Archive for January, 2008

2008 is a year to celebrate — Mozilla turns 10 this year. 10 years of open source history, commitment, product development, community building and accomplishments. An open source project of astonishing scope and diversity. A portion of the Internet that is more open and participatory than almost anyone imagined. A strong voice for what the Internet can be. That’s 10 amazing years.

2008 is a year to celebrate our history, our accomplishments, our community and our future. We have laid the groundwork for another great 10 years — years where we can influence the web for the better, demonstrate what openness, transparency and broad participation look like, marvel at the distributed excitement and fierce dedication to the Mozilla vision for the Internet, and do things we haven’t even dreamed up yet.

I really do mean a year to celebrate. Not one day, not even the actual date the code was released. That’s an important date and we’ll certainly celebrate it. But the code release was one part of what was a much larger effort 10 years ago, and is a much larger story today. 1998 saw some great accomplishments, and we’ll celebrate them this year. The project has seen great accomplishments all through this first decade, and we should celebrate these as well.

I don’t have precisely formed ideas yet for how we ought to mark our anniversary events. In general though, I’m intent on making sure that our activities are:

a) International in scope: notable events that take place around the globe.

b) Participatory. We’ve had crate-your-own parties in the past; that’s a good start. ‘d like to see us do some other things as well this year. Perhaps we might have a way for people to record their experiences with some event in Mozilla’s history. Perhaps we will create a timeline where people can note the various events they feel have been critical to the Mozilla project (this is not my idea). These are only early ideas; there’s lots of room for creativity here.

c) Varied.

d) Fun.

If you’ve got ideas, let me know (or Mary Colvig — mary at mozilla dot com). We may come up with some other tools for making planning easier, but comments here are a good start.

Anyone remember this?

NETSCAPE ANNOUNCES PLANS TO MAKE NEXT-GENERATION COMMUNICATOR SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE FREE ON THE NET

BOLD MOVE TO HARNESS CREATIVE POWER OF THOUSANDS OF INTERNET DEVELOPERS; COMPANY MAKES NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR AND COMMUNICATOR 4.0 IMMEDIATELY FREE FOR ALL USERS, SEEDING MARKET FOR ENTERPRISE AND NETCENTER BUSINESSES

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (January 22, 1998) — Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced bold plans to make the source code for the next generation of its highly popular Netscape Communicator client software available for free licensing on the Internet. The company plans to post the source code beginning with the first Netscape Communicator 5.0 developer release, expected by the end of the first quarter of 1998. This aggressive move will enable Netscape to harness the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet by incorporating their best enhancements into future versions of Netscape’s software. This strategy is designed to accelerate development and free distribution by Netscape of future high-quality versions of Netscape Communicator to business customers and individuals, further seeding the market for Netscape’s enterprise solutions and Netcenter business.

In addition, the company is making its currently available Netscape Navigator and Communicator Standard Edition 4.0 software products immediately free for all users. With this action, Netscape makes it easier than ever for individuals at home, at school or at work to choose the world’s most popular Internet client software as their preferred interface to the Internet.

“The time is right for us to take the bold action of making our client free – and we are going even further by committing to post the source code for free for Communicator 5.0,” said Jim Barksdale, Netscape’s president and chief executive officer. “By giving away the source code for future versions, we can ignite the creative energies of the entire Net community and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market. Our customers can benefit from world-class technology advancements; the development community gains access to a whole new market opportunity; and Netscape’s core businesses benefit from the proliferation of the market-leading client software.”

Netscape plans to make Netscape Communicator 5.0 source code available for modification and redistribution beginning later this quarter with the first developer release of the product. The company will handle free source distribution with a license which allows source code modification and redistribution and provides for free availability of source code versions, building on the heritage of the GNU Public License (GPL), familiar to developers on the Net. Netscape intends to create a special Web site service where all interested parties can download the source code, post their enhancements, take part in newsgroup discussions, and obtain and share Communicator-related information with others in the Internet community. Netscape will also continue to develop new technologies and offer periodic certified, high-quality, supported releases of its Netscape Communicator and Navigator products, incorporating some of the best features created by this dynamic community.

