Corey Shields, IT manager at Mozilla, stopped by to demo a prototype device running FirefoxOS. FirefoxOS is a Linux-based mobile operating system that runs entirely on Gecko, Firefox’s browser engine. It runs cross-platform HTML5 apps that can also be installed from Firefox for Android on Android devices. It is currently marketed towards the low-end smartphone market in third world countries.
The interface is also HTML5, written in HTML, JS, and CSS. Similarly Tizen, the Linux Foundation’s mobile operating system, will run webapps, and theoretically apps written for FirefoxOS would run on Tizen (along with other browsers).
FirefoxOS is currently under heavy development by Mozilla. It has device APIs, that are attempting to be standardized, that allow it, essentially a browser, to access hardware interals such as the vibrator and camera. The ideal behind FirefoxOS is to be open and not be a locked-down market. Recently Mozilla ran App Days, Firefox OS hackathons, around the world.
Corey showed off Twitter, Facebook, SMS, the camera, and dialing the phone itself, all of which were functional.
There is also an app store, Firefox Marketplace, for FirefoxOS.