Seen Online

[Mozilla announced a new initiative focused on Internet mail and communications yesterday. Read the press release here, and see Mitchell Baker's post below, crossposted from her blog. - Paul Kim]

Mozilla has been investing in email since the Foundation was created. We have a good, solid client in Thunderbird, and we have aspirations to do more. We've spent the last few months working on how to meet those aspirations. Many thanks to everyone who participated in the discussions.

The result is that Mozilla is launching a new effort to improve email and internet communications. We will increase our investment and focus on our current email client -- Thunderbird -- and on innovations in the email and communications areas. We are doing so by creating a new organization with this as its sole focus and committing resources to this organization. The new organization doesn't have a name yet, so I'll call it MailCo here. MailCo will be part of the Mozilla Foundation and will serve the public benefit mission of the Mozilla Foundation. (Technically, it will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, just like the Mozilla Corporation.)

David Ascher is joining Mozilla to lead MailCo. David has been an active participant in the Mozilla project for many years, both in his role as CTO of ActiveState and personally through participation in our governance discussions. In fact it was one if David's comments on an early draft of the Mozilla Manifesto that helped crystallize its structure. David also has deep experience in the open source world and is a member of the board of directors of the Python Foundation. David also brings familiarity with Mozilla technology and the Mozilla community through years of using Mozilla technology to build ActiveState products, including the new Open Komodo project. We are very fortunate to have David join us to lead this effort.

Mozilla will provide an initial $3 million dollars in seed funding to launch MailCo. This is expected to be spent mostly on building a small team of people who are passionate about email and Internet communications. As MailCo develops it and the Mozilla Foundation will evaluate what's the best model for long-term sustainability. Mozilla may well invest additional funds; we also hope that there are other paths for sustainability.

We'll be setting up MailCo in the coming weeks. Part of this is forming the team of people, part is developing a transition plan to move Thunderbird into MailCo gracefully while supporting the Thunderbird users. That will take some time. We 're on the path now though and that's a great thing.

The goals for the new company are:

• Take care of Thunderbird users
• Move Thunderbird forward to provide better, deeper email solutions
• Create a better user experience for a range of Internet communications -- how does / should email work with IM, RSS, VoIP, SMS, site-specific email, etc?
• Spark the types of community involvement and innovation that we've seen around web "browsing" and Firefox.

One of the things I find most exciting about the Firefox work is the way people use Firefox to dream up what the web could be, and then go out and so something to make it happen. We can spark the same kind of excitement and energy level and innovation in the email/ communications space. And when we do, Internet life will get much, much better and much more interesting.

Help us make it happen.

- Mitchell Baker, Chair, Mozilla Foundation 

Strange, I thought that the Mozilla copyright people enforced things. You know, things like using the logo for your own financial gain. I'm not going to waste my time reporting this again, but I'll let you take a look: http://cgi.ebay.com/MENS-BOYS-FIREFOX-BROWSER-IT-PC-WRIST-WATCH_W0QQitemZ120200994750QQihZ002QQcategoryZ31387QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Opera Software has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft.  In it they allege that Microsoft has used their monopoly on the desktop OS to obtain and a monopoly on the web browser, and that they have maintained this monopoly by not properly supporting open web standards. (Recall that Microsoft was convicted of this nearly a decade ago in the United States.)

The complaint seeks two remedies:

1. Unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows, or at least provide alternatives on installation.
2. Fully support open standards in Internet Explorer.

The Q&A with Opera's Haarvard is worth a look.

So how does this affect Firefox?

Well, if they succeed in getting IE separated from Windows in Europe (like Windows Media Player), computers are still going to have to ship with a web browser. That opens the door for Firefox to come pre-installed on systems.

If they succeed in forcing Microsoft to improve their standards support, then it will be much easier for web developers to target four major browsers with one set of code: IE8, Firefox, Opera, and Safari (or rather IE8, Gecko, Opera and WebKit). Once IE6 and IE7 fade away, the biggest barrier to alternative browsers -- IE-only websites -- will become a relic of the past.

Hey, we can dream!

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, and what impact it will have on the web browser market.

If you have time to read a zillion responses, you can check out commentary at CSS3.info, Web Standards Project, Slashdot, Asa Dotzler, and Opera Watch.

(And before anyone starts posting "Opera sux," please go read LIJI's excellent post, 3 Browsers, One Enemy, or my site, the Alternative Browser Alliance, then come back and try to post something a little more insightful.)

Check out my website/blog called Where Did America Go? at http://wdag.org
And of course... it is best viewed using Firefox.  I'll keep spreading the word to Amercia and spreading the use of Firefox!

Thanks,
Editor - wdag.org
 

I add firefox to my website can someone please check it out and tell me how i looks I need to know i hope its not to big, if it is let me know..

Splashmyspace.com

Thank You  Firefox for making this new browser!!!

November 30, 2007

SeaMonkey 1.1.7 Security Release

http://www.SeaMonkey-Project.org/

http://www.SeaMonkey-Project.org/news#2007-11-30

"The SeaMonkey team urges users of older SeaMonkey versions, ... to upgrade."

"Additionally, the team continues to strongly urge people still using the old Mozilla Suite or Netscape 4, 6 or 7 to upgrade to the new SeaMonkey 1.1.7 version."

###,

Eddie Maddox

Source: Paula Rooney- ZDNet

The Mozilla Foundation reports that nearly 500,000 copies of Firefox 3 beta 1 have been downloaded since its release last week and two more beta test versions will follow before its final release next year.

During a brief meeting Monday, developers said Firefox 3 Beta 2 will be released by the end of the year and beta 3 will follow in early 2008.

The Firefox team said more than 429,000 copies have been downloaded to date and that roughly 100,000 of those are active beta testers.

The next beta test versions will incorporate the visual user interface redesigns for Windows Vista, Linux and Mac OSX, which gives the browser a more appropriate look-and-feel depending on the operating system used. Users who load beta 1 on Mactinosh are currently invited to test a protoype of the Firefox 3 theme for Mac OSX, dubbed Proto., which is also in beta testing as an add-on to Firefox.

Ken