Mozilla OS Looking Grown Up On Its Own Developer Phone

An anonymous reader writes "It's no secret that Mozilla has been working on a mobile OS. Previously codenamed Boot2Gecko, the project focused on a purely HTML5 based system that worked in many ways like current mobile devices. As the project grew into Mozilla OS, the company has laid out a partnership with ZTE that will have real world devices in certain markets early next year. Testing for this OS had previously consisted of a compiled ROM that would be flashed over a handful of Android devices. Now, Mozilla has moved into full fledged product evaluation mode with their own custom developer phone."

Comments

Three cheers for Mozilla

[pr0nbot]

I suppose there will be a degree of negativity about boot to gecko, along the lines of "they've already lost" and "they should focus on fixing the browser".

Personally, I wish them every success. Firefox has been great, and the idea of a phone OS built by a non-profit whose only agenda revolves around standards, privacy, user control, openness and general sanity will be a refreshing change from the likes of Apple, Google, and Microsoft. It actually seems to be happening, too, unlike so many other projects we hear about.

(But if you want some negativity - given that they're primarily funded by Google, and presumably don't have a massive patent war chest, they'll probably be sunk if they ever get anywhere. Time to donate!)

Re:Three cheers for Mozilla

[vagabond_gr]

From mozilla.org:

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.

Re:Three cheers for Mozilla

[OpenDoors]

Mozilla Foundation (non-profit) owns Mozilla Corporation (for-profit) which handles the development of Firefox, Thunderbird, Firefox OS etc.

Re:Three cheers for Mozilla

[gl4ss]

From mozilla.org:

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.

riaa is a non-profit too, just saying. they got plenty of employees and are in constant need of money though.

Re:Three cheers for Mozilla

[jbolden]

Foundation handles the development. Corporation pays people and collects revenue. This is an artifact of tax law in the USA, Mozilla is still run by Foundation which is non profit.

Re:Three cheers for Mozilla

[lister king of smeg]

I hope that is easily expandable via plug-ins much like their browser. Don't want a web app to have access to something just disable that with appblock plus. wan't to kill the comic sans font from apps just install comic sans remover plugin. But since it is all browser based will how will app writers not have costumers simply copy the page source for the HTML (presumably a extended version of five) CSS and JavaScript? And what advantage will this have when all of their apps will be usable by everyone else (being web app runing in a browser) but not vis versa(native apps)? aren't the people already realizing web apps where a bad idea already like facebook saying that it was a bad move and switching back to a native app? they will have to work on some native apps even Google has realized that and is working on running native code on ChromeOS another browser as a OS implementation. How will it do with out flash will Mozilla finally relent and use the pepper api even just as an optional plugin? what about audio and vidio codex on my pc it gets them from vlc on my linux box and windows media player and vlc on my windows box who will provide them on the firefox mobile os since they seem to have funny ideas about what codex should be the standard.

Browser Based OS

[OpenDoors]

I really doubt that this is good direction. It's the greatest lock-down of all time. Every web-app (Google Docs etc) is behind the greatest DRM of all time, just like Blizzards Diablo 3.

The only reason this haven't ben discussed on Slashdot before is because it's been Google that has been developing fully browser based OS, and Google fanboys have de-routed every intelligent discussion about the merits of Chrome/Firefox OS.

Sorry, but in my opinion we must stop this development here and keep our native open and closed source apps. You can't even disassemble browser apps, all you have is the front-end. At least with Windows and MS apps I know they are going to stay around and work when I need them.

Re:Browser Based OS

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML5 applications can work offline. They already have interfaces for sandboxed filesystems and built in SQL DBs. Granted, apps that have an online component(most of them probably) don't have to release the source for their server software. That is the case with native apps as well though. I suggest you spare some time to review the HTML5 specs. It's actually a pretty good development platform. You may even like it

Re:Browser Based OS

[Celarent Darii]

You can't even disassemble browser apps, all you have is the front-end.

