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Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape.
The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions.
The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla's current products include the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client now through a subsidiary, Bugzilla bug tracking system, Gecko layout engine, Pocket read-it-later-online service, and others.
On January 23, 1998, Netscape made two announcements: first, that Netscape Communicator would be free; second, that the source code would also be free. One day later Jamie Zawinski, from Netscape, registered mozilla.org.
The project took its name, Mozilla, after the original code name of the Netscape Navigator browser -a portmanteau of Mosaic and Godzilla, and used to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite, the free software version of Netscape's internet software, Netscape Communicator.
Jamie Zawinski says he came up with the name Mozilla at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordination of the new community.
Originally, Mozilla aimed to be a technology provider for companies, such as Netscape, who would commercialize their free software code. When AOL (Netscape's parent company) greatly reduced its involvement with Mozilla in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation was designated the legal steward of the project. Soon after, Mozilla deprecated the Mozilla Suite in favor of creating independent applications for each function, primarily the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird email client, and moved to supply them directly to the public.
More information: Mozilla
Mozilla's activities have since expanded to include Firefox on mobile platforms (primarily Android), a mobile OS called Firefox OS (since cancelled), a web-based identity system called Mozilla Persona and a marketplace for HTML5 applications.
In a report released in November 2012, Mozilla reported that their total revenue for 2011 was $163 million, which was up 33% from $123 million in 2010. Mozilla noted that roughly 85% of their revenue comes from their contract with Google.
At the end of 2013, Mozilla announced a deal with Cisco Systems whereby Firefox would download and use a Cisco-provided binary build of an open-source codec to play the proprietary H.264 video format.
As part of the deal, Cisco would pay any patent licensing fees associated with the binaries that it distributes. Mozilla's CTO, Brendan Eich, acknowledged that this is not a complete solution and isn't perfect.
An employee in Mozilla's video formats team, writing in an unofficial capacity, justified it by the need to maintain their large user base, which would be necessary for future battles for truly free video formats.
In December 2013, Mozilla announced funding for the development of paid games through its Game Creator Challenge. However, even those games that may be released under a non-free software or free software license must be made with open web technologies and Javascript as per the work criteria outlined in the announcement.
In January 2017 the company rebranded away from its dinosaur symbol in favor of a logo that includes a "://" character sequence from a URL, with the revamped logo: "moz://a".
In 2020, Mozilla announced it would be cutting off 25% of its staff to reduce costs. Firefox has fallen from 30% market share to 4% in 10 years. Despite this, executive pay increased 400%, with Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, being paid $2.4m in 2018. In December 2020, Mozilla closed its Mountain View office.
More information: Mozilla
The Mozilla Manifesto outlines Mozilla's goals and principles. It asserts Mozilla's commitment to the internet, saying: The open, global internet is the most powerful communication and collaboration resource we have ever seen. It embodies some of our deepest hopes for human progress.
It then outlines what Mozilla sees as its place in the development of the internet, stating The Mozilla project uses a community-based approach to create world-class open source software and to develop new types of collaborative activities. And finally, it lays out their ten principles:
-The internet is an integral part of modern life -a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment, and society as a whole.
-The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
-The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings.
-Individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
-Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it.
-The effectiveness of the internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation, and decentralized participation worldwide.
-Free and open source software promotes the development of the internet as a public resource.
-Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust.
-Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical.
-Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention, and commitment.
According to the Mozilla Foundation:
-The Mozilla Foundation pledges to support the Mozilla Manifesto in its activities. Specifically, we will:
-Build and enable open-source technologies and communities that support the Manifesto's principles;
-Build and deliver great consumer products that support the Manifesto's principles;
-Use the Mozilla assets (intellectual property such as copyrights and trademarks, infrastructure, funds, and reputation) to keep the Internet an open platform;
-Promote models for creating economic value for the public benefit; and
-Promote the Mozilla Manifesto principles in public discourse and within the Internet industry.
More information: Office Lovin
Intellectual property is an important legal and cultural issue.
Society as a whole has complex issues to face here:
private ownership vs. open source, and so on.
Tim Berners-Lee
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