Where Is Firefox OS?

adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft's very simple yet graceful concept raises a very big question. The way Microsoft is planning out Windows 8, developers will be able to write one HTML 5 app which will run across every Windows 8 form factor, from desktops to laptops, to ARM netbooks and tablets. Given the concept, if you remove the operating system — or at least make it transparent enough that the browser becomes the platform — then suddenly every piece of software works across every piece of hardware which raises the question that why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?"

Comments

Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[MrEricSir]

A: Because it's a dumb idea.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[MrEricSir]

It's like using a desktop computer just so you can remotely eject the CD tray and knock over a cup of water to water your plants while you're on vacation.

Yes, you COULD do that, but it's wasteful and unnecessary. And last I checked, wasteful and unnecessary weren't the hallmarks of a "simple" design.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Carnildo]

"Firefox would be a great operating system, if only it had a decent web browser"

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Oligonicella]

No, he's not. I've seen his code.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[n3xg3n]

You mean you don't allocate memory to store your comments as strings?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[cshark]

It has been done. The project is in Freshmeat. It was promptly started in 02 or 03 I believe, and abandoned, like most other somewhat interesting projects there. In fact, if memory serves, there may have actually been two of them around the same era. Both long dead. The reason being (as usual) that people on Freshmeat and similar sites would rather tell you how much of a dick you are for trying something interesting, than paying any attention to how novel your project is. At the time, this was revolutionary stuff. Did anyone care? No, of course not. The only time anyone cares about anything Open Source is when there's a marketing budget behind it.

Be that as it may, the Mozilla OS project(s) I vaguely remember were true browser as a platform for desktop style gui projects, ala 'let's build a whole desktop environment in XUL' type stuff. What Microsoft is proposing is not a true browser as a platform system. Closest thing to browser as a platform that's in active development now is Chromium, which looks nothing like Windows 8. Sure, it's nice that Microsoft has finally gotten their head out of their ass with hypertext apps. This has been coming since Windows 95, though, and I'm not seeing anything really all that new in it except compatibility. But if you're going to be least bit critical about it, that's something that should have existed all along.

I remain skeptical.

Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.

I could draw it out and make it sound pretty, but its stupid nonetheless. Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Operating systems and browsers are two different things.

Now as a work environment, say a desktop interface, browsers have potential, and that's what most people mean, but even there, the security problems of dividing up what is local data and what is remote, what should be executable and what shouldn't becomes a nightmare that is easier to handle when avoided completely.

HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact. Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not. The overloading of protocols (everything as HTTP) and formats (everything as HTML/CSS) is just short sighted laziness.

Please make it stop.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[amicusNYCL]

Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Now there's a thought.. Mozilla can wait until everyone else gets all bloated, then they can launch a new project to create a fast, lightweight standalone browser without all the bloat of their current offering.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[rtfa-troll]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.

[...] Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

The whole point of the "browser is an OS" is not to "encompass all possible generic operating system needs". The idea is that most of those needs will be handled by a "the cloud". Most of the time, when Microsoft or an IT manager talks about it, that doesn't mean anything sensible. However, when Google talks about it, it really means

• You aren't going to have to do file storage because your named objects are going to be stored in the cloud server and just cached locally
• You aren't going to have to do much computing because most of that will be handled by Google's servers
• You aren't going to have to think about application security because that will be handled by Google's
• You aren't going to have to control privacy and data flow because Google will do it for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle user management because Google will do that for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle setting up a file server/ file sharing because that will be done already, by Google
• etc.

If that list scares you, then it should. Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up". You had better hope they are nice http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/>operators

Operating systems and browsers are two different things.

You are answering the wrong question here. The question isn't "should I build these things separately". The question is, "should the user have any understanding of the underlying operating system, and if so, do I need any more interface to it than a web browser can provide?" The Google answer is "no". Fundamentally, you as a naive user, surrender everything to Google. Your so the OS is still there, just the user doesn't have to worry about what it does or how it works.

HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact.

Given that nobody has fully implemented it ye very few of the people who used HTML used HTML 5, so that comparison isn't yet made. Probably we should come back to that ten years from now to get the proper empirical data. However, every potential alternative platform has problems:

Windows binary no simple way to install applications; user need to download, install, approve etc. Many different incompatible versions and bad multi-version support Linux binary not widely enough installed; users are resistant to learning; several different versions OS/X binary both disadvantages of Windows and Linux at once! Java "binary" horribly variable platform versions; users are resistant; inconsistent user interface; ugly Flash "binary" partly incomplete platform access; horrible security model; horribly s.low and unstable; at serious risk of elimination in the next couple of years HTML5 / AJAX incomplete platform access; slow.

Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not.

Again it's the wrong question. The question is: "does it make sense for the people writing the HTML 5 standard to make generic applications possible". The answer is "unfortunately yes". They see a gap in the market and they are closest to filling it. Let's be clear what the gap is:

• Cross platform (Windows XP -> Windows 2008 / OS/X / Linux + Mobile )
• Dynamically installable (you don't need t

Sigh...

[Haedrian]

Just install a very lightweight linux distro. Install firefox on it. Set it to full screen mode.

Done. No need to reinvent the wheel.

They don't want to?

[tverbeek]

Because then they'd have to deal with all the hardware support and driver incompatibility bullshit that Microsoft and Apple and the Linux crew have to deal with. Not everybody wants to code at the metal level.

