Mozilla Makes Prototype of Firefox OS Available 101
Thinkcloud writes "Even though the operating system hasn't arrived in a version for smartphones and tablets just yet, Firefox OS is available as a prototype module that you can run on Windows, Mac or Linux computers (download page). The initial Firefox OS phones are expected to arrive in 2013, and it's been reported that Alcatel and ZTE are the first manufacturers on board."
What Is To Be Gained? (Score:4, Insightful)
Competition Is Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The smartphone market already has a ton of operating systems, each with their own ecosystem of applications. What is to be gained by introducing another this late in the game? I would much rather Mozilla focus all of their development efforts on making Firefox better. I just switched from Chrome back to Firefox and the memory management of Firefox still leaves a LOT to be desired.
Well, one thing that I would like to see is more free open source mobile operating systems. Right now Android is dominating [slashdot.org] and I'm afraid that this will lead to a stagnant ecosystem in the mobile operating system world.
iOS is a good operating system but it can't compete with how cheap Android is and how pervasive it's becoming. You may think it's best for everyone to keep their heads down and concentrate on their bread and butter but I'd like to see someone challenge Android to be better. A natural monopoly could arise that causes Android development to stagnate and I don't think that'd be good for anyone.
As a consumer, you should be excited that another genuine contender is attempting to enter the ring against this unstoppable behemoth.
I love Android and I've used it as my mobile OS for the past three or four years but I wouldn't turn down another operating system that is open source and somehow better, would you?
I just switched from Chrome back to Firefox and the memory management of Firefox still leaves a LOT to be desired.
Firefox OS is part of their labs development. While you may have genuine concerns about their browser, I don't think they should shut down all their experimentation in the name of memory management (speaking of which my own personal experiences have been that their memory management is getting slowly better). Could you elaborate on what "a LOT to be desired" specifically is?