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Mozilla The Internet

Mozilla Foundation Turns 1 266

Posted by michael from the golf-clap dept.
antatack writes "It's already been a year since the Mozilla Foundation was created, and it's been quite a year. The Mozilla Foundation has prospered, our products are receiving rave reviews, consumer and enterprise interest in Mozilla products is at an all time high, the awareness of the importance of choice in browser software is growing and our community remains vigorous and energetic."
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Mozilla Foundation Turns 1 More

Mozilla Foundation Turns 1

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  • A new paradigm of sorts (Score:5, Informative)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:52AM (#9706235)
    5.5 million downloads of Mozilla products in the last 30 days, including over 3 million downloads of Mozilla Firefox. That's close to 200,000 downloads a day over the last month.

    This is really an amazing feat for what is essentially a volunteer group within an organization that acts as a non-profit entity. I don't know the exact status of Mozilla but I think this is descript of the actual effort. It would be remarkable for a large company, publicly funded, to do this well.

    Happy Birthday!

    Erick

    • Re:A new paradigm of sorts (Score:4, Funny)

      by Doogie5526 ( 737968 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:01AM (#9706302) Homepage
      A good way to keep the downloads high is to release a 0.9 0.9.1 and 0.9.2 version within a week.
    • Yes, and I was one of those who downloaded it. And it turned out to be buggy. And I uninstalled it. However, nobody collects stats on uninstallations, just downloads. I'm sure people will use those statistics to say how popular Firefox is. I'd rather see some statistics from popular websites that capture the type of browser accessing them.
      • Nope - it's not buggy.

        I've yet to encounter a single bug in my current Firefox installation.

        To get there however, I had to create a whole new profile, because the old profile would cause bugs in the 0.9 (which I've subsequently updated to 0.9.2)

        It even shows slews and slews of large pictures without failing now, which is very good for my ahem... studies !

  • Success story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kombat ( 93720 ) <kevin@swanweddingphotography.com> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:54AM (#9706252)
    I don't really have much to say, other than "Congratulations." They've been a poster-boy for OSS, and proven that network collaboration really can result in a stable, useful, well-developed product. I wonder what new innovations we'll be praising for the 2nd, or even 5th anniversary.

    Great job guys, and thanks for the browser. :)

    • Konqueror (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MikeCapone ( 693319 )
      Mozilla & all its descendents is great, but more attention should be given to Konqueror, another great Open Source browser that deserves the support - or at least recognition - of the community (At last the Linux one).

      It's all about having choice.

      • Re:Konqueror (Score:3, Insightful)

        by It'sYerMam ( 762418 )
        I haven't had much experience with konqueror (I'm a Gnome, and use firefox) but I guess its lack of attention is due to its being tied up with KDE.
        No matter how good it is, if it is a KDE type application not available on Windows it won't be as popular.

  • Buy out? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SpooForBrains ( 771537 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:54AM (#9706257)
    Considering the amazing success of Mozilla, one can't help but wonder how long it will be before someone attempts to buy it.

    So I'm curious, is that even possible? Could some big corporation just come along and buy Mozilla out?
    • My money is on either Microsoft Trying to buy it (yeah like that would go though) or AOL. If AOL tried I would fall out of my seat laughing.

      • Re:I can just see who (Score:4, Funny)

        by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:02AM (#9706317)
        My money is on either Microsoft Trying to buy it (yeah like that would go though) or AOL. If AOL tried I would fall out of my seat laughing.

        Did you even read the about screen? [about]

        Copyright © 1998-2002 by Contributors to the Mozilla codebase under the Mozilla Public License and Netscape Public License. All Rights Reserved

        Netscape.. Gee.. I wondered what happened to that company.. Didn't they already get bought up?

    • Re:Buy out? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by suffe ( 72090 ) *
      "Considering the amazing success of Linux*, one can't help but wondering how long it will be before someone attempts to buy it."

      Did that version of the question manage to show just how strange a question just was asked in the parent post? How ever it managed to get moderated up to "+5, Interesting" is simply beyond me.

      *YES, thats right. I just wrote Linux and not GNU/Linux

    • Re:Buy out? (Score:3, Informative)

      by ear1grey ( 697747 )

      Could some big corporation just come along and buy Mozilla out?

      IANAL, so I can't comment on the legal feasability of this, however, should it prove to be a possiblity, the code that has been released under the MPL [mozilla.org] would still be available under that license.