The ubiquity of Netscape’s client software facilitates Netscape’s strategy of linking millions of individuals to businesses. Today’s announcements will help to further proliferate Netscape’s award-winning client software which today has an installed base of more than 68 million, providing a ready market for businesses using Netscape’s Networked Enterprise software solutions and Netscape Netcenter services. Netscape’s research indicates that in the education market where Netscape’s products are free, the Netscape client software commands approximately 90 percent share, indicating that users tend to choose Netscape when the choice is freely available. Making its browser software free also will enable Netscape to continue to drive Internet standards, maximize the number of users on the Internet, and expand the third-party community of companies and products that take advantage of the Netscape software platform.

Netscape has successfully shifted its business over the past year toward enterprise software sales and to revenues from its Web site business, and away from standalone client revenues. In the third quarter of 1997, standalone client revenues represented approximately 18 percent of Netscape’s revenue, with the rest coming from enterprise software, services and the Web site. Preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 1997, which Netscape announced January 5, show standalone client revenues decreased to approximately 13 percent in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter of 1996 by comparison, standalone client revenue represented approximately 45 percent of Netscape’s revenue.

In conjunction with its free client, Netscape separately announced today that it is launching a host of enhanced products and services that leverage its free client software to make it easy for enterprise and individual customers to adopt Netscape solutions. The new products and services reinforce Netscape’s strategy of leveraging market penetration of its popular client software and its busy Internet site to seed further sales of Netscape software solutions in the home and business markets. The new products and services include enhanced subscription and support packages, an investment protection program for Netscape Communicator users, new reduced pricing on Netscape’s retail and enterprise client products, new Premium Services on its Netscape Netcenter online service and Netscape SuiteSpot server software upgrades featuring Netscape client software.

In addition, the company separately announced the launch of an aggressive new software distribution program called “Unlimited Distribution” to broadly distribute its market-leading Internet client software for free. Unlimited Distribution enables Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecommunications companies, Web content providers, publishers and software developers to download and redistribute Netscape Communicator and Netscape Navigator easily with “no strings attached.” In addition, beginning immediately, individual users can download Netscape Communicator or Navigator for free, register for Netscape Netcenter and, beginning tomorrow, enter the Choose Netscape Sweepstakes to win exciting travel-related prizes including a grand prize of two all-inclusive, seven-night tropical resort vacations.

Individuals can download a free copy of Netscape Communicator client software or the Netscape Navigator browser from the Netscape home page at http://home.netscape.com, or by clicking on any of the thousands of “Netscape Now” buttons on the Internet. Netscape Communicator Professional Edition, which adds features for enterprise customers, will be available for US$29.

Netscape Communications Corporation is a premier provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of Netscape Navigator clients, servers, development tools and commercial applications to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under the symbol “NSCP,” Netscape Communications Corporation is based in Mountain View, California.

Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com or by calling 650/937-2555 (corporate customers) or 650/937-3777 (individuals).

Before long I’m going to try to take the comments to my last post about standards and weave the comments together. But first I want to respond to the comment worrying whether this discussion about standards reflects a change (or coming change) in Mozilla’s interest in web standards. The answer is no.

The goal of is the discussion is to think about whether we can improve the setting. It’s because this is so important that I want to focus on it.

For example, can we encourage more openness and transparency in the creation of web standards? We’ve proved that openness and transparency work well for code: they encourage discussions to focus on technical merit; they allow everyone who is interested to understand the details; they encourage participation. Why not do this with the creation of web standards?

Similarly, can we create a good means of input for both the “implementors” (in our case, the browser and other software vendors) and the web developers in the standards creation process? Browser makers and web developers are two sides of the same coin — both are needed to have a high quality, interoperable web. And each group can make life miserable for the other.

Are there ways we can improve communication between browser makers and web developers during the creation of a web standard? Not afterward, when the standard is done. Communication at that time makes web developers “consumers” of the standard, not participants in its development.

The earlier post and perhaps a few more are intended to develop a context for this sort of discussion and then action. We can jump into the discussion immediately, but it’s often useful to have shared vocabulary and framework.

There’s a lot to be saId about standards, and I hope to have some good discussions to guide Mozilla’s work in this area. But before jumping into the discussion of how things are today, or how they might be better, I’d like to start with some basic topics. Some may seem obvious, and maybe even dumb. But even so, I’d like to see how great a shared understanding there is.

To start with, why do you think standards matter? What’s the most basic reason we care about them?

