Mozilla Foundation
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Mozilla_Foundation_logo.png
Mozilla Foundation logo
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization coordinates releases of the Mozilla software, sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and employs several Mozilla developers. It is based in Mountain View, California. The Mozilla Foundation is the 'maker' of the increasingly popular web browser Mozilla Firefox.
As mentioned in various Mozilla announcements, Mozilla Foundation is "a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet".
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History
The Mozilla Foundation was launched on July 15, 2003 as America Online (AOL) drastically scaled back its involvement with Mozilla, laying off or reassigning most of the Netscape browser developers and announcing that it would no longer finance the day to day running of the project. The Mozilla Foundation essentially replaces mozilla.org (also known as the Mozilla Organization), a much looser and more informal group that was established as an autonomous division of Netscape in 1998. AOL assisted in the initial creation of the Mozilla Foundation, transferring hardware and intellectual property to the organization and employing a three-person team for the first three month's of its existence to help with the transition. AOL has also promised to donate $2 million to the foundation over two years.
Business
The remit of the Mozilla Foundation is much wider than that of mozilla.org, with the organization taking on many tasks that were traditionally left to Netscape and other vendors of Mozilla technology. As part of a wider move to target end-users, the foundation made deals with commercial companies to sell CDs containing Mozilla software and provide telephone support. In both cases, the group chose the same suppliers as Netscape for these services. The Mozilla Foundation is also becoming more assertive over its intellectual property, with policies put in place for the use of Mozilla trademarks and logos. New projects such as marketing have also been launched.
Funding for the foundation comes from donations from corporations and individuals. As well as AOL's initial $2 million donation, Mitch Kapor gave $300,000 to the organization at its launch. The group has tax-exempt status under IRC 501(c)3 of the US tax code.
People
The Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors has five members:
- Mitch Kapor (Chair)
- Mitchell Baker (President)
- Brian Behlendorf
- Brendan Eich
- Christopher Blizzard
The foundation also has a number of paid employees, who develop Mozilla and help to coordinate the operations of the organization:
- Josh Aas — Mac OS X-specific code
- David Baron — Gecko layout engine
- Chris Beard — community and marketing
- David Bienvenu — mail and newsgroups code
- Asa Dotzler — coordinates quality assurance and testing efforts, helps define release schedules
- Rafael Ebron — marketing and business relationships
- Brendan Eich — responsible for the overall architecture and technical direction of Mozilla
- Chris Hofmann — engineering director
- Marcia Knous — administration
- Sarah Lieberman — quality assurance
- Scott MacGregor — Mozilla Thunderbird developer
- Myk Melez — webtools (Web-based project management applications), system administration
- Dave Miller — webtools, system administration
- Jay Patel — quality assurance, including administration of the SupportSoft Quality Feedback Agent system
- Chase Phillips — build engineer (replaced Daniel "leaf" Nunes in late 2004)
- Deb Richardson — developer documentation and community relations
- Johnny Stenback — Gecko
- Doug Turner — works on Minimo, a version of Mozilla for cellphones and other small devices
- Daniel Veditz — security
- Boris Zbarsky — Gecko (part-time)
Mitchell Baker is employed by OSAF, but works full time on Mozilla Foundation tasks (previously she split her time between the Mozilla Foundation and OSAF work). Until late 2004, OSAF employee Bart Decrem had part of his time assigned to Mozilla work, primarily focusing on marketing and business relationships. He left to become the CEO of MozSource.
Lead Firefox developer Ben Goodger left the Mozilla Foundation to take a job at Google in January 2005. He remains the head of the Firefox project.
In addition to salaried employees, the Mozilla Foundation also hires contractors, such as Blake Ross, from time to time.
The committee that runs the Mozilla Foundation is known as mozilla.org staff and is composed of a mixture of foundation employees and volunteers.
See also
External links
- About the Mozilla Foundation (http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/)
- 2005 presentation about the Mozilla Foundation (http://www.gerv.net/presentations/fosdem2005-mofo/)
- Press release about the creation of the Mozilla Foundation (http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-foundation.html)
- Mozilla Store (http://store.mozilla.org/) — Sells Mozilla CDs
- Mozilla Telephone Support (http://support.decisionone.com/mozilla/mozilla_help_main.htm)
- Trademarks and Licenses Policy (http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html)
- Mozilla Marketing Project (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/marketing/)
- Donate to the Mozilla Foundation (http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/donate.html)
- mozilla.org Staff Members (http://www.mozilla.org/about/stafflist.html)
- mozilla.org Staff Meeting Minutes (http://www.mozilla.org/status/minutes.html)
- Branding Mozilla: Towards Mozilla 2.0 (http://actsofvolition.com/steven/mozillabranding/) The document that led to the rebranding of Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbirdes:Fundación Mozilla
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