Mozilla stops working on Firefox OS and passes the source code to the open source community



    Yesterday, September 27, Mozilla sent out notifications that it was stopping work on the Firefox OS (Boot to Gecko) project . Existing developments will be transferred to the open source community.

    Back in 2015, the company management came to the conclusion that the Firefox OS project did not live up to their expectations. In July 2016, Mozilla stopped the commercial development of its own operating system.

    Firefox OS is an operating system for tablets and smartphones based on the free Gecko engine, which the Mozilla Foundation took part in developing.

    Development began more than five years ago - on July 26, 2011, a representative of the Mozilla Foundation officially announced the start of work on the creation of Firefox OS.

    In February 2012, Telefónica, together with the Mozilla Foundation, released a prototype smartphone running Boot to Gecko (code-named Firefox OS).

    Firefox OS, according to the creators, had the following competitive advantages:

    • open source and hardware platform;
    • low hardware requirements;
    • quick execution of simple applications;
    • HTML5 support.

    A few years later, none of the positions in this list could become decisive when buying a smartphone, because the ecosystem built around the platform began to play the main role.

    The company is now preparing Firefox OS for public release for further work on the project. Its engine will be "cleaned up" from associations with Mozilla.

    You can find the full text of the appeal to the development team here .

    The company recognized the complete commercial insolvency of the project and is completely curtailing its presence in this area. The transfer of code is more a gesture of "goodwill" for those who have linked their hopes with Firefox OS and worked in this direction.

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