IT and Society: Mozilla builds mobile OS

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation is planning to release its own mobile OS. The project is known as “Boot to Gecko” (B2G). The future OS will make use of Gecko engine, that powers other Mozilla products – Firefox browser and e-mail client Thunderbird.

Boot to Gecko is likely to focus on HTML5-based web apps what makes the project look like Chrome OS, developed by Google.

Mozilla reports that the source code will be released to the public in real-time. By contrast, while Google's Android mobile operating system is open source, the main development work on it does not become available until after Google has green-lit its publication. Mozilla OS is announced to use some of Android’s elements. In particular, two systems will share a common kernel and drivers.

Though the company does not announce the release date, they say its first versions will appear in a year or a couple of years. OS will go with smart phones and tablets.