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Mozilla OS Looking Grown Up On Its Own Developer Phone

Posted by timothy on from the fox-in-your-pocket dept.

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."

8 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Three cheers for Mozilla by pr0nbot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!)

    1. Re:Three cheers for Mozilla by vagabond_gr · · Score: 4, Informative

      From mozilla.org:

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

    2. Re:Three cheers for Mozilla by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Three cheers for Mozilla by jbolden · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. Browser Based OS by OpenDoors · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Browser Based OS by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  3. nice by gedw99 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  4. Re:Didn't WebOS try this already by the+plant+doctor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.