Thanks Andre! I understand your frustration, I felt the same many times during the last years :(
Following my own advice and focusing on what is on our hands: * I don't think none would object to Gaia/Gecko updates being managed by Mozilla if there are some guarantees the updates do not affect the basic device functionality (Connectivity, Voice Calls, SMS...). Carriers have a contractual relationship with the customers and some legal obligations that need to ensure, beyond that, we'd love our customers to enjoy continuous updates of the applications (I am thinking in apps such as e-mail, Gallery, Musics, Video Player...). I believe that is mostly a technical problem and I really hope is part of Firefox OS 3.0. * Carrier billing could seem at a glance like a big gap. However, it has been activated in some other countries and the adoption by developers is extremely poor. I think that FirefoxOS payment solution should be reviewed in detail to understand why is that happening, maybe the problem is something bigger than the lack of carrier billing in some countries. Thanks again for your constructive feedback El lunes, 26 de enero de 2015, 14:03:18 (UTC+1), Andre Garzia escribió: > Hi Daniel, > > TL;DR: First lets all acknowledge that without TEF there would be no firefox > os, at least not in the form it exists today. TEF contributions to the > project can't be diminished, its trully a partnership endeavour. Also the > partners took risks building devices and joined in which was wonderful. I > have some specific criticisms regarding some aspects of things, some are > personal and I understand that from a business perspective I am probably > wrong but as usual I prefer to put users first. I will do some coments inline > with your comments below. > > > > > > > > DC: This is simply a wrong statement, I cannot talk on behalf of LG, but I > can talk about Telefónica, which by the way has been (and still is) the main > carrier supporting FirefoxOS. > > > > > Yes, thats completely true. > > > > > > Telefónica tried to do everything we could do to convince LG to upgrade > devices. The no updates problem is occurring only with 1 OEM in TEF footprint > and based on that experience we took measures to avoid that from happening > again. I can't disclose publicly those measures as they are part of the > contractual relationships between Telefónica and the OEMs. However, I can let > you know that we are offering free data traffic for updates in nearly all the > countries and that we have upgraded Fire E devices to 2.0 in less than 3 > months since the QC CS was available to the OEM. > > > > I believe so. I was privvy of some of these conversations. My frustrations > are towards LG because we all know that going from 1.1 to 1.3 is not that > hard and its a great leap in terms of user experience. > > > > > > > > > At the launch, devices were subsidized were selling really well. After the > > initial impact people started complaining about the lack of major apps and > > the lack of upgrades. In our training materials and pitch we defended the > > notion that the phones would be upgraded at least twice a year, that never > > happened. > > > > > > People started returning the phones or selling them on auction sites > > because without WhatsApp support the phone was not seen as an alternative > > to cheap Androids. After that Vivo cut the subsidies and now phones retail > > for more than a more powerful Android device. A LG Fireweb phone will cost > > ~R$400 where an Android phone can be purchased by ~R$300. > > > > > > > DC: Telefonica is investing a lot of money trying to do whatever it takes to > launch FirefoxOS devices, part of that work (e.g. subsidies) can only be > afforded for some units/time, as the budget required is huge, and the > expectation was that after a ramp up period, fewer subsidies were going to be > required because of economy of scales: more devices, more attractive, with > more content and more brand awareness... Unfortunately, this has not happened > and I think it would be wrong to blame carriers or OEMs for this. > > > > What you can't ask VIVO is to continue subsidising devices endlessly, if you > believe subsidising devices is the way to go, why is not Mozilla simply > subsdising the devices? > > > > No I don't expect subsidies to go on forever. The problem is that the message > we passed during launch is different than what actually happened. During > launch we focused on three key points: > > > - Frequent updates > > - Low cost > > - Carrier billing > > > We all know about the "frequent updates" issue since this is the main reason > for this thread. Mozilla can't update the phone on its own, it depends on > carriers and OEMs to do it and sometimes they are unwilling to do so. In the > case of LG there was an update late last year but it did nothing except some > proximity sensor calibration and GPS fixing. Since they were putting the > effort to update, it would not be that hard to support their loyal user base > with a 1.3 update. > > > An Alcatel OT Fire costs close to 200 USD here, it sells for half the price > in other countries of latin america. We can blame taxes