Mozilla

Mozilla Foundation Discussion

June 19th, 2008

Mark Surman has an interesting post today thinking about ways in which the Mozilla Foundation might provide more leadership for the open web, or open Internet in general. The question of how best to broaden the Foundation’s activities is near to my own heart; it’s exciting to see people starting a positive conversation about this question.

Mark is a Fellow with the Shuttleworth Foundation, and is involved in a range of activities related top open collaboration. He’s got a fresh perspective that leads to some interesting thinking. I’d encourage you to take a look and add your voice to the discussion.

2 comments for “Mozilla Foundation Discussion”

  1. 1

    Michael Gibson said on June 24th, 2008 at 3:00 pm:

    Dear Mitchell,

    Open? I think not. Mozilla marketing seems have developed an ego that wants the internet for themselves, and themselves only. You seem to have come on board a ship that is housing a pirate crew. Please see below.

    I use Adobe CS3 Dreamweaver-Photoshop-InDesign and Microsoft Expression Web for web design and editing for some mission-critical clients, i.e. very important to this country. Upon loading Firefox 3 and declaring it my default browser, Firefox took over control of part of my computer and overwrote all my .htm/.html files in File Explorer, Dreamweaver, etc with the Firefox logo and the words ‘Firefox Document’ instead of .htm or .html as the File Type.

    .htm has disappeared, vanquished… Long Live FireFox!

    .jpeg’s luckily still appear as normal, and in fact Windows now even has them with small thumbnails of the images (but, only on this new Vista Ultimate based system-my older system’s .jpg/.jpeg’s still bear the scar of a similar overwriting after downloading Paint Shop Pro did along with some HP printer drivers that came with an HP printer, and that even after uninstalling Paint Shop Pro and doing everything possible to get it out of there). .pdf’s appear with the Adobe Acrobat logo, as that format is proprietary, as .doc’s appear with a Word logo as that is a proprietary Microsoft format.

    Did Firefox buy all the rights to .htm/.html? Or are they trying to steal the impression that they own the rights to it?

    That needs some clarification. Majorly so.

    In my own opinion, this is piracy and a hijacking (insertion of a trojan virus) into my computer’s operating system WITHOUT my express permission. I would like to see Mozilla offer a formal apology to everyone that downloaded it, and include an update immediately that removes this trojan virus from within the program and restores the operating system file naming structure to it’s prior state. What Mozilla has done here is unconscionable and extremely egregious, and if Mozilla does not address it immediately, I can foresee a class-action lawsuit as well as incredibly negative publicity for such crass/brazen/over the edge marketing tactics.

    I will give you a way down from the tree though… aliong with the correction and apology, if you can be the first one to market with a rendering engine that will deliver a small thumbnail of an .html doc to Windows Explorer just as it gives a thumbnail of a .jpeg, and politely ASK the developer or user’s permission to do so, well, then you’ll have something people will remember you for in a positive way. Your company already knows how to take over the customer’s computer, the rest should be easy.

    Sincerely,
    Michael Gibson

  2. 2

    Nicholas Shiell said on June 26th, 2008 at 2:35 am:

    Michael,
    You COMPLETELY miss-understand whats happening on your PC!

    When you change file associations Windows/Linux/Mac will asign an icon to the file relating to the application that it opens in.

    If you have set Firefox as the default app for *.htm files expect your OS to alter the “file opens with”,type and icon.

    Regards

Skip past the sidebar