I still see no reason why they couldn't reboot the project and agree with his thinking here: "Create a mid-range tablet ... Carve out a niche in developed markets first ... Firefox OS was actually five years too early!"

I always thought they were trying to put a ChromeOS competitor on a phone when it actually belonged on laptops, tablets and 2-in-1s (to start). I would have been very interested in a device running an extension-rich privacy-respecting browser, using open tech, focused on education and as a device to develop for.

It's essentially Mozilla's mission statement made into physical form. Dealing with corporate interests, as the article suggests, forced Mozilla to diverge from their base (end-users). It was a learning experience, that was all.

I don't actually expect the project to be revived and that's a real shame given the hostility of the alternatives (not including Linux, etal) available to (the rest of) us.