Firefox OS is not dead on smartphones - Gathering people and ideas

B2G OS
#1

Hello everyone (first message on this discourse for me :smile:)

As everyone know, Mozilla is dropping Firefox OS development and support on smartphones. Regardless of the reason behind, a lot of us are not happy with that: you should want to continue to use and develop it.
Firefox OS has a big potential as a free operating system for mobile devices. We have a system close to be mature, really usable. It could be even better. Instead of restarting from scratch with another project, why not keeping Firefox OS alive ?
I’m sure I’m not the only one to think that.

So with a group of other people, we created a pad to discuss about that: we gather people and ideas in order to manage the resumption of Firefox OS (community based): https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/firefoxos_is_not_dead
I writing here to call for users to join us, and to try to contact other groups/movements like this. Instead of doing it with a lot of small, disparate and unlinked groups, it’s better to gather everyone in the same place, to grow up and make one big movement.
So please if you’re doing something similar, come here to discuss with. There is strengh in unity.

On the pad you will see all the people who are interested (and how they will help), and some ideas about the system we wants (aka Vision points) and what to do to reach those goals (aka What we will do). All those point came from the brainstorming pad, it’s like a summary of the emerging ideas (well, it’s community based ;)).

The big point that is blocking us for the moment is: Mozilla, can we continue to maintain and develop the smartphone part of Firefox OS ?
If not, we need to fork. In that case, will Mozilla help us ? I mean, by giving us an infrastructure (bug tracker, review system, forum, documentation) and by transferring code an knowledge ?
If Mozilla do it, it could help us a lot and help us reviving the future of web based mobile system :relaxed:

Thanks.

7 Likes
#2

Hiello,

I joined the initiative and will my best to save FirefoxOS. We have the best mobile OS, a web based OS!
If there are people from different communities, please spread the word and join the pad. Don’t hesitate to contact us to merge our efforts if you work on something too. The FirefoxOS Community will be stronger, this way.

1 Like
#3

Hi Lapineige,

I’m here with you all. And I sincerely hope that Mozilla will help us.

Firefox OS is one of the best Mozilla’s projects and I’m sure that the Foundation will give us a big hand, as it did with Thunderbird.

1 Like
#4

We are now more than 70 people. But most of them are French, so I think the news is still somewhat private, blocked in the French community.
So if you read this message, please spread the world in the community you know / you’re taking part, all over the world.

Running for the moment there is some interesting debates about the need (or not) of marketplace, the device support and porting choices, and so on. Join us :slight_smile:

1 Like
#5

Ok, if nobody says anything in the next 20 min, I’m posting this thread and the pad to dev-fxos, as nobody has done it before. (I have the day off, better be useful). Don’t hesitate to answer to it in dev-fxos!

EDIT: that’ my way of “[spreading] the word in the community you know / you’re taking part”

3 Likes
#6

Please, if you talk about something external, give links.
It’s for you and anyone who see this post. It’s anoying searching for hours to find where “dev-fxos” is, where “the mozilla discourse” is, etc. Everyone : Give links ! It’s useful and the new commers will be able to work faster.
Help others help us ;-).

1 Like
#7

dev-fxos mailing list is: https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos
And you’ll find a list of all mozilla ML pretty easily with your favorite search engine :slight_smile:

Most importantly, your entrypoint in the project is the official MDN doc, specifically https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS
(see the “Join the Firefox OS community” at the end of the page, there is also a link to the ML there).
Every newcomer should start there.

Then, for more specifc questions, the #fxos chan on IRC (you can ping me: autra, I’m always connected, but not always in front of the computer though) or the mailing-list are good medium.

2 Likes
#8

One possible idea for the future of FirefoxOS could be to apply for inclusion inside de Apache Software Foundation. It would give structure, access to resources and wider exposure to the open source community.

What do you think?

[EDIT] It depends of course on the terms that Mozilla establishes for the project once they drop it [/EDIT]

(crossposted at https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/organising-the-afterlife-of-firefox-os/6943)

#9

One response in the dev-fxos ML

I just wanted to let you know that Mozilla is working hard on a transition plan
for Firefox OS to make the codebase more maintainable going forward and
give the community more of a leading role on smartphones while we
continue to actively work on smart TV and other potential projects.

More details coming soon, thank you for your patience while we work out the details.

So wait and see.

1 Like
#10

Firefox OS is definitely NOT dead. As I always tell my colleagues asking me if the “news” about Firefox OS’s death true, that it is actually evolving from a mere mobile OS to a platform for Connected Devices.

