Mozilla, who are renowned for their successful internet
browser, are entering the mobile race, developing a new web-centric OS that
will directly compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft.
If the name Mozilla rings any bells
it's because they're the tech boffins who put together Internet Explorer, the
browser that Windows defaults to. Mozilla took the leviathan computing company
on with its Firefox browser, and today it stands as the second most popular
browser worldwide.
Now the company who was underdog to
Microsoft looks to be playing the same role, but this time against internet
mogul Google.
Announced on the Mozilla discussion
forum, Mozilla have begun coding for phones and tablets. The BBC revealed the
mobile operating system will draw on Android code, with Mozilla writing as much
fresh code as possible. The hybrid-like operating system will be named Boot To
Gecko.
It is an unusual name for an OS,
until you remember Gecko is the rendering engine employed by the Firefox
browser that interprets web page coding and displays it in a screen-friendly
format, a homage to its origins.
Even though Android coding will form
the operating system's foundations, Mozilla hope to add a much more open
wrapper around it than Google currently do, making it more versatile as an
operating system.
Its shared foundations will also
make Boot To Gecko compatible with the same phones as Android, competing as a
direct alternative to Google.
Often, when you select a link from
an application native to the Android or iOS market, the operating system will
have to open a new webpage in the browser. Boot To Gecko aims to limit this by
making applications much more web-centric.
If the venture proves successful,
Mozilla will be waging war against industry giants, with Google, Apple and Microsoft dominating many
facets of the technological world.
Mozilla have acknowledged the
project is in infancy and have chosen to make the development public in hope it
will attract talented enthusiast coders who will contribute to the Boot To
Gecko's cause.
According to their project team, all
of the code development will be completed and shared with the public as soon as
it is written.
Researcher Andreas Gal, who
announced the development, admits the company has set a high target, but wants
to do it "the way we think open source should be done.
Gal says his ultimate goal is to
break "the stranglehold of proprietary technologies over the mobile device
world," implicitly referring to the practices of Apple, Windows Phone and Google.
0 comments:
Post a Comment