Mozilla moots open source web OS for mobiles
Chrome for phones?
Mozilla has revealed plans to create an open-source web-centric operating system along the lines of Google's Chrome OS but designed to compete with Android on phones and tablets.
The Boot to Gecko project will "pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web" in a bid to "displace proprietary, single-vendor stacks for application development".
According to Dr. Andrea Gal, a Mozilla researcher and one of the four minds behind the proposal, Boot to Gecko seeks to plug "the gaps that keep web developers from being able to build apps that are - in every way - the equals of native apps built for the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7".
Gal admits the endeavour is a long way for completion, and he identified a number of key challenges that need to be overcome for the project to succeed.
First, the team must create web APIs to make use of a mobile's primary capabilities, such as Telephony, SMS, Camera, USB, Bluetooth and NFC. Then they have to develop a way for web pages and apps to access them safely, before building a prototype on an Android-device along with applications to utilise the system and prioritise the power.
As you might have gathered, Boot to Gecko is still very much in its infancy, but Mozilla is seeking more expertise to make it happen. We'll let you know when we hear more. ®
COMMENTS
Bugs
The darned import of contacts into Thunderbird from Outlook still chokes aplenty - bug which has been with Thunderbird for years - but clearly fixing it is not sexy enough work for the great minds at Mozilla. Why don't they give the money they receive to some other group of people ready to do all that boring - but desperately necessary work of building useful software.
Oh - and if they want a new project - why don't they work on a calendar and contacts server to go with Thunderbird and Lightning - capable of seamlessly syncing few thousand appointments over a slow link?
Oh, sorry, I forgot - they are only capable of copying whatever fad the other big IT companies are into right this minute.
What is it with Mozilla?
They have this habit of coming up with an open source version of a good idea years after it has left the station.
First mobile firefox was years too late, now this.
As another poster said why don't they just concentrate on making their core product better?
have they learned nothing from the past?
Remind me why this isn't the same colossal mistake Microsoft made embedding Internet Explorer so deeply in the OS?
I want my net facing apps as strongly isolated from my local system as possible and that's a hell of a lot quicker and easier to get right if they're just apps, not parts of the OS. Mozzila will just end up reinventing the OS+Browser, so I suggest they just work on the browser part, let someone else deal with the OS layer.
Considering how long it took to make the Firefox Mobile app...
...I wouldn't expect this to be ready to use before, say, 2020.
Is there a point?
Chrome is of pretty tenuous usefulness as it is. What does BTG offer that we can't already get from Android, or some more conventional linux installation?
