ottodv's blog

Spread Open Source

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:49:39 -0800

Can the idea of community marketing that is the success of Spread Firefox be applied to other open source projects?

I think it can and for this purpose a new website has been created, called SpreadOpenSource.com . Its purpose is to help spread open source solutions like OpenOffice.org, Gimp, Linux, Ubuntu, open formats like ODF and generally promote the use of open source around the world.

The more people use open source solutions the better it is for all open source solutions, someone who tried Firefox is probably more inclined to try OpenOffice than someone who didn't, and vice-versa. Similarly to make the transition to an open source operating system like Ubuntu, it really helps if you are already using programs like Firefox and OpenOffice. And anyone who uses Ubuntu will in turn probably continue to use Firefox and OpenOffice. So I believe they all benefit from each other's success.

SpeadOpenSource.com opened just yesterday.

Otto

Help Stop Broken Standards!

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:48:36 -0800

One of the great things that Mozilla has achieved with Firefox is that open non-proprietary standards are now much more widely used on the Internet.

I don't think I need to explain here what the benefits of open non-proprietary standards are for the development of the Internet and software industry by removing artificial barriers to competition.

Microsoft seems to have learned something from this. They are now trying to elevate some of their proprietary standards to internationally recognized standards. However these "standards" are not truly open as Microsoft seems to holds patents on ways to implement parts of these standards. In effect this amounts to a standard which only they can legally implement. This is only one of the issues with Microsoft's proposed OOXML "Standard".

At the same time they (meaning Microsoft) have been accused of "bribing" delegations from several nations to vote in favor of OOXML at ISO.

The risk that this bad standard may get adopted next February is real. You can help prevent this by telling your country's delegation to vote NO! and signing the petition:

http://www.noooxml.org/
http://www.noooxml.org/petition

Otto

Made for Firefox first!

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 12:17:22 -0700

Today I saw the following message (at the bottom this page http://otsing.delfi.ee/m.php ):

"Tutvu kaardirakenduse uue versiooniga siin (hetkel töötab ainult Firefox brauseriga)"

Now I am sure you probably only understand 1 word from that sentence, so here's the translation (more or less):

"Get acquainted with the new map implementation version here (currently only works with the Firefox browser)."

This is a popular map application here in Estonia. Ain't it cool that a version for Firefox is developed First!!!

This really does show how far Firefox has come, that it is the easiest browser to develop for and in short that Firefox IS becoming the standard!

Otto

Best Firefox song?

Mon, 21 May 2007 14:09:40 -0700

After reading the post on the Firefox fight song, I looked through some of the available Firefox songs and I think this one is the best Firefox song: You can be my Firefox (link through Digg)

Let's see if more people like it, you can help by voting for it on Digg if you like it too.

Otto

Add-ons Promotion Contest WINNERS!

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 05:57:22 -0700

The Firefox Add-ons Promotion Contest ended on april 9th. In total 168 reviews entered the contest, 112 reviews were in Spanish and 56 in English. One person even entered 75 reviews.

Each jury member had to select the 10 best reviews and order them. The best one receiving 10 points, the second best 9, etc... As there were 4 jury members the maximum number of points a review could get was 40. It was a lot of work to go through all the reviews, deciding the rankings was also difficult as there were many good reviews. The points results show that the race was close.

The top 3 add-on reviewers and prize winners are:

Mozilla Links for his review of Forum Additive with 23 points.
Vikas Sah for his review of Adblock Plus with 22 points.
Leandro Ardissone for his review of ScrapBook with 19 points.

The winners win a Firefox T-shirt, 24 USD of music downloads or a domain name registration. Read more details and the full list of results.

Edit: The prizes have been taken up as follows:

Mozilla Links (Percy) gets the Firefox T-shirt offered by Ken Saunders.
Vikas Sah gets the 24 USD of music downloads offered by Otto de Voogd.
Leandro Ardissone gets the Domain name registration offered by Jackie Liu.

The end of the contest does not mean one should stop writing reviews of add-ons. We suggest that you submit links to your reviews on Jamey's new Foxiewire
service in the Mozilla Addons Category, where other users can read and vote for your reviews. You can also submit your review to Marco's list of extension reviews.

Otto

A Firefox Bankcard! How cool is that?

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:14:37 -0700

Check this out, my very own and very real Firefox Bankcard!

http://www.7is7.com/software/firefox/bankcard.html

Otto

Edit: Digg it!

12 days left

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:52:27 -0700

The add-ons promotion contest has already received 149 reviews for add-ons, some of which you may never have heard of before! So take some time to read some of the reviews, you may just find that one extension you never knew existed but is exactly what you wanted. And don't forget to vote for your favorite reviews.

Right now there are only 12 days left to write an add-on review and get a chance to win one of the prizes. As the winners will be decided by a jury even late entries will have a chance to win.

Otto

Firefox Stats (January dip explained)

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:54:18 -0800

Today I analyzed the traffic data for February on my site. I broke down the 592,000 pageviews into percentages for each rendering engine (Where Trident is mostly IE and AOL, Gecko is mostly Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape, KHTML is mostly Safari).

