Mozilla has released a mobile operating system which is completely open source. According to MozillaWiki, Boot to Gecko uses the Android kernel and drivers, but the source code will be made available in real-time.

Google has locked down its Android 3.0 Honeycomb code on lockdown months after it first arrived on a tablet and its SDK was released. The OS still has a few problems. Browser-based software can't get into the the system hardware. Geolocation in the browser is possible, too, but Mozilla wants new APIs that allow developers to hook into the other hardware and mobile devices.

Mozilla said that it does not want native-grade apps just run on Firefox, it is trying to have them run on the web in a move that will displace proprietary, single-vendor stacks for application development. Mozilla will have a few problems getting its new operating system accepted. It does not have close ties with hardware manufacturers, although licensing fees could be a selling point. Mozilla’s browser OS will have few strings attached.