Well now it appears that the home turf of the worlds second largest smartphone maker Samsung has plans to develop a new open source smartphone operating system just for South Korea, a new OS that will challenge rival platforms iOS and Android in the country.

According to an article over on Ubergizmo, the Korean Herald reports that the South Korean government will back the development of the new open source mobile phone operating system so they can give their local smartphone makers “completeness” with such foreign rivals as the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and Android smartphones.

Apparently the decision by the South Korean government comes after Google acquired Motorola Mobility, a move that the South Korean government sees as a possible challenge to such companies as Samsung who makes Android handsets.

A deputy minister from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Kim Jae-hong, says that the acquisition of Motorola by Google could deliver short-term protection for South Korean firms using the Android platform against the patent claims from Apple.

However, Jae-hong also noted that Google now has the ability to produce smartphones and could potentially become one of the biggest competitors to South Korean smartphone makers in the future, and says that although Android is currently an open source platform they can’t rule out the possibility Google will close Android at some point in the future.

Apparently the South Korean government will start the new project before the year is out, a project that will enable the countries own phone makers to jointly develop their own open source mobile operating system along with a web based OS.

Furthermore, although according to Jae-hong, Samsung was quite “negative” towards a joint development of a new open source operating system, since Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Samsung has changed their stance.

So there you have it, South Korea will at some point in the future have their own open source smartphone OS, now whether the new OS will ever make it outside South Korea remains to be seen, and personally even if it does, I can’t see it becoming a solid challenge to Android or Apple’s iOS much like Samsung’s Bada isn’t a real threat.