Say that again? You just look at the source code, the javascript and it's all there. Maybe not like you want it, but there is nothing intrinsic to browser apps that make them a sort of DRM. If it is written in HTML5, you can look at the code if they make it available - in fact in some ways you can do 'Show Source' in a browser easier than many native apps. Even Google Apps you can do 'Show source' in your browser. In a certain way the web is far more open that native apps, which are painfully difficult to disassemble from the binary.

The only real problem are the requests from the server - true, they don't often release server software source. But often this is mostly connection to some database. While this can be problematic for open source, it is not intrinsically so. Most web apps can also be written to work offline.

Re:Browser Based OS

[cmdr_tofu]

Yeah but you cannot review the code that lives on providers cloud of webservers. For instance althouhg you can view the source to google mail's html and javascript in your browser (and even muck with it using the right ff plugins), there is not any practical way for you to deploy your own gmail on your own server.

A lot of webaps are open source, but if you dont even control the application when its runnign in. I don't know if I have a side, but there is a big shift. For instance with Microsoft office, Microsoft cannot "track you" using their software. Of course I like OpenOffice more than Microsoft, and even though GoogleApps makes collaboration over the Internet a lot easier, it does mean google can track everyone who is using their software. This is definitely something new and a different kind of evil that Microsoft probably never thought of in the early days of poor connectivity.

An open source alternative to googleApps that anyone can deploy on their own PlugPC (or other device) server could allow us to transition to web-based apps and protect against being ruled by vendors. I kind of see free software as inevitably becoming better than proprietary software over time.

Re:Browser Based OS

[drinkypoo]

The only reason this haven't ben discussed on Slashdot before is because it's been Google that has been developing fully browser based OS, and Google fanboys have de-routed every intelligent discussion about the merits of Chrome/Firefox OS.

You, sir, are either a troll or insufficiently familiar with the debate here to make such declarative statements. I have debated at length here on slashdot the lack of merit of having an operating system which boots directly into a browser, and my comments have been relatively well-received. Comment invalidated.

You can't even disassemble browser apps, all you have is the front-end.

What does that even mean? It's a lot of nonsense. HTML5 has offline apps. You will be able to browse through these apps, twiddle their sources, et cetera. Indeed, you will have more power to do this than with smartphone apps, which are compiled; you will be able to fiddle with the HTML and JS. You either have no idea what you're talking about or, again, you're some kind of troll.

Re:Browser Based OS

[afgam28]

Sorry, but in my opinion we must stop this development here and keep our native open and closed source apps. You can't even disassemble browser apps, all you have is the front-end. At least with Windows and MS apps I know they are going to stay around and work when I need them.

From a technical point of view, there's nothing stopping open source apps from staying open after they've moved onto "the cloud".

Imagine you bought server time, let's say an EC2 instance from AWS. Then you load it up with a webmail server, a storage server, and an open-source Google Docs-style word processor. You could use this EC2 instance to serve you mail, music and documents from anywhere using any device. And you could do it using 100% open source software.

This is what open source software could look like in the post PC era, but it's a shame that most open source advocates are so vehemently anti-cloud that they will not help make this possible.

didn't they already announce something like this?

[gl4ss]

didn't they already announce something like this?

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/mozilla-dumps-boot2gecko-name-firefox-os-tktktk/

the picture in this article sure as fuck looks like a reflashed android though! pretty full fledged, but that's zte for you..

WebOS

[dutchwhizzman]

How is this different in architecture from HP's WebOS?

Re:WebOS

[muon-catalyzed]

iOS KOed WebOS because native iOS apps crushed and humiliated web apps. FireFoxOS is just another ring entrant to get knocked down.

Re:WebOS

[lbenes]

How is this different in architecture from HP's WebOS?

In Principle they are the same idea, except WebOS uses the lean webkit engine to render the desktop, while Firefox OS, uses the resource hogging Geko engine.

