Archive for June 4th, 2009

We started building Mozilla browsers 11 years ago now. Our first “product” release was Mozilla 1.0, on June 5, 2002. Wired reminded me of this today, in a nice historical piece on the 7th anniversary. I find it extremely gratifying that Wired, as well as others, remembers that first release and choose to note its anniversary. It wasn’t Firefox, but we were proud of Mozilla 1.0, and I still think rightly so.

The anniversary has my mind spinning about a project that’s been kicking around in various forms. I would like to create a sort of timeline of Mozilla that is personal. Somewhat related to the existing timeline project, but focused on Mozilla contributors rather than events. I’d like to have some way to visualize when people came to Mozilla, what brought each of us. I have a story to tell, and I’m sure most active contributors do. I’d like to collect these somehow, with a way to visualize it. In other words, not just text or stories or books or posts, but something that makes use of the stunning ability we have today to visualize and interact with data.

Any ideas welcome.

A lot of people are drawn to this phrase. It comes up regularly when we discuss trying to capture Mozilla in a few words. I’ve always wondered if it feels too American, if it is as appealing world-wide. If you’ve got thoughts I’d love to hear them. And if you’re a native speaker of a language other than English it would be helpful to know that as part of your comment.

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions for describing the Mozilla mission for a business card. Also to those involved in the related conversation on the characteristics that make the web better over at Mark Surman’s blog.

After reading the suggestions a few times I realized I want to try something that is explicit about the public benefit or non-profit nature of Mozilla. This concept helps people understand that we are fundamentally different from most of the software vendors they are accustomed to. And i think it makes it easier for people to believe that our talk of “open” or “shared control” or “benefit to the user is first” reflects our guiding principles, and not simply nice-sounding words that promote some other goal.

Mozilla offices are moving this weekend and I need new cards in a hurry so I went with something very simple for the first batch. I’m not remotely done yet with this project though. I’ve already got ideas for the second batch, and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate more ideas from the recent discussions.

The front side is a template, where colors, the Mozilla dino logo and the text block are predetermined. The back side is open for exploration. Here’s my first batch.

For the second batch I think I’ll try adding a second line, so the text next to the Firefox logo says:

I like many of the other ideas quite a bit and am working on incorporating them in future versions, until I find one that really works. I hope anyone who feels inspired to use these ideas in any setting to describe Mozilla, please of course feel free.