Mozilla Starts to Follow a New Drumbeat

I've written often enough about Firefox and its continuing steady gains of browser market share. Here's another nice stat:

Roughly keeping pace with previous years, Firefox grew 40% worldwide. Two regions in particular continued adopting Firefox at a breakneck pace — South America (64%) and Asia (73%).

Most of the 40% growth occurred recently. In the 4 months leading up to the holiday season, Firefox added 22.8 million active daily users. During that same period last year, Firefox added 16.4 million users.

That's all well and good, but it raises the question: what should Mozilla be doing *after* it conquers the browser world – that is, once it has 50% market share?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Who is La Rochefoucauld of Twitter?

Mozilla's Tristan Nitot has come up with a rather fine aphorism:

Twitter, c'est la version XXI°S des salons mondains, mais limitée à 140 caractères, et à l'échelle du globe.

So come on people, start polishing those tweets: somewhere out there is La Rochefoucauld of Twitter....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Authoring Beautiful HTML...

...ain't easy in the open source world, as David Ascher points out in this post:

However, for regular folks, life is not rosy yet in the Open Web world. Authoring beautiful HTML is, even with design and graphics talent, still way, way too hard. I’m writing this using Wordpress 2.8, which has probably some of the best user experience for simple HTML authoring. As Matt Mullenweg (the founder of Wordpress) says, it’s still not good enough. As far as I can tell, there are currently no truly modern, easy to use, open source HTML composition tools that we could use in Thunderbird for example to give people who want to design wholly original, designed email messages. That’s a minor problem in the world of email, which is primarily about function, not form, and I think we’ll be able to go pretty far with templates, but it’s a big problem for making design on the web more approachable.

There are some valiant efforts to clean up the old, crufty, scary composer codebase that Mozilla has relied on for years. There are simple blog-style editors like FCKEditor and its successor CKEditor. There are in-the-browser composition tools like Google Pages or Google Docs, but those are only for use by Google apps, and only work well when they limit the scope of the design space substantially (again, a rational choice). None of these can provide the flexibility that Ventura Publisher or PageMaker had in the dark ages; none of them can compete from a learnability point of view with the authoring tools that rely on closed stacks; none of them allow the essential polish that hand-crafted code can yield. That’s a gap, and an opportunity.

Let's hope people in the free software world seize it.

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Firefox 3.5: What's in a Number?

I had an interesting chat this morning with Mike Shaver, VP, Engineering at Mozilla, about the imminent Firefox 3.5. Its launch takes place against a background where Firefox continues to make gains in the browser market, passing the 50% share in some European countries, and where it has created an unparalleled ecosystem of addons that places it at the forefront of the browser world in terms of capability and customisability....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Happy Birthday, Mozilla - and Thanks for Being Here

Seven years ago, Mozilla 1.0 was launched:

Mozilla.org, the organization that coordinates Mozilla open-source development and provides services to assist the Mozilla community, today announced the release of Mozilla 1.0, the first major-version public release of the Mozilla software. A full-fledged browser suite based on the latest Internet standards as well as a cross-platform toolkit, Mozilla 1.0 is targeted at the developer community and enables the creation of Internet-based applications. Mozilla 1.0 was developed in an open source environment and built by harnessing the creative power of thousands of programmers and tens of thousands of testers on the Internet, incorporating their best enhancements.

On Open Enterprise blog.

How Can We Save Thunderbird Now Email is Dying?

I like Thunderbird. I've been using it for years, albeit now more as a backup for my Gmail account than as my primary email client. But it's always been the Cinderella of the Mozilla family, rather neglected compared to its more glamorous sister Firefox. The creation of the Mozilla Messaging subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation means that efforts are already underway to remedy that. But there's a deeper problem that Thunderbird needs to face, too....

On Open Enterprise blog.

