Mozilla working on mobile OS

[Simon]

Mozilla has announced plans to create its own web-based operating system, to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The "Boot to Gecko" system will sit on top of the Android kernel, letting developers use it on the myriad devices released running Google's mobile OS.

It will be a "standalone operating system for the open web," researcher Andreas Gal said on a Mozilla discussion group, and as the name suggests, it will boot into a system based on the Gecko rendering engine, the basis for the Firefox browser.

The system sounds as though it will have much in common with Google's Chrome OS, which is also based on its browser and runs web apps.

While the Mozilla OS will sit on top of Android, it won't be based on the Google system. "We intend to use as little of Android as possible, in fact," noted vice president of technical strategy Mike Shaver, saying it would use the kernel and drivers, but not, for example, graphics APIs. "It's nice to start from something that's known to boot and have access to all the devices we want to expose."

Read more: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/368884/mozilla-working-on-mobile-os

[Rik]

Interesting move. I wonder if Google will try to make life difficult for them?

[pctech]

<pedant mode> If it sits atop another Kernel its not really an OS </pedant mode>