      Suppose the incumbent owner could find a way to close the devlopment tree and start to create proprietary software from that point. The last publically available version of the code would still be covered by the license agreement under which it was

  • Model for other OSS projects? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:55AM (#9706267) Homepage
    What did the Mozilla Foundation do that has made Mozilla such a huge success? Maybe more to the point, why haven't other OSS projects taken off like Mozilla? Any ideas on what can be done on other OSS projects to achieve similar success?

    • Lessons Learned (Score:5, Interesting)

      by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:02AM (#9706313) Homepage Journal
      It would be nice if some members at the mozilla foundation published a lessons learned paper. The things they have learned about making an OSS application successful.

      I know one of the things is user interface. They have done that very well. Better than most people realize. The skins, that type of idea is everywhere from cell phones, to just about everything. Everyone likes to customize.
    • Other OSS projects have taken off, and done far better than Mozilla. Just look at Apache or BIND.

    • Re:Model for other OSS projects? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jsebrech ( 525647 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:07AM (#9706352)
      I could name three things that come to mind that mozilla did in the past year, and are underrepresented among other OSS projects:

      - Focus on performance, make it faster with every release (granted, the mozilla project has been doing this for years)
      - Do not treat any platform in an inferior way, focus on providing quality products on all platforms, including windows and mac.
      - Have a visual design policy and team, redesigning the apps for improved ease of use, look and feel. Make sure the apps can be used easily by more than geeks. Make sure there is a fitting design for every platform the app runs on.
    • The biggest key to their popularity, I think, is their status as Netscape Navigator's heir. Netscape has big name recognition, so people looking specifically for that browser easily find Mozilla. It's a lot like the "six degrees of separation" thing (you can establish a connection to anyone in the world, for example Kevin Bacon, going through at most six intermediaries). Mozilla has a big enough user base now that almost everyone knows somebody who uses it. That really increases its popularity because w

      • The biggest key to their popularity, I think, is their status as Netscape Navigator's heir.

        This is an astute observation & frankly I'm surprised that this comment hasn't gotten more positive moderator attention.

        Some of us (e.g., myself included) began using Netscape for browsing & email back when there really wasn't a MSIE to consider. And the first few MSIE releases were just plain cheesy. By the time the MSIE/OE combination became "competitive" (through whatever means), I had an awful lot of

    • Re:Model for other OSS projects? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by frostman ( 302143 ) * on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:22AM (#9706478) Homepage Journal
      While all credit is due the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla developers, one of the reasons it's so much more successful than the average good OSS project is the type of software they make.

      1) Web browsing.
      Nearly everyone does it. Firefox runs on most platforms. It's better than the competition. It's not geeky unless you want it to be. And with IE stagnant, more and more people are interested in the alternatives, regardless of whether they're open source.

      2) E-mail.
      Thunderbird is great but it's not as much greater than the other mail clients as Firefox is greater than the other browsers. But it's coming along very nicely and could have enormous success - even though people are likely to use more webmail and less client-based mail in the future.

      Both of these programs fit common needs that are not as well-served by big software companies as one might expect.

      If other projects want to achieve that level of success, they should take lessons from the Mozilla Foundation for sure -- but it's not a fair measure if the other projects aren't making standard consumer apps.
      • even though people are likely to use more webmail and less client-based mail in the future.
        I hope you are wrong about this, although I suspect you are correct.
      • Thunderbird really is as much greater than the other mail clients as firefox is greater than the other browsers. It lets you have an arbitrary number of pop3 (opt. with apop and/or ssl) accounts, likewise imap accounts (also opt. with ssl) and has the best html mail rendering engine around (gee, I wonder why.) Not to mention support for free/Free public key encryption. Yes sir, thunderbird is "the shit". I use firefox and thunderbird at home now (so I don't have to have the whole thing in memory at once if
    • There is only one person in charge of firefox's UI. His name is Ben Goodger. He gets to say No

    • Re:Model for other OSS projects? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bgfay ( 5362 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:40AM (#9706629) Homepage
      I wish that OpenOffice would start a "Firefox" project that would concentrate on a very fast, very tight project for word processing. OpenOffice is a great thing (free, does most everything anyone could ask of it) but it is a slug, a monster that eats memory and just kills older machines. If I could use OpenOffice on my home machine (which is pretty substantial) and then use a "firefox" version on my older machines (like the laptop I'm using now and most of the computers at our under-funded school), I would be all set.

      Maybe I'm just getting ahead of the project here. I know that 2.0 is striving for faster startup times and the like. Maybe instead of a separate project, OO.o could focus most of their efforts on streamlining the thing.