on this one but it > becomes a really hard sell. > > > Carrier billing was never activated in Brazil. This was a feature that > attracted third-party app developers because they were relying on impulse > buyers and the target demographic is not that keen on using credit cards. > > > > > > This is a very simplistic conclusion: devices are sold because of the great > Mozilla values and the only problem is the partners. > > > > In the beginning you said devices were initially sold because of subsidies > (which came from Vivo), and now you say "We sold well"? I would not say > something sells well if for doing so it requires subsidies as that is not > sustainable. Furthermore, who is "we"? mozilla, the carrier, the OEM? I am > really confused. > > > > > Sorry if it appears to be a mixed message. Thats not what I meant. By we I > mean mozilla + carriers + OEMs, Firefox OS is a partnership effort. > > > IMHO the main problem is that people had a different expectations regarding > how updates would be done and all frustration and problems come from there. > Mozilla has 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, and 2.2 versions out there, some finished and > some not. Phones are still on 1.1 and since they are locked there is no way > for us to do community builds. > > > > > > "We blew it by relying on partners shipping locked devices". Ok, if this is > the problem, I'd suggest you look for more carriers and OEMs. Why are not all > the carriers in Brazil selling FirefoxOS devices? Why are not all the OEMs in > the world manufacturing them? Why are not all the people buying them? If > FirefoxOS is such a great solution that sells that well, finding those > partners should be an easy task. Telefónica would welcome such an scenario, > as it would be the best way to reach the economy of scales I mentioned above. > > > > I am pretty sure that what carriers and OEMs do could be largely improved, > but I think we should focus on what is in our hands: > > > > With respect to updates, some ideas: > > 1/ Ensure new releases are predictable about when are delivered and what they > contain. For partners is really difficult to have an update policy if the > cadence of the releases changes from 6 to 3 months and vice versa, releases > are canceled or the content of a release changes... This is even more > complicated if these decisions are unilateral, poorly communicated and not > enough time in advance. > > 2/ Provide a better update system: currently the updates are all or nothing, > meaning that for updating a single app, the system update process must be > used. This is clearly not how the Web works and how a Web device should be > updated. > > 3/ Test exhaustively updates: Every time Telefónica we have tested an update > scenario with an OEM, we ended up discovering pretty bad bugs (e.g. data > loss, mis-functioning functionality... ). We have lost a lot of time > detecting and fixing these bugs, which are sometimes really hard to solve as > they are usually discovered at a very late stage of the branching process... > There is one thing worse than no updating the devices: updating and breaking > them. > > > > Its beyond my knowledge to answer some of those questions but I can talk a > bit about updates. It would be good if Mozilla could ship gecko + gaia > updates on its own. > > > There are lots of people involved with Firefox OS that could help with test > and bugfixing. Each launch country has a Firefox OS launch team, the india > team alone has 30 people. These are volunteer that would be glad to help any > QA process needed. If it was easy to upgrade phones to test builds then we > could all do it. > > As for the bugs you mentioned, that sound nasty. > > > > > > > With respect to content and ecosystem: > > 1/ Try to look for alternatives to the key missing content (e.g. WhatsApp - > which, for instance, is available in Tizen devices) > > 2/ Try to ensure any Web content runs properly in FirefoxOS (there is already > an e-mail thread discussing that). > > > > Tizen has Android compatibility to the ACL app (also available to webOS and > Sailfish) which makes things a lot easier. Finding alternatives to > monoculture is hard. We do have LINE and Telegram which work great on Firefox > OS but since locals use other solution then its a very hard start. WhatsApp > is even used by companies to do marketing and branding actions here. Very odd > situation. > > > Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply to me. We all know how hard > people work on this project and how frustrating some steps are. There is a > lot of potential that is unrealized here in Brazil. There is a lot of work we > can do together. I know I've sounded bitter in my previous email but its just > that after more than a year going between users, developers and partners > trying to figure out a solution takes a lot of effort. > > > I just wish they relese the new TCLs here... > > > > -- > > http://www.andregarzia.com -- All We Do Is Code. > http://fon.nu -- minimalist url shortening service. _______________________________________________ dev-b2g mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g
