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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, and more.

Mozilla is a nonprofit, open-source web development project that develops program code used in the Mozilla application suite.

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

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

Mozilla's Products

Products can be downloaded from the following address: http://www.mozilla.org

History of the Mozilla Project

In 1998, with the release of the Netscape browser source code, the Mozilla project was created as an open-source community.

Within a year, new community members from around the world had added many new features to Netscape's next browser and enhanced its existing features, while the Mozilla project grew. Members were no longer just working on Netscape's next browser but began creating various browsers, development tools, and other projects.

In 2002, the first major version, Mozilla 1.0, was released. This suite made many improvements to the browser, email client, and other applications. However, it was not widely used (over 90% of internet users used 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 significant success. Within less than a year, Firefox downloads exceeded 100 million. Firefox's popularity helped return choice to users.

In 2008, Firefox reached 20% of the global market share.

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

Mozilla Foundation

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

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

The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a public benefit organization dedicated to diversity and innovation on the internet."

In its initial phase, the Mozilla Foundation began to engage in broader areas than mozilla.org, taking on tasks that were previously pushed to Netscape and Mozilla partners.

In its move towards "end-user" orientation, the Mozilla Foundation signed contracts with commercial companies to sell CDs containing Mozilla software and provide phone support services. Among these initiatives, the Mozilla Foundation chose former Netscape suppliers.

The Mozilla Foundation became more confident in its intellectual property and introduced new policies for trademark usage.

The Mozilla Foundation also initiated new projects such as market expansion.

With the establishment of the Mozilla Corporation, the Mozilla Foundation transferred all software development and commercial activities to this new subsidiary.

The Mozilla Foundation now focuses only on regulatory and strategic matters and continues to manage some non-product projects, such as Camino and SeaMonkey.

The Mozilla Foundation currently owns the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and licenses them to Mozilla Corporation.

The Mozilla Foundation also controls the Mozilla source code repository and decides who can submit code to it.

Roadmap of the Mozilla Foundation

Mozilla decided to create a new development roadmap. Below are some highlights of the new roadmap:

Confusing Mozilla Names

The first Netscape browser used a code engine named Mozilla. Netscape 1.0 was powered by a code engine named Mozilla 1.0. Netscape 2.0 used Mozilla 2.0, Netscape 3.0 used Mozilla 3.0, and Netscape 4.0 used Mozilla 4.0.

In 1998, Netscape 4 open-sourced its code - and established the development of Netscape 5 as an open-source project.

This open-source project to create Netscape 5 was called "The Mozilla Project". Oddly, the code engine for this Mozilla Project was called Gecko.

Unfortunately, after the 4.0 release, the development of the next-generation browser took more than three and a half years for Netscape. This delay destroyed Netscape's possibility of being a reliable alternative to Microsoft's IE browser. Shortly after the Mozilla Project started, Microsoft released its IE 5.0, and before Netscape could release a working browser, Microsoft's IE 6.0 was ready.

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 named Gecko 1.0.

Both Netscape 6 and 7 were built on Mozilla, and Netscape and Mozilla were nearly identical application suites.

Netscape 7 claimed to use a code engine named Gecko 1.0.

At this time, the Mozilla Project was developing a new browser named Firefox. In the past, Firefox was called Mozilla Firebird (and Mozilla Firebird was previously called Phoenix, which claimed to be a new version of Mozilla).

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