Mozilla Foundation Turns 1

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."

Comments

Success story

[Kombat]

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. :)

Re:now all you need

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators please fix the above "anti-groupthink" moderation. Pointing out realistic flaws with what otherwise might be an excellent product and flagship of the Open Source movement might temporarily damage pride, but knowing that they exist in order that they should be fixed can only be to our advantage.

Re:A new paradigm of sorts

[erick99]

The whole concept of how Mozilla has come to be, and released high quality products, from within a framework that is radically different from the companies that otherwise do this in pure for-profit model.

Mozilla is not secretive and embraces it's end-users in a fashion that is almost antithetical to contemporary software companies. Mozilla is an exceptionally responsive entity (esp. regarding security issues it would seem). There is more but I will leave it at that. Perhaps other slash dot folks could amplify this point more eloquently than I am able.

It is simply an observation of mine and I understand that I am out on a limb. If you disagree, I do understnd.

Cheers!

Erick

Re:Model for other OSS projects?

[jsebrech]

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.

Re:Model for other OSS projects?

[duffbeer703]

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.