      Firefox and Thunderbird are THE open source answers for browsing and email. That's two of the necessary apps. OpenOffice plugs many of the other holes, but it needs work. Firefox is already there.

    • Re:Model for other OSS projects? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FireFury03 ( 653718 ) <slashdot&nexusuk,org> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:57AM (#9706784) Homepage
      I think the appearance of Firefox helped a lot - Mozilla itself is reasonably bulky and slow, but Firefox is as fast as (faster than?) IE. Firefox also does what most end users (especially the non-techy ones) want out of the box - no messing around tweaking it to work how you like. But that is not to say you can't tweak it and those cwho feel competent enough will tweak away, setting up the button bars how they like, theming it, etc.

      Another thing that has undoubtedly helped is the regular IE security holes which have been hitting the mainstream press and probably also MS's apethy at fixing them and adding enhancements - on the odd occasion I'm forced to sit infront of a Windows machine and use IE, I wonder how on earth anyone can put up with the lack of features such as tabbed browsing and I'm stunned by the shear number of popups that even an un-spywared machine gets through IE - no wonder Windows users don't pay any attention to popup errors, they get so much crap popping up anyway.

      Various support departments have now started recommending Firefox - the support guys here now recommend it to our customers, and where we used to get a "no, we have to use IE" response, the customers now more often than not say "oh that's a good idea, I'll try it" and end up very happy.

      Also, a browser is something reasonably high profile that the average user wants - I'm sure a lot of people have a browser open practically all the time. Once someone's tried it at home then chances are they will install it at work too (assuming they don't work in a company who has a restrictive "you must use the most insecure software we can find" policy). All the coworkers will see it and install it on their workstations and home machines.

    • Re:Model for other OSS projects? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:09AM (#9706903)
      Other OSS desktop projects have too much ideological and egotistical overhead and too much corporate influence.

      Try naming some Mozilla developers... I bet you can't.

      The Mozilla people have an extreme loyalty to their product. Their focus seems to be developing superior applications, period.

      Other popular Open-Source projects are too focused on trying to unseat Windows or too bogged down in bureaucratic infighting.

      The keys to making a successful product are:

      - Make the best product that you can
      - Tell your audience about it

      That why Apple has always been successful at selling workstations. They build a premium, high-quality product and evangelize it.

      Think about projects like GNU Hurd and FreeBSD. Each of these projects started out with the potential for greatness, but never met that potential. GNU Hurd gets no attention because its leadership is too focused on idealogical matters and vanity. FreeBSD created a political process around it that created a perception that new developers weren't welcome.

      With Mozilla, you never hear about political bullshit. The leadership of the project is focused on the project instead of looking for their names in print. They certainly have made their share of mistakes, but when they do they go back and code. ... And the result is the best browser and one of the better email clients on the market.
      • "and too much corporate influence."

        Now that's a funny statement. In all the other Slashdot articles, people massively praise corporations for having UI designers, and claim that all open source user interfaces are unusable. So corporate == good.
        And now suddenly corporate == bad? No wonder nobody ever listen to Slashdotters, it's because Slashdotters make a fool out of themselves by continuously giving contradicting statements!
    • What did the Mozilla Foundation do that has made Mozilla such a huge success? Maybe more to the point, why haven't other OSS projects taken off like Mozilla? Any ideas on what can be done on other OSS projects to achieve similar success?

      First off, I'd question your premise. Mozilla's technical achievements are impressive but not unique among high-profile OSS projects, and its marketshare is still badly lagging. Look at Apache, Linux, Perl, MySQL, KDE, Gnome. Mozilla is far from the only tremendous OSS
  • Isn't it time for spin off movies now?

    Mozilla VS Explora!

    Death match of the titans, who will survive!?
    • More like this.

      Welcome to Iron Browser, where today we pit the challenger from Redwood.

      Chairman Kaga: "So, Internet Explorer, which of the Iron Browsers will it be? Iron Browser OSS Mozilla? Iron Browser CS Opera? Iron Browser TXT Lynx? Yomigaeru Aiyan Browser!"
      IE: "Mozilla-san"
      Bang A Gong, get it on. Who's browsing reigns supreme?

    • Re:Spin offs (Score:3, Funny)

      by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) *
      And the match has started!

      The competitors are circling each other... and...

      OH NO! Internet Explorer has been hijacked by spyware! It's down for the count!

