New Web Based Mobile OS By Mozilla On The Way

It appears as if Mozilla is planning on developing what is deemed a truly open source mobile operating system based on the web. An HTML5 based mobile OS, to be exact.

Boot to Gecko, the name of the project as announced by researcher Andreas Gal, will be done in the open and all code would be published as it is written.

As many of you know, Gecko is the rendering engine that powers Firefox. The aim of the project will be to get apps running without the need for the browser, effectively creating a web based OS. Some building blocks from Android are going to be utilized for booting and drivers, though ditching Google’s OS is an option if that’s what the Mozilla community feels is best.

Mozilla believes that the web can displace proprietary, single vendor stacks for application development. To make open web technologies a better basis for future applications on mobile and desktop alike, we need to keep pushing the envelope of the web to include – and in places exceed – the capabilities of the competing stacks in question. – Andreas Gal, researcher at Mozilla

The project is looking to the Mozilla community to take part in the development of Boot to Gecko and if you have an interest in this, check out the link below.

Booting to the Web