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It has been a fortnight that saw one of SitePoint’s favorite niche mobile operating systems decide to call it a day, with Mozilla announcing that it will officially stop development on Firefox OS. I think this has been inevitable for some time and whilst it’s sad news, it’s good to see Mozilla honing it’s focus, a long overdue step. The platform will remain open source, so will live on in the minds and devices of enthusiasts.
This was also the fortnight that Apple’s Swift become open source and whilst many have pointed out that, for various reasons, we shouldn’t get too excited about Apple open-sourcing anything, besides a lot of GitHub stars, there have already been some interesting results.
- A Linux Port, Android next?
- Backend Swift to complete your stack
- A Swift Package Manager
Where these end up remains to be seen, but if a well supported and managed language manages to present a modern, cross-platform and viable alternative, can it be all bad?
I’d love to know your opinions.