Mozilla project

What is Mozilla?

Mozilla is not a web browser!

Mozilla is a framework for building web applications using web standards such as CSS, XML, RDF, etc.

Mozilla is a non-profit, open source web development project that develops program code used in the Mozilla suite of applications.

The Mozilla application suite is a complete set of web applications (browser, chat client, news client, mail client, etc.).

Mozilla believes that the Internet is a public resource that needs to be improved and protected.

Product of Mozilla

Firefox - One of the most popular internet browsers today
Thunderbird - An email and newsgroup client that is secure, fast, and easy to use
SeaMonkey - - Browse, email, chat and edit all in one
Bugzilla - bug tracking tool
Camino - A web browser for Mac
Lightning & Sunbird - Calendar extensions and applications
Composer - Web page editor

The product can be downloaded through the following address: http://www.mozilla.org

History of the Mozilla Project

The Mozilla Project was created as an open source community in 1998 with the release of the Netscape browser source code.

Within a year, new community members from around the world have added many new features and enhanced existing functionality to Netscape's next browser, and the Mozilla project has grown. Instead of just working on Netscape's next browser, members began creating a variety of browsers, development tools, and other projects.

In 2002, the first major version, Mozilla 1.0, was released. This suite makes many improvements to browsers, email clients, and other applications. But not many people use it (more than 90% of Internet users use Internet Explorer). That same year, Mozilla released the first version of Phoenix (later renamed Firefox).

In 2003, the Mozilla Project created the Mozilla Foundation, an independent nonprofit organization. The Mozilla Foundation continues to manage the day-to-day operations of the Mozilla project.

In 2004, Firefox 1.0 was released, which was a major success. Firefox was downloaded over 100 million times in less than a year. Firefox's popularity helps put the selector back in the hands of users.

In 2008, Firefox reached 20% global market share.

In 2008, Mozilla celebrated its tenth anniversary. For a decade, the community has shown that commercial companies can benefit from collaborating on open source projects.

Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation was founded in July 2003 and is located in Mountain View, California, USA.

The Mozilla Foundation, referred to as Mozilla (abbreviated as MF or MoFo), is a non-profit organization established to support and lead the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets management development policies, operates key infrastructure organizations and manages trademarks and other intellectual property. It has a subsidiary called Mozilla Corporation, which employs a number of Mozilla developers and coordinates distribution of the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing diverse choice and innovation on the Internet."

In its early stages, the Mozilla Foundation began to branch out beyond mozilla org, doing things that had previously been left to Netscape and Mozilla partners.

In a move toward "end-user orientation," the Mozilla Foundation has contracted with commercial companies to sell CDs containing Mozilla software and provide telephone support. In these moves, the Mozilla Foundation selected former Netscape vendors.

The Mozilla Foundation has become more confident in its intellectual property rights and has introduced a new policy on the use of its trademarks.

The Mozilla Foundation has also started new projects such as market expansion.

With the establishment of Mozilla Corporation, the Mozilla Foundation transferred all software development and business-related activities to this new subsidiary organization.

The Mozilla Foundation now focuses solely on governance and strategy matters, and it also continues to manage some non-product projects, such as Camino and SeaMonkey.

The Mozilla Foundation now owns the Mozilla trademark and other intellectual property rights, all of which are licensed to Mozilla Corporation.

The Mozilla Foundation also controls Mozilla's program source code repository and determines who can submit code to the repository.

Roadmap for the Mozilla Foundation

Mozilla has decided to create a new development roadmap. Listed below are some highlights from the new roadmap:

Focus on standalone applications (FireFox browser, Thunderbird mail/news app, and standalone designers)
Making Firefox and Thunderbird premier Mozilla products
Maintaining SeaMonkey (now Mozilla Browser) for enterprises and organizations with large Mozilla deployments Application Suite
Use a one-year development cycle to maintain the Mozilla 1.4 branch as a "distributor/vendor" branch used by the organization
Fix critical Gecko layout architecture vulnerabilities. All Mozilla apps benefit from these Gecko improvements.
Striving for excellence. Do less, but do better!

Confusing Mozilla Name

The first Netscape browser used a code engine called Mozilla. Netscape 1.0 is powered by a code engine called Mozilla 1.0. Netscape 2.0 uses Mozilla 2.0, Netscape 3.0 uses Mozilla 3.0, and Netscape 4.0 uses Mozilla 4.0.

In 1998, Netscape 4 made its source code public - simultaneously establishing the development of Netscape 5 as an open source project.

The open source project that created Netscape 5 is called "The Mozilla Project". Oddly, the code engine for this Mozilla project is called Gecko.

Unfortunately, after the release of 4.0, development of the next generation browser took Netscape more than three and a half years. The delay undermined Netscape's chances of being a credible alternative to Microsoft's IE browser. Microsoft released its IE 5.0 not long after the Mozilla project began, and Microsoft's IE 6.0 was ready before Netscape managed to release a working browser.

Netscape 6.0 based on Gecko M18 (Milestone 18) was released in November 2000.

After the release of Netscape 6.0, the Mozilla project began developing Netscape 7 based on an engine called Gecko 1.0.

Netscape 6 and 7 are both built on Mozilla, and Netscape and Mozilla are nearly identical application suites.

Netscape 7 claims to use a coding engine called Gecko 1.0.

At this moment, the Mozilla project is developing a new browser called Firefox. In the past, Firefox was called Mozilla Firebird (and Mozilla Firebird used to be called Phoenix, which claimed to be a new version of Mozilla).