If you are a Mozilla rep, you probably want to delete this post or at least remove your overtly critical language. Hardware manufactures invest a lot of resources trying to build for your platform. They are your customer. Insulting them is not good business..
His post is one of the most useful post I have read on HN for months.
I don't have the slightest sympathy for the manufacturers who face difficulties when building phones. I do have sympathy for people who buy crap hardware (because that's all that exists) and suffer because of it. And I am especially annoyed when I buy crap hardware because all the reviews were fake, like you suggest them to be.
Well, that's not true. Neo Freerunner and GTA04 both exist and Neo900 will soon join them. None of them needs any bizzare "rooting" and if you want to port some OS to them you're ready to go. All you need to have that's not openly available to everyone for free is a device.
Of course they all have some flaws, but as a consumer you do have a choice.
Also, GTA04 and Neo900 should both be perfectly capable to run Firefox OS.
Users are the customer. You can keep the hardware companies as happy as you like by not offending any of them, but by being honest to the actual users about the strengths and weaknesses of various phones, you are far more likely to build a long term base.
edit - and any hardware companies you work with who are worth their salt will understand this and take any criticisms on board. The end-users will be far less polite.
Hardware vendors also write some of the worst firmware, and since next to none of them publish their source code, it can't be fixed by the community. Most people I talk to suspect systemic IP infringement at the hardware/software interface, which would be a good reason for source code obfuscation.
Lets agree to disagree. The hardware manufacturers are our partners and so are the carriers but if it ever comes to a time where we can't be honest and speak our opinions than we're no longer Mozilla.
The OP asked for opinions on phones. I have all of them so I thought I was on a specially good position to give mine.
And from where we stand, business is keeping the internet free and open made by users and for users where everyone can be a creator and not only a consumer. This type of business begins when we're able in engage in healthy conversations such as this one. ;-)
Lol, down voted. Weak, HN, very very weak. This guy could lose his position over that post and I was just trying to help him (maybe it's just a volunteer thing, though).
If he was at our company, he would have been fired in a heartbeat. Publicly insulting partners like that? Yikes..
I am very thankful not to be in a company where employees don't have a voice.
I am not a Mozilla employee, I am a Mozilla rep. Its a volunteer position. Mozilla is this strange thing where 800 employees and 100.000 volunteers (reps or not) work togheter for the benefit of you. We're only able to work for the betterment of the internet if we're able to voice our concerns, opinions and judgement.
As for insulting partners, I've insulted no one. I think the partners are wonderful trailblazers but I wish the phones were open. All retail phones ship with Firefox OS 1.1 and they could all be running 1.2 or 1.3 by now if the partners did an OTA or if the phones were unlocked. Knowing this and talking about this is honesty, a very valuable thing for partnerships.