To me, it’s interoperability. There are a lot of corollaries, or caveats and drawbacks that result from this, but the fundamental principle is interoperability. If one didn’t care about interoperability I suspect the interest in standards would drop dramatically. I see “standards” and “standards bodies” and “standards compliance” are the means we use to achieve the goal of interoperability. I see them not as an end in themselves, but as the best tool we have found to achieve this fundamental principle.

Does interoperability seem like the right fundamental principle to you? Are there other ideas you see as more important, or at odds with the primacy of interoperability? If so, please let me know.

Mozilla is an unusual organization, perhaps even unique. But we are part of a new type of organization — organizations that are mission — driven but use market mechanisms to achieve their goals. By “mission driven” I mean an organization that exists to provide social and civic value. In Mozilla’s case we have a public benefit mission — building an Internet that is open and participatory, where people have meaningful choices about their Internet experience. By “market mechanism” I mean that we use tools that non-profit organizations traditionally haven’t. We use financial tools — we sustain ourselves by generating revenue from our activities, rather than relying completely on grants and donations. We also use the “market” to drive change. In the Internet industry today we are promoting open source, innovation and participation by building products people want to use. Because so many people use our products, we are able to influence technical and policy decisions.

Both John and I have been using the phrase “hybrid organization” to describe this group of organizations. It’s a useful word, but not necessarily precise. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

One important point is that Mozilla is not alone in being a hybrid organization. We are very rare in the technology space. And even rarer in having our size and scope in the technology world. But we are part of a large world of organizations that are combining a social purpose with new tools for financial sustainability. That means some smart people have already been thinking about how to describe these new organizations and we can learn from them.

So, what does a “hybrid organization” mean? There seems to be some academic history of using “hybrid” to mean different types of organizations working together. That’s not what we mean. Wikipedia has a definition of “hybrid organization” that is closer, describing them as operating

in both the public sector and the private sector, simultaneously fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. As a result the hybrid organization becomes a mixture of both a part of government and a commercial enterprise.

The first sentence fits the world I’m trying to describe. But the reference to a hybrid organization being partly “government” is not what I think of with Mozilla. With a little poking around on the Web I found not only a nice description of hybrid organizations but also a very well thought out framework for distinguishing between different gradations of hybrid organizations. (Have I said recently how much I love the Web?).

Here I’m going to call out a few points. This is partly because I’m finding the framework useful for thinking about the broad range of organizational structures people are trying. And it’s partly because the materials help set Mozilla within a larger set of organizations working to create social value in new ways. The author describes a spectrum of hybrid organizations, ranging from “corporations practicing social responsibility” to non-profits that generate income. One type of hybrid with this spectrum is the “Social Enterprise” which is

“any business venture created for a social purpose — mitigating/reducing a social problem or a market failure — and to generate social value while operating with the financial discipline, innovation and determination of a private sector business.” Source

This definitely describes the Mozilla Corporation. (I’m leaving aside for the moment whether one applies this designation to the Mozilla Foundation itself; or treats the Mozilla Foundation as more of a pure non-profit parent of a Social Enterprise.

The world of Social Enterprises is further divided into social enterprises where the “social programs and business activities are one and the same” (the “embedded social enterprise”) and where they are related but not necessarily the same (the “related social enterprise”). In our case, our social programs — creating, distributing and helping people enjoy open source software products — and our business activities are the same.

This slide captures all of this in one place. It describes Mozilla extremely well. We are a mission-driven organization, a portion of which (Mozilla Corporation and soon MailCo) perform some traditionally commercial activities as an integral part of accomplishing the mission. (I would like to copy the entire slide, but haven’t yet contacted the author to see how much I can reproduce here.)

“Embedded mission-centric social enterprise.” That’s a lot of words and I’ll probably keep using “hybrid” in most settings. But each of these words has a specific meaning, often capturing a concept I’ve been trying to organize somehow. Each helps place Mozilla among other organizations. How are we like /unlike microfinance? How are we like / unlike kiva.org? How are we like / unlike the Fair Trade organizations? And, it helps distinguish us from the makers of other browsers and products, *whether or not those products are built using open source software.* The open source nature of Firefox and Thunderbird is fundamental; other products in the market may match those (though none do today). The public-benefit, mission-driven nature of Mozilla is also fundamental, and this regard we are very close to unique.