On 4 February 2016 at 08:35, George Roter <gro...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> > Through the work of hundreds of contributors we made an awesome push and > created an impressive platform in Firefox OS. However, as we announced in > December, the circumstances of multiple established operating systems and > app ecosystems meant that we were playing catch-up, and the conditions were > not there for Mozilla to win on commercial smartphones. > I want to follow up on this one point because I've seen this text quoted in the press and internally so many times and I think the way it's worded provides a misrepresentation. There is a common misconception that what we set out to do with the Boot to Gecko project was to build an operating system that could compete with Android and iOS to become the "third platform" on mobile. As I understood it that was never our goal, and neither was our intention for "Mozilla to win on commercial smartphones". Had anyone told me that was the goal I would never have joined Mozilla to work on the Boot to Gecko project four years ago. The original stated goal <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.platform/dmip1GpD5II/CzJSSUMq5HsJ> was to prove that the *web* could be that platform, on both mobile and desktop. "*We aren't trying to have these native-grade apps just run on Firefox, we're trying to have them run on the web*." B2G/Firefox OS was a means to that end by enabling us to prototype new capabilities for the web and to give us a seat at the standardisation table in those areas. We succeeded in building "*prototype APIs for exposing device and OS capabilities to content*", a "*privilege model to make sure that these new capabilities are safely exposed to pages and applications*", a "*low-level substrate to boot on an Android compatible device*" and "*apps to prove out and prioritize the power of the system*". Not all of the new APIs we created went on to become web standards and at some points as the project grew we lost sight of that goal. Also in setting out as a technical experiment explicitly focused on proving the technology rather than providing a compelling end user experience, we probably didn't do the project justice by giving it a fair chance of succeeding as a product. But the fact that Boot to Gecko has gone on to become Firefox OS and shipped on over 15 commercial smartphones in over 30 countries has already completely exceeded my personal expectations for it as a product. Meanwhile there are now over 100,000 cross-vendor web apps on the open web using new standards like Service Workers, Push Notifications and Web Manifest and they're growing fast. Mozilla can not claim sole responsibility for this, but to me this is a much better measure of success against our mission than any over-ambitious sales targets of OEMs or mobile carriers for their own products. The process of creating new web standards might take longer than the lifecycle of some products, but the health of the web is what matters for Mozilla's mission, and is what we should continue to work towards with Firefox OS and other projects in the Connected Devices team. The reason I bring this up is not to defend the B2G project, but to try to set the scene for our work in Connected Devices going forward. In creating a "platform" for the Internet of Things we should make sure not to build a Mozilla platform, but to build a Web of Things built on open standards which can eventually stand up on its own and exist without Mozilla's involvement if it has to. That might involve building some great Mozilla products along the way and by focusing on creating a compelling end user experience we'll greatly amplify the impact we can have with those products. But ultimately we should measure our success by the health of the Internet as a global public resource open and accessible to all. I continue to be excited about expanding Firefox OS into new areas and tackling new challenges in this increasingly connected world, with whatever tools we need to achieve that! All the Best Ben
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