  • Internet Explorer Foundation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:00AM (#9706301)
    For just pennies a day, you could help IE get the help it needs to combat virii. Weekly updates will come with a picture of the browser you are supporting.... Please help.

  • Due to what though? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by airjrdn ( 681898 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:02AM (#9706314) Homepage
    I'm not putting down Mozilla, I'm using Firefox right now and have switched my wife, Mother, and my own PC's to using Firefox and Thunderbird almost across the board. I do think however you have to give credit where it's due. The massive rise in their popularity isn't soley due to the fact that they are offering a solid browser, it's also due to the fact that MS isn't.

  • Significant advantages? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Apocalypse111 ( 597674 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:11AM (#9706386) Journal
    I have been reading a lot about FireFox (and Opera, to be fair) here on Slashdot lately. Everyone who uses one of these alternative browsers has nothing but good things to say about them, and if someone says something bad about one then they are either attacked as being MS sheep or assaulted by a series of suggestions on how to fix the situation.

    My question is this: aside from the obvious security-through-diversity advantage, and the fact that the IE HTML engine is a bit on the slow side, what are the benefits of using FireFox or Opera over, say, Slimbrowser [flashpeak.com], Crazybrowser [crazybrowser.com], or MyIE2 [myie2.com]? These IE-based browsers have tabbed browsing, built-in pop-up blocking, mouse gestures, and a host of other features that they probably borrowed (read: stole) from the "geekier" browsers out there. I'm not saying that the 2 advantages I mentioned aren't enough, but if I'm running a firewall and antivirus program, and I don't notice the speed difference between them, why should I switch?
    • >>I'm not saying that the 2 advantages I mentioned aren't enough, but if I'm running a firewall and antivirus program, and I don't notice the speed difference between them, why should I switch?

      >>My question is this: aside from the obvious security-through-diversity advantage, and the fact that the IE HTML engine is a bit on the slow side,

      Well, nothing...really. Just that the browser add-ons you mentioned are just that, add-ons. That, and they probably (I have never used them) have Spyware
      • Well, I can't speak for the other 2, but I have been using Slimbrowser for some time, and it has no spyware. And I'm not sure that the term add-on is appropriate, I think it would be more accurate to call it a "shell" for IE (but that's just semantics). I'm quite pleased with it. That doesn't mean I'm not going to try out FireFox when I get back to a broadband connection (I can't stand waiting for downloads on dialup), though. People say so many good things about it, its worth downloading to try it, eve

    • Re:Significant advantages? (Score:5, Informative)

      by magefile ( 776388 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:22AM (#9706479)
      Spyware avoidance. Standards compliance (as a web developer, it's easier to code a Moz/Firefox/standards-compliant page, then tinker for IE-compliance, than the reverse). Less vulnerable to browser hijacking (not just because of diversity, either). Tons of extensions beyond what's available in the browsers you named.
    • just one of the advantages is that mozilla (and opera) is multiplatform. no matter what computer you use (at work, home, school etc.) you can still have your browser.

      • Dont forget.... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You can run Firefox from a USB stick, so you dont even have to install it on the machine you are working on.
    • - As mentioned, cross-platform. - Security holes aren't left open for months. - Beginning to be much faster than IE. - Mozilla team has something to work for. They desire to be the best browser. IE is complacent and therefore goes un-updated for months at a time. I don't know how much of a security risk it is, but I would imagine that a daemon with complete control over the system being used for web browsing would pose a major fundamental risk. A flaw in Mozilla might allow for your favorites to be deleted

    • Re:Significant advantages? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by digidave ( 259925 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:30AM (#9706543)
      One important note is that Mozilla offers more than security through diversity. Mozilla avoids IE's Zone and ActiveX problems that are the cause of most of its security problems. Security comes from a better security design rather than just diversity.

      I know that's not really what you meant. You wanna talk about features. Run Firefox and head over to http://update.mozilla.org/extensions to see what a lot of the fuss is about. There are hundreds of extensions you can use. My personal favorite is the Web Developer one that gives me a toolbar for editing live CSS on any site, changing my browswer to different screen sizes (test sites on 800 x 600 for example), outline all tables, validate HTML, etc. I have 6 or 7 extensions installed now and they're all extremely useful.
    • I have been a pretty steadfast Microsoft user (WinXP, VS.NET, Office, etc.) but recently I have started using alternatives to some of their software: iTunes, Trillian, and now FireFox.

