Re: “Closing the gap with native” headlight project

Hi All,

I'm Jonas Sicking from Mozilla. One of the things I'm currently
working on is Firefox OS which is entirely based on the web. This
means that:

1. I believe that the web is largely competitive with native already.
2. I'd like to fix the cases where that isn't the case, as to enable
web developers to create the same experiences for web users as
developers on other platforms can for their users.
3. Giving users good experiences is the ultimate goal. Enabling
developers is our primary means of doing so, but we still need to keep
end users needs in mind at all times.

Some areas that I think are in great need are:

* Offline support
* Improved security models. Right now all web content is treated as
"probably written by a malicious author" which limits what we are able
to do.
* Compensation. Many developers are much more interested in writing
software when they can get paid for it.
* Hardware integration. Getting access to sensors and ports available
on the device.
* User-data integration. Getting access to pictures, music, contacts,
calendars, etc, that the user has stored on the device.
* Network performance. Websites end up both creating redundant
connections as well as download redundant data currently.

/ Jonas

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Thanks again for showing interest in the “Closing the gap with Native”
> headlight project (see background on headlight projects [1]).
>
> The premise of this project is that in the world of mobile devices,
> native applications (based e.g. on iOS or Android SDKs) are gaining
> greater mindshare among users and developers compared to Web apps; we
> want to look at what needs to happen to ensure the Web remains a strong
> platform on these devices.
>
> One of the specific goals of this project will be to deliver at the
> latest by July a list of prioritized tasks that W3C should fund, for
> approval by the W3C management.
>
> One of my personal goals will be to look at where W3C has a specific
> role to play and a greater chance to succeed in influencing the world,
> but of course that shouldn't prevent us as a group to look at what other
> (non-w3c) initiatives would be needed to achieve our more general goal.
>
> Before we're able to make such a list of prioritized tasks, I think we
> need to have a clear picture of where we think we're getting behind
> native apps, what we're already doing to catch up, which space the Web
> has a natural advantage to native apps. We'll also need to consider what
> trade-offs are required to catch up, and whether these trade-offs are
> worth it.
>
> I think we also need to agree on some common terminology to avoid
> hitting classical ambiguities with terms such as "Web apps" or "hybrid
> apps".
>
> I've started doing some work in that direction in the W3C wiki:
> http://www.w3.org/wiki/Closing_the_gap_with_native on which I welcome
> feedback.
>
> But as a first step, I would certainly appreciate if the various people
> on this list could introduce themselves, explain their interests on the
> project, and maybe give a rough idea of what they think the problem is,
> and where they think most of needs are.
>
> Dom
>
> 1. http://www.w3.org/wiki/Headlights2013
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 15 February 2013 04:14:48 UTC