asked 2015-12-09 14:08:24 +0300
Sad news for the open source community but could be turn out as good news for Sailfish and Jolla at least Mozilla Will Stop Developing And Selling Firefox OS
Jolla should now try to get the companies on board who distributed FirefoxOS devices ...
answered 2015-12-09 14:46:54 +0300
A half ass try (firefox os) in a timeframe of 2-3 years isn't enough to start making a difference in an established market. It needs a longer time frame and flawless execution to get people to notice. You have to give them a better experience and have a product that works nicely.
Firefox OS wasn't anything special to start with and didn't offer anything exciting. Hence the results.
+1 I've got one of the firsts FxOS Phone and was absolutely shocked by how bad it was.
FxOS is a mix of all the bad things in Android and iOS (and some good things from webOS), was largely featureless[1] and there was a lot a very bad decisions[2].... And the browser does not have any plugins or configuration (that's was probably what shock me the most).
But still, it was pretty smooth on really bad hardware.
[1] I still boot on it sometime to test lastest nightlies and check if they fix one of the largest flaw IMHO : it's impossible to connect to a mail service that have a selfsigned certificate (like mine). On the firsts releases, it was also impossible to browse website that have selfsigned certificates.
[2] For example, when Apple introduce flat design, I recieve the day after an update that bring... Flat design. And nothing else. And none of my tickets where closed.
sedric ( 2015-12-09 15:55:10 +0300 )editanswered 2015-12-09 19:13:36 +0300
Yes, it's sad news indeed, but for me the pattern that emerges is pretty clear: the mainstream market of mobile OS's is saturated, at least in the sense that mainstream users and hardware manufacturers do not see any added value in using an alternative OS. Even Microsoft is bearly holding up, and it's the leviathan of the group. I have raised this point before. Attempting to frontally compeate with Android and iOS is a battle that doesn't seem to be winabble at the current state of things, so Jolla should concentrate in building up a niche, lowering costs by focusing on the core OS development and selling official ports to popular HW to interested users. They should concentrate on satisfying the needs and wishes of the community, instead of trying to desperately win over main stream users and carriers.
Nope. All three major OSes offer the same tap,tap,tap experience that the only difference there is is the layout and the graphics. Clearly a swipe based interface is superior and a huge advantage. Also to win people over you have to combine a great UI experience and nice hardware. Not in the sense of amillioncore processors and terapixel cams but a device that complements the SW and is desirable from an aesthetics POV. And above that things have to work. Email, Syncs connections etc etc should be set and forget.
However apps are the difficult part.
ApB ( 2015-12-09 21:09:16 +0300 )editYou can win by Open Sourcing your code and allow anyone to modify, redistribute, develop, fork etc. Take the best from community and put your OS at work on any device. IoT is screaming for a stable and open OS. Sailfish can become "The OS of everything" only if is OPEN.
tvicol ( 2015-12-10 10:27:22 +0300 )editanswered 2015-12-10 08:40:42 +0300
Fortunately was only a misunderstood: Mozilla discontinue the phone carriers distribution, but the development of the OS and the OEMs production continue normally; here a link to the Fairphone forum about (they want to port FxOS on Fairphone 2 too)
Asked: 2015-12-09 14:08:24 +0300
Seen: 1,511 times
Last updated: Dec 10 '15
The companies on board who distributed FirefoxOS are big players like Alcatel, LG, ZTE, Huawei etc. They care zero about FirefoxOS, which by the way was a real open-source alternative. These companies care even less about SailfishOS as long they keep certain parts of the OS closed.
tvicol ( 2015-12-09 14:46:21 +0300 )editIndeed, Sailfish needs to be Open up. Evenmore, being open to the community is also a requirement. Minimal change is removing the current CEO, for all is "un-openness", to say it nicely.
wim de vries ( 2015-12-09 15:15:24 +0300 )edit