The much reported January dip for Firefox appears clearly when comparing the data over the 4 previous months:

	Nov 06	Dec 06	Jan 07	Feb 07
Trident	71.18%	69.56%	70.08%	69.63%
Gecko	24.47%	26.07%	25.27%	26.34%
KHTML	3.08%	2.85%	3.21%	2.99%
Opera	0.92%	1.18%	0.75%	0.70%
Others	0.35%	0.34%	0.69%	0.33%

Now I have theory that would explain this dip: In December people spend relatively more time at home than in January. And which browsers are people more likely to use at home than at work? Well apparently, Firefox and Opera. Opera similarly had a higher than usual market share in December that dropped in January.

It is surprising to see that KHTML (Safari) also dropped in December, suggesting that it is used more at work (on a Mac) than at home.

So the January dip is probably explained by the fact that people spend more time in the office that month than they do the previous month, it is just a seasonal anomaly and nothing more and probably better referred to as the December peak.

Reference: the Complete stats.

Otto

Firefox shortcuts

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 08:41:05 -0800

In the past few days I completed a list of Firefox keyboard and mouse shortcuts for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This is the kind of list that is practical to bookmark or print for reference. If you like it you can also Digg it.

Otto

Winning the add-ons promotion contest

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:46:21 -0800

The add-on promotion contest is coming along nicely, with 36 entries to date. We thought it was necessary to clarify a bit more how the winners will be chosen.

We encourage everyone to read the reviews and vote for their favorite review but we will state once more that the popular vote will not determine who wins the prizes. The reasons for this are:

Early participants have more time to gather votes than late entries, this would be unfair to late entries.
The reviews of jury members can also be voted on but they are excluded from winning a prize.
There is a maximum of 1 prize per person but the same person could get several of the top spots with different reviews in the popular vote.
People may cheat with votes.

All this makes determining the prize winners based on the popular vote, risky and potentially unfair. Hence a jury consisting of several people who judge independantly is probably the best alternative available to us. That's what we have opted for and to clarify how we are going to judge the entries, we've decided to put the criteria "on paper" so to speak.

It is important to realize that we are not deciding what the best add-on is. We are deciding what the best review is, regardless of how good or popular the add-on is.

To determine the best reviews we will judge according to these guidelines:

Writing skills. Language should be clear (on-topic), lively, and without spelling/grammar mistakes. Non-technical people must understand the review.
Well organized information and details. Does it make sense? Who, what, when, why, and how?
Personal touch and objectivity. Facts should be accurate, good as well as bad points of an add-on should be shown. Shows the opinion of the reviewer.
Creativity. How interesting is the review? Is it inviting to read, is it humorous?
Research. Does the review show all aspects of the add-on?

Each of the four jury members will score each review. The top 10 reviews of each jury member will get points ranging from 10 for number 1 to 1 for number 10. These points will be added up creating an overal ranking which will determine who gets the prizes.

After the contest closes it will take a little time for us to go through all the entries and select the winners, how much time will depend on how many participants there are.

Otto

What's good about Firefox

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 02:28:26 -0800

This post is a response to this post.

Are people forgetting the years of IE domination when Microsoft ruled the browser market without any serious competition (even Apple once had IE as the default browser)?

What was the result of this? Sites were made, for IE only, Active X was being used everywhere creating the biggest security hole in Internet browsing history, and no new features or improvements were made available to the general public.

This all changed thanks to Mozilla's Firefox taking away a significant market share from IE. The only reason IE now also has tabbed browsing is because of Firefox. The only reason more sites are now being made W3C compatible and no longer for IE only is because of Firefox. Many websites wouldn't even be usable on Konqueror for example, if Firefox hadn't been around.

A few years ago, one really needed a Windows computer to browse the web. Now thanks to Firefox the web is open to all operating systems. Allowing people like me to switch to Linux.

One can argue about which browser is better, Opera, Konqueror, Safari or Firefox. But in the end, that's not important, and personally I don't care which one anyone uses as long as they make an informed choice. What is important is that the web was opened up to allow this choice, and that was thanks to Mozilla's Firefox.

This is why I support Mozilla and will continue to do so.

Otto

Last chance to win a Firefox T-shirt!

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:21:56 -0800

Only a few days left to try and win a Firefox T-shirt!

Participating in the contest is easy, just print out one of the posters and put it up on your school or company notice board (any other public place you can think of).

See all the details in the Firefox Poster Promotion Contest organized by Johnny K.

Otto - Mozilla and Firefox Search

10,000 Points Milestone

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:19:52 -0800

When I joined SFx a little less than two years ago, I got just a few points each day, the idea that someone may be using Firefox because of a button on my site made me quite happy at the time.

As the number of visitors to my site grew so did the points I am getting each day. Today I passed the 10,000 SFx points milestone!

Otto - Mozilla and Firefox Search

p.s. One way to get more points is by creating more Firefox related content on your site. Participate in the Add-ons Promotion Contest that we just launched and you may even win a prize.

300 Million downloads!

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:30:58 -0800

Congratulations everybody!

Otto

Add-ons site to be revamped

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 10:09:13 -0800

I came across this story, which says that Mozilla is going to revamp its add-ons site on Feb 12th: Add-ons revamped

Edit: Another source

Otto