      There are two reasons to this (except in the case of iTunes, that ones because I got an iPod recently)
      1. Security is better (No activeX, no hijacking)
      2. Customization (I can choose the way I want my software to look!)

      It may seem shallow, but I switched to FireFox because it let me make a cool looking browser.

    • Re:Significant advantages? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FireFury03 ( 653718 ) <slashdot&nexusuk,org> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:11AM (#9706923) Homepage
      IE has a truely broken nonstandard rendering engine - writing HTML that works in both IE and complient browsers is hell.

      There are also other things that are just plain missing in the IE rendering engine - it doesn't support alphablended PNGs even though they've been around (and supported in other browsers) for years. Oddly MacIE handles them fine. It also doesn't support some very useful CSS2 properties such as position:fixed. The lack of support is bad in itself, but the fact that MS will not fix it for years is even worse. If I have to support IE then I cannot use any cool new features that the W3C specify, even if the W3C originally specified them over 5 years ago.

      The whole problem with IE having such a large majority of the market is that it holds back developemtn across the whole web - MS won't implement new features because there is little pressure to do so. For them it's just money down the drain since they won't gain any market share from the development. TBH I think that any profit-making organisation with such a large chunk of the market would be in (more or less) the same state of afairs and I would be much happier with a non-profit organisation such as the Mozilla Foundation in the driving seat since they are not worried (so much) about the bottom line.

    • Download time of Slashdot main page on Camino (Mozilla on Mac OS X): 4 seconds.

      Download time of Slashdot main page on Explorer on the same system: 8 seconds.

      This was done with caches cleared on ethernet connected to my university's backbone.

  • Obligatory Futurama quote (Score:3, Funny)

    by laserbeak ( 794029 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:13AM (#9706407)
    our products are receiving rave reviews, consumer and enterprise interest in Mozilla products is at an all time high,
    all hail hypnotoad!

  • Mozilla Rocks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:15AM (#9706428)
    A few months ago I got fed up of the bi-weekly exploits being discovered for IE, so I decided to give Mozilla 1.6 a try. It was awesome needless to say. I got my best friend switched over and he loves it too.

    Recently I switched my mom over to use Mozilla 1.7 after discovering around 480+ spyware and trojan on her laptop.

    I've tried FireFox 0.8 or 0.7 I cant remember but it was buggy and I liked the simpleness of Mozilla 1.6 better.

    I still need to use IE6 for 2 things though, Windows update and Mcafee AV update both use ActiveX. Arg i hate ActiveX.

    • Re:Mozilla Rocks (Score:2, Informative)

      by suffe ( 72090 ) *

      but it was buggy

      It's come a long way since that.

      and I liked the simpleness of Mozilla 1.6 better

      Again, firefox has come a long way in this department as well. I'd say firefox is way more intuitive and much easier to grasp for the average user. Only drawback is the extensive use of the plug-in system.

      Don't get me wrong, I love it. But seeing it from the average user it might be a make-or-break point. "Didn't I just download firefox?! What is this I have to get now and what is that strange box that I've

  • Hari Seldon (Score:5, Funny)

    by solarlux ( 610904 ) <noplasma@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday July 15, 2004 @09:45AM (#9706680)
    Thanks to the planning behind this foundation, after the Microsoft Empire falls, there will only be 10 years of anarchy instead of 100. In its place, an even greater (but planned) empire will replace it. That new republic will be open source.

    Rumor also has it there is a second foundation, located at Slashdot End in the galaxy...
  • Would be that today a v1.0 firefox release.

  • Finance ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Etyenne ( 4915 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @10:26AM (#9707057)

    How are the finance of the foundation doing ? What have they done with the money ? How many people have they kept employed via the foundation ? Who are the most generous corporate donators (so I can give them my business back) ? Inquiring minds want to know!

    <em class="cheerleader"> Go Mozilla ! </em>

    • Re:Finance ? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 )
      Dunno. But I certainly owe them some money. I'll send $5 by the end of the week. If every /.er with Firefox did so, could we hire them a programmer for a year?

  • Debian FSG (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DrMorris ( 156226 )
    I heard something about Mozilla's incompatibility with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. What's the current state of the process? Will there be Mozilla packages for Debian in future? Does the discussion on this issue still go on?
    Somebody please explain.

  • Mozilla 1.8a2 released (Score:3, Informative)

    by xdc ( 8753 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @12:14PM (#9708186) Journal

    In case this hasn't been mentioned already, Mozilla 1.8 Alpha2 [mozilla.org] is now available for download.

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