Mozilla

Archive for September 4th, 2007

Activities: Mid July & Aug 2007

September 4th, 2007

In doing some blog maintenance i realized that the last summary of what I’ve been working on — which seems so recent in my mind — was from mid July. So here’s a summary of specific projects I’ve been working on since then.

  • Lots of work on describing the Mozilla project, our goals and how we achieve them, why we are different than commercial enterprises, and what the nest few years are likely to bring. I gave a talk at OSCON on this topic. I then put together and presented shorter, simpler, more text-and-fewer-pictures version at the Internet as a Public Good seminar. More recently I’ve been thinking about how to take the work on identity, combine it with the initiatives we have underway and describe what to look for in the next few years. When I get this a bit more cohesive I’ll start distributing it for comment.
  • Lots of time working on the mail / Thunderbird questions. The possibilities aren’t quite far enough along to describe yet, but I’m hopeful we’ll be able to do so soon. I’m also quite optimistic we’ll end up with a good solution.
  • Mozilla Foundation executive director search. Created the search committee. Had a first meeting where our recruiter Eunice gave the search committee general information about how to think about candidates. The notes from this meeting are posted on the mozilla wiki. A bunch of us were at OSCON during this meeting, so we didn’t get to figuring out logistics for making this meeting generally accessible. Had a second meeting to talk about interviewing candidates and what types of questions to ask. The recommendation is that in a first interview, the candidate should do most of the talking. And the questions should be open-ended, not specific to Mozilla or Mozilla knowledge. The goal here is to get to know the candidate. If that goes well, then a second interview would delve much more into Mozilla specific questions. The questions should be posted at the preceding link shortly. We’re starting to generate a good set of candidates, but there’s more work to be done here. Asa will be organizing an Air Mozilla broadcast on the ED search.
  • Mozilla Foundation organizational work. We hope to have our audited financial statements for 2006 ready shortly. I’ve also spent some time reviewing requirements and regulations for 501(c)(3) public benefit corporations, which is how the Mozilla Foundation is classified. There’s a bunch of ongoing work related to tax-exempt status that requires attention.
  • Brainstorming about the mozilla.org/foundation page of the website. The mozilla.org website in general has been on my mind, and I’m very glad to see there are a bunch of people actively working on this now through bug 345664. Right now my personal particular focus is on the foundation page. I want to make that a page that speaks to people whether or not they are programmers. I’d like it to describe the scope and potential of the Mozilla project. I’ve got a bunch of ideas now, am hoping to get them implemented for review shortly.
  • Participated in Mellon Foundation grant selection process for the Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration. Worked in conjunction with other members of the Award Committee. The awards will be announced in December.
  • General management, product, organizational and recruiting topics (this covers a lot of ground but is also true constantly).
  • 3 days of vacation. Short, but very relaxing.

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