7 ms·

Why no mention of FirefoxOS? The Mozilla foundation has our best interests at heart much more than Google and while it's not C++, html5/javascript is certainly

by euank 12y ago

Why no mention of FirefoxOS? The Mozilla foundation has our best interests at heart much more than Google and while it's not C++, html5/javascript is certainly an open enough platform which basically everything has started to target anyways. Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome.

unabridged 12y ago
FirefoxOS is definitely a step forward and I'd love to see it overtake Android, but its only a half measure. The problem is a phone does not need to be an operating system, it would be fine as just a program/desktop environment running on linux. A phone is not a special case, there are plenty of mission critical applications that run on top of linux without having to resort to building a whole new OS.
- diafygi 12y ago
  Ummm, that's exactly what Firefox OS is. It's the Firefox engine (gecko) sitting on top of the linux kernel.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    What unabriged means is that you don't need an entire reimplementation of the underlying OS to make calls, all you need is an Linux app that makes calls. The purpose of reimplementation is generally to screw consumers. There's nothing special about a phone that requires you to put everything into a VM. I don't know why firefox is doing it. I did order a development phone, though, because if it takes off, I want a share:)
    - glogla 12y ago
      > I don't know why firefox is doing it. To make it more accessible. Way more people can make web page than make QT or GTK GUI. Way more people can do Javascript than can program in C or C++. That means, that everyone is stuck with html and js, but I think it's worth it.
    - sp332 12y ago
      It's really frustrating to try to take a photo from a web app. Before Firefox OS, Android didn't even let web pages interact with the phone's dialer, which is like the #1 feature of a phone. Firefox OS is a platform for developing web APIs that can interact with all the phone parts. After standardization, these APIs could be implemented by any phone's web browser, like Chrome on Android or even IE on Windows Phone.
pessimizer 12y ago
>Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome. Linux phones are real. I've been using one exclusively for the past 5 years.
- sp332 12y ago
  Nokia?

by euank 12y ago

unabridged 12y ago

FirefoxOS is definitely a step forward and I'd love to see it overtake Android, but its only a half measure. The problem is a phone does not need to be an operating system, it would be fine as just a program/desktop environment running on linux. A phone is not a special case, there are plenty of mission critical applications that run on top of linux without having to resort to building a whole new OS.

diafygi 12y ago
Ummm, that's exactly what Firefox OS is. It's the Firefox engine (gecko) sitting on top of the linux kernel.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  What unabriged means is that you don't need an entire reimplementation of the underlying OS to make calls, all you need is an Linux app that makes calls. The purpose of reimplementation is generally to screw consumers. There's nothing special about a phone that requires you to put everything into a VM. I don't know why firefox is doing it. I did order a development phone, though, because if it takes off, I want a share:)
  - glogla 12y ago
    > I don't know why firefox is doing it. To make it more accessible. Way more people can make web page than make QT or GTK GUI. Way more people can do Javascript than can program in C or C++. That means, that everyone is stuck with html and js, but I think it's worth it.
  - sp332 12y ago
    It's really frustrating to try to take a photo from a web app. Before Firefox OS, Android didn't even let web pages interact with the phone's dialer, which is like the #1 feature of a phone. Firefox OS is a platform for developing web APIs that can interact with all the phone parts. After standardization, these APIs could be implemented by any phone's web browser, like Chrome on Android or even IE on Windows Phone.

pessimizer 12y ago

>Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome. Linux phones are real. I've been using one exclusively for the past 5 years.

sp332 12y ago
Nokia?