Marketing/Promoting the Mozilla Mission
The Mozilla community is entirely free to approach public or private bodies, or other projects, on its own behalf. However, we ask that members of the community wishing to do so are very clear about their relationship to the project. And, very important, community members should respect local customs. There are three principal causes Mozilla that publicly and passionately supports: Open Standards, Open Web, Open Source.
We are working on some materials to help define and support Mozilla's position on these issues, and we hope they will help you if you wish to promote these causes. To give you an idea, we are working on the following:
Case studies that show the risk and dangers of proprietary technology, including:
- Risks to innovation, commerce, individual and national interests when foreign companies dominate market share.
- ActiveX and security problems.
- Provide "current" examples of how users are at risk when they start adopting technologies that get them "locked-in" to a particular company.
- iTunes, Microsoft proprietary document and media formats.
- South Korean reliance on security technology that is only implemented in ActiveX.
Case studies showing the benefits of Open Solutions:
- Show how Firefox has opened up innovation, experimentation, and competition in *the web browser market place and how users have benefited.
- Identify how OS/platform independence, interoperability, and open standards *are key to efficient use of government resources.
- Case studies, success stories, and strategies around government efforts to *adopt open source (eg. Germany, Switzerland, Brazil).
In the meantime, we have a list (which is by no means exhaustive) of links pointing to interesting writing that we think does a good job of illuminating Mozilla's position:
The Mozilla Manifesto Working closely with communities around the world, Mozilla has distilled a set of principles that we believe are critical for the Internet to continue to benefit the public good. These principles form the Mozilla Manifesto.
The Open Source Definition "Open Source" is a widely used term, and increasingly so. We consider that the Open Source Initiative's definition (sometimes known as the OSD) is the appropriate one.
The Web Standards Project Founded in 1998 (the same year Mozilla was born) The Web Standards Project (WaSP) promotes standards in order to make it easier to develop for the web, and to increase the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web. Mozilla works closely with the WaSP. There is a lot of useful information on WaSP's website.
Mitchell Baker: A Second View of the Open Internet Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s "Chief Lizard Wrangler" explores a different approach to the Open Internet in her blog.
Brendan Eich: On the Open Web and Its Adversaries Brendan Eich, Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer and the creator of JavaScript, on what it means to be "Open" in the sense of open standards, open source, and a web open web. There is also a downloadable presentation written by Brendan outlining these principles in more technical terms: Mozilla’s position on the open web.
Chris Blizzard: The Benefits of Being Open Chris Blizzard, Mozilla's Chief Technology Evangelist shares his thoughts about the past, present, and future of Mozilla, and the force behind the successful Firefox browser and Thunderbird email application.
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