Now, it would be awesome if the community will be able to port a usable update to the 1.3T devices. I know that it is rather difficult (still being optimistic that it is not impossible) to have these devices to see an update (else they are forever stuck in Firefox OS 1.3T), but the people who purchased these devices believed in Firefox OS.

1 Like
#11

Well, if we can install a new version on it, it might not be so difficult.

#12

I do disagree with this. Firefox OS as we knew, that is, Mozilla’s mobile OS, is dead. It has been killed to make room for a different product, the IoT platform, which is not going to serve smartphone users which bought a Firefox OS device. So in the end it’s not Firefox OS anymore, even if it keeps the name. That’s why some people are so angry at Mozilla now. Saying that “Firefox OS is not dead” sounds like a poor excuse to justify Mozilla’s choices or, at worst, a mocking to those who believed in the project. If Firefox OS will ever be revived, it’ll be thanks to a huge community effort.

(sorry for the rant @bobreyes, it’s in no way personal or against you.)

1 Like
#13

No worries. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I respect yours if that is how you see things are going on now with Firefox OS.

1 Like
#14

Hi,
as I proposed in another thread of this forum https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/firefox-os-connected-devices-announcement/6864/91?u=erotavlas, what about if do we make a crowd founding campaign in order to maintain Mozilla software live?
Instead of silently shut down several services as Firefox OS, Personas and Thunderbird, what about making a crowd founding campaign every year as done by Wikipedia for maintaining their wonderful enciclopedia.
For instance, Mozilla can make the following estimates:

  • For a complete Mozilla development and maintenance of the software they need FX developers required, FY other stuff required. Total amount to go on for one year is FM money.

  • For a community driven development and maintenance of the software with only a small part of Mozilla workers that teach the community they need fX developers required, fY other stuff required. Total amount to go on for one year is fM money.

Then, Mozilla or we as community can open a campaign directly into Mozilla website or other famous crowd founding platforms and see what will happen. I think that free and open source community together with normal people are willing to make donation to allow Mozilla go ahead without taking money from bad source or stopping the projects.

I prefer to pay a fee every year for a software maintained by a free foundation than have not to pay software made by some corporations that earn money from my online activities.

Let me know if I can help you in some way.
Best Regards
Salvatore

3 Likes
#15

I agree with you @erotavlas concerning the crowdfunding. I am ready to pay to maintain Firefox OS, but I’m not sure that Mozilla will follow this path. And I doubt that the money will be enough to pay the previous Firefox OS team, but it could pay some employees.

When you see that the FirefoxOS TV stick project was a really successfull project, even it has been cancelled after. I think Mozilla could try the crowfunding model, it can work!

The community can organize one when the project will be fully into their hands. It could help a lot to support the initiative.

#16

Hi
I like so much Firefox OS.
I have a new proyect for Firefox OS but I dont speak english.
Contact me spartan360@live.com.mx

1 Like
#17

Spartan,

please go to https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/firefoxos_is_not_dead, add yourself to the contributors list and explain us your ideas.

Each contribution is welcome but it’s almost impossibile (cause we all need a discussion) to contact everyone by mail.

Hope to hear soon news from you!

#18

So… after 1 week, no groups or community contacted us.
Are we alone ? Are we the only people (100) who want Firefox OS to stay alive (and great) ?
I don’t believe it.
Come on guys, please spread the word, help us gather people, energy and ideas. We can do it. And we is for community.

1 Like
#19

At the moment, the development of FxOS for smartphone has not ended yet. We are waiting for Mozilla to come up with a plan to transition development to be fully done by the community. But it’s not a us VS them situation. This OS was already partly developed by non-paid people, and they will likely be the one taking things forward first.

The pad and this thread have been posted to the ML, so they know some people are interested to help out, which will have its influence over the transition plan, I do hope. But now, they don’t have to contact us. We do. They don’t have to reach for us. We do need to start contributing to the os, taking bugs, subscribing to the ML and other still-official ways of communication, integrating ourselves in an already-existing and alive community. I can help for that if needed, in the limit of my knowledge.

1 Like
#20

Yeah, they don’t have to contact us.
They said they will announce their plans for the transition. They will not contact us, they will say it to the community in general (I don’t know in what way - that do not matter for us, we’ll know it).
But we need a lot of information to take the next step. For example, if we have no support, no tools from Mozilla, and no agreement (help ?) to maintain Firefox OS, ok we just have to fork, have our own website, bug tracker, repositories, and so on.
At the other extreme point of view, of we have full support and help, yeah, we can come on and help for Firefox 2.6 until we will do it alone.

So IMHO for now we need to wait (that don’t means doing nothing), follow the mailling-list and report bugs, maybe fix them for some of us (developers), but we can’t be so much involved.