why can't we run our own software? Or develop software for them?
Can you imagine living in a world where you could not develop programs for your own computer?
Fuck em!
Seriously port firefox to andriod only. If enough developers switch to a platform that allows them to compete and run their own software the users will follow. I know many here hate Java but why can't we live in a world that is free?
Would you rather own a locked down phone or one where all the free apps on the internet run on? I would pick the latter.
Consumers run WIndows over Linux and MacOSX because its where the apps are at. The phone companies are going to create the ultimate competitor if they are not careful and dictate to the rest of us what to use.
http://saveie6.com/
The consumers are left out of this equation.
Many will think enough is enough with paying $3 for some crappy midi file for a ring tone and want to run their phone like their pcs.
I for one refuse to buy high end phones for this reason. I want to run my own apps and not pay through the nose for their drm infested crappy software.
If you read my posts I am in favor of the free market and not some gnu zealot but when a company dictates how to use something I paid for and halts innovation I get mad.
I am not the only one and a truly free phone will attract all the developers and therefore bring all teh apps and cool games. After this their business model is done. You can't just lock a whole market up. Eventually someone like lets say google and their andriod sdk will come along and provide serious competition.
http://saveie6.com/
I think it's a sign that capitalism is deeply and critically flawed that things are turning out the way they are. It's not a good sign for the free market that we have to resort to socialism in order to restore basic economic and consumer freedoms.
It's a sinking ship you cling to, just in case you hadn't noticed.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
The problem is that Symbian, in C++, is deeply unpleasant to develop for, and very different to Palm, Windows CE or really, anything else.
The documentation is atrocious - there aren't many examples in it, and as opposed to Win32, where you can usually figure out how to use a function from the MSDN library's description of it, trying to do that will generally result in something that fails in an obscure way. As a rule the only sure way to find out how something is done is to find someone else who's already done it and try to figure out what they did that makes it work.
Symbian has only recently ported stdlib to it properly, in what I presume is an act of desperation to try and get people to develop for it. V9 solves the problem where all applications had to be DLLs with no global storage allowed, but it also adds a particularly paranoid code-signing system where your app has to be signed before it is possible to run it outside of the emulator.
That's been my experience, anyway. However - there is a whitepaper on how Opera was ported to Symbian. I can't find a freely accessible version of it right now, but it's a fascinating read and it illustrates full well why porting Mozilla would be very, very difficult.
Capitalism is just buyers and sellers. If the buyers keep on buying crap from the sellers, they'll just keep being sold it. Especially when there are alternatives available.
Deleted
It's highly unusual for any solution to be effective 100% of the time in all possible cases. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that capitalism doesn't work in certain cases. The key is to recognize those cases, and enact legislation which makes up for those shortcomings (e.g. environmental protection laws, fisheries management, anti-trust laws). Damning capitalism entirely because it fails in certain limited cases is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and about as ideologically boneheaded as believing capitalism is always the best solution. What's needed are laws assuring the phone carrier market operates efficiently - allow people to port their phone numbers, allow non-vendor hardware to operate over the networks, and a cell-phone version of network neutrality where any non-vendor apps can run over the network.
I haven't quite decided yet about multi-year contracts since they are a legitimately chosen by customers - the problem being that apparently 99% of US customers would rather amortize their purchase and pay more, rather than pay the phone costs lump sum up front for less. At this point the only contract legislation I would support is forcing the telecos to give me a discount once I am out of contract or if I bring my own phone, since then they are no longer subsidizing the phone cost with my monthly fee. As it is right now, I pay the same monthly fee as someone whose monthly fee is subsidizing a $500 phone, even though I bought and paid for my phone myself.