gonk consists of a linux kernel and user-space hardware abstraction layer (hal). the kernel and several user-space libraries are common open-source projects: linux, libusb, bluez, etc. some other parts of the hal are shared with the android project: gps, camera, among others. gonk is basically an extremely simple linux distribution and is therefore from gecko's perspective, simply a porting target of gecko; there is a port of gecko to gonk, just like there is a port of gecko to os x, and a port of gecko to android. however, since the development team have full control over gonk, the developers can fully expose all the features and interfaces required for comprehensive mobile platforms such as gecko, but which aren't currently possible to access on other mobile oses. for example, using gonk, gecko can obtain direct access to the full telephone stack and display framebuffer, but doesn't have this access on any other os.