Mozilla introduced a prototype yesterday, calling it a system for open Web apps, which would allow developers to install, manage and launch Web apps in any modern desktop or mobile browser (Firefox 3.6 and later, Firefox for mobile, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome 6, Safari 5, Opera 10 and WebKit mobile), wrote Mozilla Labs in "The Mozilla Blog." Alongside the developer preview prototype is the technical documentation of the proposed system.

The proposed design would create a new category for what Mozilla calls "'Open Web Apps' - apps that are truly of the Web."

According to Mozilla, Open Web Apps:

• Are built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• Can be “installed” to a dashboard within your mobile or desktop Web browser, or to your native OS desktop or mobile home screen.
• Work in all modern Web browsers, while enabling each browser to compete on app presentation, organization and management user interfaces.
• Support paid apps by means of an authorization model that uses existing identity systems like OpenID.
• Support portable purchases: An app purchased for one browser works in other browsers, and across multiple desktop and mobile platforms without repurchase.
• Can request access to one or more advanced and/or privacy-sensitive capabilities that they would like access to (like geolocation) which the system will mediate, giving the user the ability to opt-in to them if desired.
• Can be distributed by developers directly to users without any gatekeeper, and distributed through multiple stores, allowing stores to compete on customer service, price, policies, app discoverability, ratings, reviews and other attributes.
• Can receive notifications from the cloud.
• Support deep search across apps: Apps can implement an interface that enables the app container (generally the Web browser) to provide the user with a cross-app search experience that links deeply into any app that can satisfy the search.

Marshall Kirkpartick of the technology blog RedWriteWeb wrote that this is a "decentralized challenge to both Apple's closed app store and Google's centralized strategy...The Store Framework will enable an unlimited number of interoperable App Stores to be hosted by anyone, and compete based on quality of user experience...Decentralization of the App Store experience across many different stores is very promising, however, if you believe that interoperability yields competition and competition yields better software."