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What Mozilla's Bespin Bespeaks

One of the most interesting developments in the open source world is the way that Mozilla has changed in recent years. What started out as a (slightly shambolic) attempt to hack a decent browser out of the wreckage of the Netscape Communicator code, has turned into arguably one of the two or three most important forces in free software today (you can draw up your own list)....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Enter the Lizard

Here's an interesting post from Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's boss, commenting on the EU's decision to investigate Microsoft for its Internet Explorer. It's mostly a useful statement of history and why Firefox on its own shouldnt be regarded as the solution to the problem. But for me the most significant portion is its conclusion:

I’d like to offer Mozilla’s expertise as a resource to the EC as it considers what an effective remedy would entail. I’ll be reaching out to people I know with particular history, expertise and ideas regarding these topics. If you’ve got specific ideas or concerns please feel free to contact me. I’ll post more as the discussion develops.

At a time when Microsoft is increasing its lobbying, and seeking to hire people specifically to monitor - and presumably fight - open source, it is absolutely vital that powerful organisations like Mozilla take the initiative by engaging directly with governments and other relevant bodies.

Too often free software has suffered from its decentralised, fragmented nature (otherwise a great strength); the existence of the rather anomalous Mozilla Foundation - well funded and highly organised - is a unique opportunity to support openness in a completely new way.

Spreading the Spreadfirefox Effect

One of the most powerful forces in free software is the community behind the code. Its potential can be seen most clearly in the Spread Firefox site, which has mobilised hundreds of thousands of Firefox users to spread the word about the browser. One of the ways they have done that is through coming up with designs for various uses.

Mozilla has (somewhat belatedly) taken note of that tremendous success, and hopes to produce a more directed version, called the Mozilla Creative Collective. As John Slater, Creative Director at Mozilla explains....

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Impact Mozilla Challenge

One of the reasons that Mozilla is so important is that it is at the forefront of open source marketing – using the community to help move the project forward and to increase uptake. Here's the latest wheeze: the Impact Mozilla Challenge...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is this OpenOffice.org's Firegull Moment?

One of the pivotal moments in the recent history of free software is when a small group of coders got fed up with the slow, buggy mess that was Mozilla, cut down and rewrote the code and created what eventually became Firefox....

On Open Enterprise blog.

(Open) China Rising

It's become something of cliché in recent weeks to invoke the rise of China as an economic superpower. But what about its role in the world of free software?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Birth of a Meme: the O(o)pen Web

One of the interesting slogans that the Mozilla Foundation has been pushing a lot recently is the idea of the “open Web”. That's clearly distinct from an *open source* Web, but the latter is more or less predicated on the former, since a Web that isn't open is hardly going to be very welcoming to open code....

On Open Enterprise blog.

90% Open Source Lightning

Well, not exactly: Lightning, which comes from Mozilla, is a 100% open source calendar extension for Mozilla Thunderbird....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Should Mozilla Rebrand Itself as Firefox?

Firefox is a massive success in Europe, but what is striking about its adoption is the variation from country to country. For example, in Finland it has a market share of over 45%, while in the UK, to its eternal shame, it is a pathetic 20%. How can such a huge disparity be explained?

Well, I have my dark theories involving Bill Gates and a poodle, but putting those aside for the moment, here's an interesting attempt from Mozilla to find out more....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Chrome: Google's Anti-Browser

The most surprising thing about Google's new Chrome browser is that it's taken so long for it to appear. After all, the browser has been central to practically everything that Google does, so it would be foolish to allow others to control it....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Google Backtracks on Eclipse and Mozilla Licences

Google plays a key role in the world of free software, both indirectly, through the fact that it runs most of its infrastructure on open source, and directly, through its support of projects (not least the dosh it gives to Mozilla). Against that background, its refusal to make certain popular licences like those from Mozilla and Eclipse available to projects hosted on Google Code was curious....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Could Microsoft's Photosynth Have Been Free Software?

On Linux Journal.

Linux Foundation Interview with Mozilla's Mitchell Baker

On Open Enterprise blog.

How Should Mozilla Execute Its Vision?

On Linux Journal.