Mozilla Working on Their Mobile OS - Boot to Gecko

Google is getting reasonable mileage with their attempt at creating an operating system built around the web. Chrome OS, and more importantly Android is just that. Mozilla is working on an OS called Boot to Gecko. As its name suggests, it’s an operating system that boots directly into Gecko, the web engine behind the Mozilla Firefox web browser and some of the other Mozilla projects. According to a post by Dr. Andreas Gal, a key researcher at Mozilla, the thought behind the idea is that web technologies can replace locally run applications. This same ideology is behind most other web-based operating systems. The Boot to Gecko project has been designed for phones and tablets, wherein the phone will boot straight into the Firefox web browser.

Boot to Gecko - Web apps are the future, even on mobile platforms

Boot to Gecko’s source will be available in real time, so users can choose to download it, compile it and get it running. The starting point for Boot to Gecko is Android. The focus of the development of Boot to Gecko would be to get APIs that would allow components on the local machine to be accessible to the apps. This would include components such as the cameras, USB, Bluetooth, etc. Security would be an equally important part of the development process. The Boot to Gecko code should be made available on Andrea Gal’s Github page.