The OS was announced four years ago as “Boot to Gecko”

Feb 3, 2017 09:28 GMT  ·  By

Firefox OS has had a short life for sure. The open-source operating system was partially based on Android and on web technologies, particularly made for smartphones, tablet computers and smart TVs as an alternative to Android OS in emerging countries.

Mozilla wanted to provide users in emerging countries with an alternative to Android OS, especially for low-end devices that have as little as 128MB of RAM. However, public interest in Firefox OS has been quite low, and in December 2015, Mozilla stopped the development of new Firefox OS phones after announcing the last Firefox OS version in September.

Firefox OS is built in HTML, JavaScript and CSS and it competed directly against Android OS, iOS, Windows Phone, Sailfish OS and BlackBerry 10. After noticing that Firefox OS doesn’t really take off, Mozilla repositioned the Firefox OS as the “connected devices team” and wanted to find new ways of using the product. The only device that did see a new utilization for Firefox OS was Panasonic 4K TV, which featured a modified build.

50 developers from Firefox OS will be laid off

Now, CNET reports that Mozilla intends to lay off the entire connected devices team, which consists of approximately 50 employees. This would certainly mark the end of Firefox OS and of Mozilla’s attempt to provide a reliable open-source OS for a certain category of users that don’t have the opportunity to get the latest premium phones.

Mozilla provided a statement on the matter: “We have shifted our internal approach to the internet-of-things opportunity to step back from a focus on launching and scaling commercial products to one focused on research and advanced development, dissolving our connected devices initiative and incorporating our internet-of-things explorations into an increased focus on emerging technologies.”

Hearing about Firefox OS’s discontinuation, we can’t help but think about Cyanogen OS, which was discontinued late last year. Cyanogen OS was another open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets, based on Android. Rebranded development continues under the LineageOS name, which won’t be the case for Firefox OS.