As a former Palm Pre Plus and Firefox user, I am a poster child as to why this is a terrible idea. I switched from Firefox to the webkit based Chrome because it was the was so much leaner and faster. I also had to leave my webkit based Pre, for a NATIVE powered iPhone. And while I dearly miss WebOS's beautiful and intuitive UI, I do not miss the dog slow performance one bit.

Why doesn't Mozilla invest their limited resources on making a lean browser that can compete with Chrome?

nice

[gedw99]

i have been running this on my laptop for curiousity value.

it works very well, and writing new applications for it is very very easy because its just all web development with html, jsand css.
makes it very quick and easy.

also webgl works. Unlike Iphone and android.

i actually think that this will be big, but take time for people to appreciate it.
for companies and startups its hell getting android and iphone apps out, but with this is easy peasy.
the main thing will be that cordova (phone gap) support it, so that people can write in web technologies and still deploy to android, iphone and firefox os easily

Re:nice

[drinkypoo]

HTML was never meant for apps.

Really quite irrelevant.

Javascript was never meant to be a language for writing full-blown applications.

Substantially more relevant. However, it should not be a problem for most types of apps people want to run on a cellphone.

What I don't get is why anyone would want a Web OS notebook, let alone desktop.

Didn't WebOS try this already

[goombah99]

So if everyting is HTML5 then presumably this is going to be like WebOS or apple's Dashboard apps? Didn't Facebook recently retreat from HTML5 to native? Then there's the grim history of javas early promise of write once run everywhere. Has HTML5 grown up so much that it can finally pull it off? or is this more than HTML5

Re:Didn't WebOS try this already

[gl4ss]

So if everyting is HTML5 then presumably this is going to be like WebOS or apple's Dashboard apps? Didn't Facebook recently retreat from HTML5 to native? Then there's the grim history of javas early promise of write once run everywhere. Has HTML5 grown up so much that it can finally pull it off? or is this more than HTML5

nokia scaled back a lot of their webruntime promo too(but on there, the interest from developers was mostly to sidestep binaries signing/certification).

has html5 finally grown up so much? no, it hasn't. not even on desktop. basically they'll have to invent a bunch of extra api's to match even half of native stuff even on windows phone 7 not to mention craploads to match android.

just imagine writing a spotify client in pure javascript/html5.

Re:Didn't WebOS try this already

[the plant doctor]

Yes, Facebook did just retreat from HTML 5. However, the difference there is that they were attempting to support how many different hardwares, screen resolutions, browsers, etc.

Mozilla here can work with it because they are vertically integrated. They can optimize the apps for their phone alone, not worrying about other phones' screen sizes, resolutions, processors, etc. That's not to say it's not still risky. HTML5 is scarcely grown up, IMO.

Usabilty Battery usage?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've read of B2G/Mozilla OS is that it will be lightweight and be able to run on cheap low-end phones. If it can deliver a smooth, slick interface and/or longer battery life on cheap phones better than equivalent android phones then it could well take market share. The way way we will find out is when they start shipping.

Re:No market

[Anonymous Coward]

You should checkout the fully 3D HTML/JS FPS
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/detail/bananabread

Re:How is it "negative" to want Firefox improved?

[mister_playboy]

It's also a product that exhibits poor performance and excessive memory usage. That means it's a perfect candidate for improvement.

As someone who uses FF on a daily basis, I can't help but think these complaints come from people who don't use the software and are repeating old complaints. It's just like PulseAudio.

I haven't seen memory leakage problems since 3.5 came out, over 3 years ago.

It's certainly true that something can occasionally misbehave and suck memory/CPU, but that can happen in all browsers and it's usually related to a page with absurd JS or the Flash plugin.

The Otoro phone ?

[Lennie]

I believe these devices are called "Otoro", because that is what it says on this page:

"Otoro
        Otoro is a phone being used as a test and development platform as a low-to-midrange smartphone. Most core Firefox OS developers are working on Otoro."

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gecko/B2G_build_prerequisites