I just want a browser

[Windwraith]

Am I the only one who just wants a browser?
Sure, I like stuff like javascript games (I am a game dev so the topic inherently catches my attention) and some webapps, but I am certainly not willing to give my browser that much importance.
For me the centerpiece of the OS is the file manager and the tools to do my tasks. I don't want to have to depend on just a browser or webapps that don't have local code to run from your physical computer. We know the cloud is not 100% reliable (sure, it's not 100% unreliable either, but until there's no choice but to use it, I want to use that choice).

Re:I just want a browser

[woolpert]

For me the centerpiece of the OS is the file manager and the tools to do my tasks

This is an argument against the browser as OS and gets +4 insightful? The mind boggles.

1 - File manager as centerpiece of OS:
A - A file manager is an app (of my choosing) which runs on top of my OS.
B - As we have already seen browser (IE / Konqueror) is hard to distinguish from a file manager (Explorer / Konqueror) and so if we accept your argument that the file manager is the centerpiece of an OS there is evidence aplenty that a browser is said centerpiece.

2 - "The tools to do my tasks" as co-centerpiece of an OS.
If ever there was a classic definition of "applications" it was "the tools to do my tasks". The OS is the tool to do the application's tasks. If we're going to zoom out and take such a broad view of what an OS is (it sounds to me like you're describing a desktop environment ) how are current browsers not inches away from that already?

We know the cloud is not 100% reliable

Where in the concept of "browser as OS" is "no off-line content" made explicit?

Re:Fine with me.

[arth1]

Besides, Google is doing a good enough job already with a browser-based OS if you ask me.

Then they do it in secret labs, cause there's no such thing out in the wild. If you mean ChromeOS, that's not a browser-based OS, but a locked down Gentoo Linux that runs on a locked down file system, running a locked down display manager that runs a locked down Window manager that runs a (you guessed it: locked down) version of the Chrome browser inside it. The browser is four steps away from being an OS -- it's just another app -- the main app, but still just an app.

Having the browser be the OS is by all means possible - if the browser contains a kernel, file system, drivers and everything else needed. But what would the point be?

HTML? Really?

[thisnamestoolong]

MS is really talking about using HTML as the best way to port code between the different versions of Windows 8? That is at least 4 different kinds of fail.

Re:HTML? Really?

[Mia'cova]

No... they're saying "hey all you web developers out there, you can make apps for us now too without having to learn anything new! Now whip together your facebook/amazon/ebay website app ports in 1/10th the time it takes you to do so on iphone/ipad!"

They already are; Slashdot reported on it...

[Mekabyte]

just two weeks ago. Webian Shell on top of Linux sounds a lot like Chrome OS to me...

Mozilla is libre OSS

[fermion]

IMHO, Mozilla was created to leverage the assets of Netscape to prevent a world in which proprietary MS protocals controlled the web. There was no business model in which Mozilla had to be the market share leader. There was no need to play games in which users had to be lured to give up personal data. A cross platform browser allowed users freedom to choose a machine that suited them and then run an appropriate Mozilla variant. I myself use Camino.

MS needs a browser based OS to maintain market share in the world of sub-$500 internet devices. We have seen these fail, and everyone is saying lack of mobile broadband is going to kill them, but these are going to be targeted at home user with WiFi that want inexpensive machines that can move around the house. The benefit is going to be reliability, and MS want to take users away from Apple in this lucrative market and return them to MS.

Likewise Google has to have a mobile OS to continue to collect information. The mobile OS is prefect for Google because everything a user does is recorded, track, mined, and sold. Google already has significant market share, so, as we see, the internet devices are being sold at a healthy profit, and the benefit to the user are free applications after the fact. This gives MS hope as it can often intimidate manufacturers to sell at a less healthy profit in return for marketing support that will create the volume that MS wants.

So we have one company that wants a WebOS to keep it office franchise alive, another that wants to keep the advertising money flowing. Where would mozzila be? They have no market share concerns, they have no free apps, and there is no open hardware platform for a table or internet computer. So one can buy an expensive laptop, pay the internet tax, and then install this great Mozilla OS. We have seen how well this works for Linux. Or one can buy the allegedly open Android or Chrome tablet and install Mozilla. What is the point? Chrome is not a bad OS.

As we have seen on the iPhone, software developers don't want to develop for the web browser. They want native Apps. The machine needs to do both, unless one is in the business of locking in users like MS or Google.

Java?

[Loosifur]

I remember back in the day, when I actually wanted to major in CS, Java came out. Yes, that long ago. And the big thing about Java was that you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a Java interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in Java now...

I'm just saying, using a browser as a conveyance for some sort of universal HTML-based software market just seems like a new version of an old idea that didn't pan out in the first place.

Also, not to nitpick (well, yes to nitpick), but I think that part that says "suddenly every piece of software works..." needs a bit of filling out. Especially at the "suddenly" part.

Also also, Mozilla would be better off not trying to be the Gobot to Google's Transformer, if you see what I mean. That niche is already being filled by Google. Mozilla should focus on making a niche for Firefox, not making it an also-ran to Chrome OS. Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Firefox since Chrome came out, and since I put Opera on my Droid. But, there must be some area where Firefox excels, because it has a solid base of users. They should exploit and enhance that area.