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Firefox OS Phone on Display at LinuxFest NorthWest (Video)
Jakob Perry organized the first LinuxFest Northwest when he was still a student. He got off to a good start: now LFNW has been running for 14 years, and has retained its flavor as a low-key, friendly conference. Exhibitors from Linux distributions from tiny (CrunchBang) to huge (Red Hat) were on hand for 2013, and enough speakers and topics to fill about 80 different sessions over the two days of the conference. Not all of it's about Linux per se, either: the EFF and FSF were represented, along with a BSD table, and a local astronomy group with a great name. At this year's event I ran into the first Firefox OS phone that I've had a chance to play with in person. Firefox OS integrates Linux by way of the Android kernel, but is otherwise its own beast. Ubuntu and Mozilla contributor Benjamin Kerensa was on hand to talk about what makes it tick, and to give a demo of the all-HTML5 interface.
I don't think a phone would be very useful if all it had was the Linux kernel. You would need a userland, and using one as a base that is already established means a lot of people already know how to use and develop for the platform.
Demo isn't really a demo, he doesn't open up anything or scroll much, just shows off a bunch of icons.
Another layer on top of Android on top of Linux.
Mozilla needs to focus on their core business. The number of Firefox bugs fixed remains lower than the number being reported, and the internals, which date back to the Netscape era, need replacement.
So, the "layers" here are 1. Kernel. 2. Userland. 3. UI. Which one of these do you consider unnecessary for the purpose?
I got to play with it there. I didn't know I was holding something newsworthy. As a Galaxy S3 (with CM10.1) user, I thought it ran very well considering it was on what appeared to be some older mid-range hardware. Everything seemed quite smooth and snappy.
If we colonize Mars, it won't be the World Wide Web anymore. UWW?
There is no Android in FirefoxOS.
They do support running on the same Linux kernel though, so they can make use of the same drivers that were already developed for devices that can run Android.
Actually, it has been shown FirefoxOS can run on less powerful devices than Android can.
New things are always on the horizon
From what I've seen (the non-profit) Mozilla is probably one of the most trustworthy organizations on the net. Protecting users is a part of their mission and they've historically gone out of their way to make sure user info is protected and is not monetized.
As an example, Firefox Sync (which is actually open & could be implemented on any device or browser) encrypts bookmarks and passwords with extremely high encryption on your device before sending it to the server. The key is only stored on your device such that even if a governing body forced Mozilla to give up your data they still could not decrypt it.
Recently they've become very unpopular in some circles (ok, just one primarily) by choosing to block third-party cookies from sites you've never visited. This prevents tracking cookies from ad companies (following you and your activities around the net).
So as far as phone makers, I'd put them at the bottom of the list of folks I'm concerned about tracking me.