Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes, and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and its tax-paying subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla's current products include the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, the Bugzilla bug tracking system, and the Gecko layout engine.
History
On January 23, 1998, Netscape announced that its Netscape Communicator browser software would be free, and that its source code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape registered. The project took its name, "Mozilla", from the original code name of the Netscape Navigator browser—a portmanteau of "Mosaic and Godzilla", and used to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite, the free software version of Netscape's internet software, Netscape Communicator. Zawinski said he arrived at the name "Mozilla" at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordinating the new community.Mozilla originally aimed to be a technology provider for companies such as Netscape, who would commercialise their free software code. When Netscape's parent company AOL greatly reduced its involvement with Mozilla in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation was designated the project's legal steward. Soon after, Mozilla deprecated the Mozilla Suite in favor of creating independent applications for each function, primarily the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird email client, and moved to supply them directly to the public.
Mozilla's activities next expanded, and also experienced product terminations, with Firefox on mobile platforms, a mobile OS called Firefox OS, a web-based identity system called Mozilla Persona and a marketplace for HTML5 applications.
In a report released in November 2012, Mozilla reported that its revenue for 2011 was $163 million, up 33% from $123 million in 2010. It noted that roughly 85% of their revenue came from their contract with Google.
At the end of 2013, Mozilla announced a deal with Cisco, whereby Firefox would download and use a Cisco-provided binary build of an open-source codec to play the proprietary H.264 video format. As part of the deal, Cisco would pay any patent licensing fees associated with the binaries that it distributed. Mozilla's CTO, Brendan Eich, acknowledged that it was "not a complete solution" and wasn't "perfect". An employee in Mozilla's video formats team, writing unofficially, justified it by the need to maintain their large user base, which would be necessary for future battles for truly free video formats.
In December 2013, Mozilla announced funding for the development of paid games through its Game Creator Challenge. However, even games that would be released under non-free or free software licenses were required to be made with open web technologies and Javascript. In January 2017 the company rebranded away from its dinosaur symbol in favor of a logo including a "://" character sequence from a URL: "moz://a". As a part of the rebranding, it commissioned the open source slab serif font Zilla Slab.
In 2020 Mozilla announced it would cut 25% of its worldwide staff of nearly 1,000 to reduce costs. Firefox has fallen from 30% market share to 4% in 10 years. Despite this, executive pay increased 400%, with Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s top executive, receiving $2.4m in 2018. In December 2020, Mozilla closed its Mountain View office.
Mozilla rebranded again in 2024 with a new "Reclaim the Internet" motto. The rebrand was assisted by Jones Knowles Ritchie.
Values
Seeking new products and roles while sustaining commitment to Firefox though Firefox's market share has so far dwindled dramatically, Executive Chairwoman and CEO Baker, Chief Product Officer Steve Teixeira and Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman told Tech Crunch in November 2022 that fundamental business models are being rethought, and new roles in the internet as a human institution, that Mozilla's next 25 years' plan was in search of specifying projects for revised detailed purposes. The one actual general vehicle implemented "has meant the launch of Mozilla Ventures, a $35 million venture fund that the organization plans to use to invest in products and founders who want to build a better, privacy-respecting internet."Mozilla has used or promoted non-free resources in some circumstances, such as licensing the H.264 codec and promoting the development of paid games using open technologies.
Mozilla Manifesto
The Mozilla Manifesto outlines Mozilla's goals and principles. It asserts Mozilla's commitment to the internet, saying: "The open, global internet is the most powerful communication and collaboration resource we have ever seen. It embodies some of our deepest hopes for human progress." It then outlines what Mozilla sees as its place in the development of the internet, stating "The Mozilla project uses a community-based approach to create world-class open source software and to develop new types of collaborative activities". And finally, it lays out their ten principles:- The internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment, and society as a whole.
- The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
- The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings.
- Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
- Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it.
- The effectiveness of the internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability, innovation, and decentralised participation worldwide.
- Free and open source software promotes the development of the internet as a public resource.
- Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust.
- Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical.
- Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention, and commitment.
Pledge
Venture incubation
Mozilla Builders
Throughout 2020, Mozilla ran Mozilla Builders, "an experimental 'Fix-The-Internet' incubator program". It funded 80 projects through three subprograms: The Startup Studio, The MVP Lab and The Open Lab. The site for this program is now archived.Mozilla Ventures
On November 2, 2022, at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal and simultaneously online, Mozilla announced the early 2023 launch of Mozilla Ventures, a venture capital and product incubation facility out of Mozilla for independent start-ups, seed to Series A which qualify under the ethos of the Mozilla Manifesto, with a starting fund of $35 million. Its founding Managing Partner is Mohamed Nanabhay who told Entrepreneur India the purpose is "to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurs from across the world who are building companies that create a better internet".Mozilla Foundation President and Executive Director Mark Surman named the first 3 investment recipients in the Mozilla Ventures mode, in discussions before Mozilla Ventures was announced, as Secure AI Labs, Block Party and HeyLogin.
Software
Firefox
is a family of software products developed by Mozilla, with the Firefox browser as the flagship product.Firefox browser
The Firefox web browser is available in both desktop and mobile versions. It uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards., Firefox had approximately 10–11% of worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the 4th most-used web browser.Firefox began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla codebase by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross, who believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite.
Firefox was originally named Phoenix but the name was changed to avoid trademark conflicts with Phoenix Technologies. The initially announced replacement, Firebird, provoked objections from the Firebird project community. The current name, Firefox, was chosen on February 9, 2004.
It was previously announced that Mozilla would launch a premium version of the Firefox browser by October 2019. The company's CEO, Chris Beard, was quoted by The Next Web: "there is no plan to charge money for things that are now free. So we will roll out a subscription service and offer a premium level." In September, Mozilla revealed their new offering, Firefox Premium Support, at $10 per installation. However, shortly after news broke of the service, Mozilla removed information about it from the website. Computerworld reported that in an email statement, Mozilla claimed "the page outlining that these paid support services for enterprise clients will be available was posted incorrectly."
In October 2023, Mozilla announced that consumer 'Firefox accounts' were renamed to 'Mozilla accounts', explicitly indicating a desire to bring the Mozilla brand into greater prominence even with the diminution of some Firefox branding:
Over the years, Firefox accounts expanded its role beyond being solely an authentication solution for Firefox Sync. It now serves as Mozilla's main authentication and account management service for a wide range of products and services, supporting millions of active account customers globally. As such, the original “Firefox” branding no longer accurately reflects the broad scope of Mozilla's offerings. The renaming is intended to create a more consistent brand experience across all Mozilla surfaces, driving higher awareness of the portfolio of Mozilla products.