There’s something eternally compelling about the ages-old story of David and Goliath, and it’s one we’ve seen play out time and time again in modern form in the tech world. We’ve seen Samsung’s Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab surge in popularity to challenge Apple’s iPhone and iPad, for example. Today, we’re witnessing a similar scenario in the mobile arena with Firefox OS.

Foxconn Technology Group, best known as the go-to maker of Apple’s iPads and iPhones, said Monday it had embraced Mozilla’s Firefox OS and would use the mobile platform on a raft of new devices, including a tablet it showed off at Computex. The company also demoed several smartphones running the Firefox OS and said it would make tablets, laptops and other devices supporting it.

Android has become a mobile malware magnet, according to F-Secure. A whopping 79 percent of all mobile malware targeted the Google OS in 2012, based on a new report from the firm. That was up from 66.7 percent in 2011 and just 11.25 percent in 2010. The fourth quarter of 2012 was particularly bad, it said, with attacks on Android spiking to account for 96 percent of all mobile malware.

HP is reportedly working on a series of Android devices, the first of which could be a high-end tablet powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor. The move is a sensitive one for HP, which tried to crack the mobile market in 2010 by purchasing Palm for $1.2 billion, but saw that investment go down the drain.

You just think that’s a Chromebook beckoning you with an open source OS, easier upgradeability and fast connections to the cloud. All those qualities could make it a Linux netbook in disguise — or at least what the netbooks of a few years ago promised before they all started selling preloaded with Windows. The key? More manufacturers buying into the flexibility of the Linux kernel in the Chrome OS.

The Mozilla Foundation on Tuesday announced that smartphones running its Firefox OS will be available to developers in February. The preview phones are being produced in collaboration with Geeksphone and Telefonica. The idea is to entice devs to create apps for the Firefox OS. “These devices have not been designed for consumers,” said Mozilla spokesperson Diane Zuniga.

The year is starting out with what may turn out to be significant changes in the mobile operating system market, with open source software playing a significant role just as it has in enterprise software, virtualization and cloud computing. With fading heavyweights and interesting new challengers, there are changes afoot in the mobile OS market.

Canonical this week announced Ubuntu for smartphones, a version of the Ubuntu Linux operating system aimed mainly at high-end superphones and entry-level basic smartphones. Ubuntu is compatible with a typical Android Board Support Package, said Canonical, which provides engineering, online and professional services to Ubuntu customers.