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Mozilla Partners Up With LG To Combat Apple and Google
MrSeb writes "At Mobile World Congress, which begins in three days, Mozilla will finally take the wraps off the Mozilla Marketplace and allow developers to submit their open web technology (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) apps. While the Marketplace will play an important role in keeping Firefox in step with Chrome, these apps will actually play a far more important role: Boot to Gecko (B2G), Mozilla's upcoming smartphone and tablet OS, will also use the Marketplace. For B2G to succeed it must have apps, and to create apps you need developers. That's why, at MWC, according to a source close to the matter, Mozilla will also be announcing that it has partnered up with LG to make a developer-oriented B2G-powered mobile device. Even more interestingly, Brendan Eich, Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer, says that it will unveil other partners at MWC as well — probably carriers, who are eager to use the open B2G and its Marketplace to escape the huge control that Apple and Google currently exert in the smartphone space."
Come to think of it, the 'LG XULRunner' would actually be a better-than-average name for a cellphone...
I think a company announcing they're NOT doing a marketplace would probably get bigger headlines these days.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Mozilla is building a WebAPI open standard along with B2G so you can access hardware from html / javascript. Check this out http://arewemobileyet.com/
Give me a call when Chrome has NoScript and isn't developed by a company that has grown notorious for its privacy issues, user web tracking, and targeted ads.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
same here, but then I switched back sometime around FF10. Much happier with it than back in the 3.x days. I now go back and forth without much concern.
Mozilla has found another source of income in addition to Google. With LG's money, Mozilla will be able to add features that counter Chrome's increased share in the browser marketplace. I assume FirefoxOS will counter ChromeOS and webOS more than Android and iOS.
Wether or not this adversely affects Mozilla's ability to increase user satisfaction with FireFox being used as a browser remains to be seen. I hope and wish them the best, but am concerned that they will lose focus on their core product which should be a web browser people would actually like to use (or in my case continue to use).
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Flash can do that and more. Maybe HTML5?
Oh yay, another market place. Just what I wanted. Apps for my apps. Or apps for the plugins of my apps.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Windows Phone 7 is peering through a window to watch the fight, eyes welling with tears.
Device APIs are a key part of the B2G effort. Mozilla is making those APIs and getting them standardized.
The shareholder is always right.
I can't stand the term apps. You're post means I now have to go to the pub(s) after work and drink a Friday worth.I didn't want to go. But now I must.
I can't stand incorrect usage of your/you're. Which pub are you going to? Perhaps we can meet up.
I hope it makes sense and is well done. I guess the sign of it becoming real is when google applauds it at the same time as apple/microsoft sue Mozilla. So, 6 months? Again, how it is designed is going to be important. Anyone can clone the whole smartphone layout as it exists but they're going to need to do something *different* for it to be worthwhile.
I should also point out that apple and google are considered competition, but Microsoft is not (as microsoft is not relevant in the smartphone market). Quite a telling point.
Um, am I right in thinking this will give carriers more control over my phone?
From TFA, "Basically, Apple and Google have so much control over the smartphone landscape that carriers have effectively become nothing more than retailers. Worse than that, their infrastructures have been reduced to that of a dumb pipe, where it is Apple and Google who ultimately decide how the network will be used."
I don't know about other countries, but the last thing I would ever do in the US is give a mobile carrier more control over my phone. It that is the case, I'll pass.
:( Fair point well made. Here -> Canary Wharf, London - Fullers
When did you last use FF ? v3.5 ?
I use both right now, on win7, Linux Mint and CrunchBang. My FF always has 20-30 tabs opened, it's my main browser, I only use Chrome when have no browser opened and I don't want to wait for FF to start with my 30 opened tabs.
Based on my experience, FF 10 isn't bloated at all. It's as fast as Chrome and has way more useful plugins.
On an unrelated note I trust mozilla a gazillion times more than I trust google.