Mozilla is best known for its browser Firefox, but they are not sitting idly by on the operating system front. The company announced Monday that they are developing their own operating system to compete in the Tablet PC front.
The new Mozilla project is codenamed “Boot to Gecko” or B2G. Its goal is to complete a standalone operating system for the open web. It will involve building brand new APIS from scratch that can take advantage of SMS, Camera, USB, Bluetooth, telephone functions, and more. It will also be releasing an SDK for developers to make custom applications for the new OS.
Mozilla is making claims that the entire development cycle of the operating system will be made open source. So the community has an opportunity to offer feedback and make sure it is a well made, complete product. We heard it will be using HTML 5 and other web standards that promote secure web browsing as an option.
One of the developers of the project Mike Shaver is claiming that the OS will take some aspects of Google Android to enhance it. They do want to use as little of it as possible, but will use the Kernel and Drivers.
While Google developed their Chrome OS and has not caught on with consumers or manufactures with their laptop or tablet business. There is only a few operating systems currently being employed in the tablet space, such as; iOS, Android, Meego, and webOS. There is room for another OS if Mozilla does it right and they do have a solid track record with open sourced development. Stay tuned.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
