The Mozilla project

Tristan Nitot

President, Mozilla Europe

What about telling you a story?

• The history of the printing press
• What Mozilla is standing for...
• About the Mozilla project.

http://www.nitot.com/mozilla/hollandopen06/

Gutenberg and the printing press

• Before 1440, the books were hand-copied by monks. It took one year to copy the Bible. A monk could copy 40 times the Bible during his working life.
• 1440: Gutenberg invents the printing press by assembling existing inventions. The printing industry is born.
• End of the XIXth Century: the Linotype is invented. It enables automatic composition of documents, enabling more variety of books to be published
• Without the invention of the printing press (and public schools), culture and knowledge would be much harder to spread.

The Web is an Open system

1989-1992: Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist with CERN, invents the Web, based on three royalty-free Open concepts: HTML, URL, HTTP

• Everybody can compete on a level playing field, thanks to Open Standards
• Interoperability is key to the success of the Web. It was actually created to ensure interopreabillity across platforms
• When there is choice, there is innovation

But with 1 billion people now being on-line, the temptation to take a piece of the Internet and make it proprietary is huge.

Why the Web is great

The 3 Cs:

• Culture: sharing knowledge
• Communities: enabling Free/Open Source Software to be built
• Commerce.

Mozilla's mission is to "promote Choice and Innovation on the Internet"

State of the Mozilla Project

• Successful launch of Firefox and Thunderbird, end of 2004
• Successful launch of Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5, end of 2005
• Both Firefox and Thunderbird are now available in over 35 different languages
• 185 million downloads for Firefox
• Participation and interest in the Mozilla project is stronger than ever

Mozilla Foundation and the Project

• Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization created in July 2003
• The mission is to promote choice and innovation on the Net by creating standards-based, open source products and technologies
• Stewards of the Mozilla Project, we provide the infrastructure to manage the project
• Deliver end-user products
• International Affiliates: Europe, Japan, China.

Mozilla by the Numbers

• Employees - 55 at the Foundation;
• Full-time contributors - 120, including engineers from Sun, IBM, Redhat, Novell, Google, others
• Code contributors - 800 in total
• Localizers - products being translated into over 100 languages
• Testers - 10,000 pre-alpha testers file 70 to 100 "bugs" a day, more than 100,000 beta testers
• Advocates - over 100,000 advocates of our products through Spreadfirefox.com project
• Extension Developers - over 900 extensions for Firefox
• Great reliance on each of these "communities" to make the project successful

The Mozilla Recipe

• Open source development model
• Great products that matter
  • Web browsers and email clients matter
  • Cross platform, multiple language support, extensible, easy to use and migrate to
  • Involves many communites including design and marketing
• Products are complete
  • Includes cd, guidebook, support documentation, marketing support, and t-shirts
• Relentless focus on the end user
• And lots of luck, right product, right time

Mozilla Firefox web browser

• 185 million downloads in 19 months
• Key Features:
  • Streamlined user interface and functions
  • Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking
  • Live bookmarks, RSS feeds
  • Integrated search
  • Auto-update, Standards support, Clear private data... (1.5)
• Web developers are excited

What's new in Firefox 1.5?

• New version of Gecko (1.8)
• Auto-Update System
• Clear Private data
• New preferences panel
• Hundreds of UI refinements
• Includes our first support of SVG and canvas

Marketshare for a recent Sunday

Source : XitiMonitor.com. Figures from Sunday 20060108.

Probably around 50 to 60 million Firefox users worldwide.

The Road Ahead

• Move the web forward: better web sites and applications based on modern browsers and standards
• Continued innovation with the Mozilla Platform, Firefox and Thunderbird products, and more products
• Focus on global efforts, improving coordination and communication

Firefox roadmap: Firefox 2, codename Bon Echo

• Scheduled for Q3 2006
• feature-complete Beta scheduled for early Q3 2006
• Based on Gecko 1.8, like Firefox 1.5
• UI improvements such as Microsummaries.
• Other areas of improvements: Tabbed browsing, Search, Extensions
• See http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox2/Features

Firefox roadmap: Firefox 3

• May be released on H1 2007 (all dates are subject to change)
• Based off a new version of Gecko (1.9)
• Will run on top of XULRunner

Participating in the Mozilla Project

• Easy with many ways to participate and with real results
  • Marketing community: Spread the word, http://spreadfirefox.com
  • Testing community: download builds, provide feedback, and file bugs
  • Web development: code to standards, push the limits
  • Localization: localize and translate the browser
  • Extension development: easy way to start developing
  • Application and platform development
• A truly rewarding project