Firefox

Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker spoke recently about an interesting shift we’re seeing in technology — a shift from the web as a "maker’s world" that actively encouraged tinkering, tweaking and getting your hands dirty, to an era of "elegant consumption" that’s increasingly about one-way reception.

As she points out, that shift isn’t necessarily bad — but it does open up new opportunities and challenges, and a role for Mozilla to act as convener and gathering point for "web makers" — people who bring the same energy and fulfillment from making things in the physical world to the web. » Read more

Almost every time I’ve turned on the television in the past week, I've seen an ad for Google Chrome. What started earlier this year as a sprinkling of ads here in the United States has become a torrential downpour.

For me, Google has long been one of the poster children for a new breed of company born in the age of the Internet that doesn’t need to rely on traditional advertising to build its brand. » Read more

My theme this week is organizational openness and transparency and today I'd like to highlight a fantastic example of an organization that has built a culture with openness at its core: Mozilla.

Most of you probably know Mozilla as the organization famous for its open source Firefox web browser. But what you may not know is that open source is more than just a technology decision for Mozilla; the open source way is deeply ingrained in every aspect of its culture. » Read more

Let's be up front about things: I'm angry about the rhetoric I hear of late surrounding education. Teachers (and their unions) are being vilified, legislators and parents are demanding "accountability," and at the same time, the financial support necessary to educate a society is being slashed drastically. Regarding education, everyone has an opinion---and they feel their opinion is "informed" in some way simply because they went to school. » Read more

How do you develop a successful open source business that lasts? Of the more than 250,000 open source projects on SourceForge, few will be successful at that goal. But one way they might think about how to do it is by doing it in reverse: What should an open source project or business not do?

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In LinuxCon's education mini-summit, Bryant Patten of the National Center for Open Source and Education gave a presentation titled "Can open source save the world?" He noted a quote from Mary Lange, Educational Technology Resource Teacher at San Diego Unified School District. She says that we often assume students know how to use computers and that they are really good at it. But the truth is, they know how to use technology for personal reasons but not necessarily for education. They will say "I know how to do that," but when it comes to reality, they don't. » Read more

I've always been a fan of the Mozilla Foundation, and not just because of the Firefox web browser. As catalyst for some of the great communities in the open source world, Mozilla is something of a recipe factory for what to do right when it comes to building community. As it turns out, Mozilla's Director of Developer Relations, Chris Blizzard, is a long time friend of mine. » Read more