Glaser Lo bio photo

Glaser Lo

A software developer currently working at Seneca@CDOT in Toronto. Love to try and work on new open source or Linux stuff.

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Firefox OS

A whole new opensource operating system for smartphones, tablets, and smart TV Built with Linux, Gecko, and Open Web Standard.

Architecture

There are three parts in Firefox OS

Gaia

License: Apache 2.0 A user interface library built on top of Gecko, written by HTML/CSS/JavaScript. It is a framework that helps developer to make a good user interface and experience on Firefox OS. All graphical components are written based on Gaia.

Gecko

License: MPL 2.0

The core engine of Firefox and Firefox OS. It handles nearly everything like rendering app screen, JavaScript runtime allowing web app to have access to hardware It also provides a compatible layer for all platform, making sure web app runs perfectly on any devices.

Gonk

License: Apache 2.0 Gonk is basically a bundle including Linux kernel and a set of tools based on AOSP(Android Open Source Project). It theoretically allows Firefox OS to run on any devices that supports Android.

Project homepage https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS - Contains very detailed and well organized information for developers https://wiki.mozilla.org/ - Contains other information like Firefox OS staffs and work flow for the project

Repositories

Gonk: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/B2G
Gaia: https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia
Gecko: https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev (Read-only)
https://hg.mozilla.org/

People

Andreas Gal

Alt Andres Picture

The Director of Research at Mozilla Corporation

  • Originally announce Boot2Gecko project on the mozilla.dev.platform mailing list in 2011
  • Gonk Maintainer
  • https://github.com/andreasga
  • @andreasgal

##Other people that worth to mention

Timothy Guan tin Chien

Alt Timothy Picture

Vivien Nicolas

Alt Vivien Picture

Community

  • Gaia: 546 contributors
  • B2G/Gonk: 73 contributors
  • Gecko: 1539 contributors(github)
  • A pretty big community especially for Gecko

Tool

Mailling list

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-layout
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.layout
IRC: irc.mozilla.org #B2G

The importance of the project

  • Developers are able to create cross-platform mobile application using HTML5/CSS/Javascript
  • Thinner abstract layer between WebAPIs and hardware in Firefox OS offers better performance and intuitive experiences
  • Helping to produce low cost smartphones for people who cannot afford expensive one
  • Spreading the concept of Open Web and Freedom

Who use it?

People in countries

  • 24 countries
    • Like India, Hungary, Greece, Poland … In Latin America, Europe, and Aisa
  • Developers !