What is Mozilla?
I joined the Mozilla Project way back in fall of 1999. I was never a major contributor, just hung around the periphery doing minor bits of qa and the like. The project's been the source of some of my happiest moments, and also some of my most frustrating. Lately I haven't done anything with it at all, which is sad.
Two years ago and three months ago, I wrote an unflattering critique of Mozilla's nascent marketing efforts. I gave their About Mozilla page an F for utterly failing in its purpose: to explain Mozilla. Less than three months later, Daniel Wang posted bug 231131: "About page is confusing and nearly useless", citing my critique.
Five months ago, I posted a rewrite of the mozilla.org about section to bug 231131 for review/checkin.
Two months ago, I gave up trying to get approval to check it in and assigned the bug to Gerv.
Today, prodded by Chase's resignation post I'm posting what I have, here, complete with Silverorange's pretty mozilla.org style sheets, so you can see what I understand Mozilla is, was, and still ought to be.
- About Mozilla
- History of the Mozilla Project
- Principles of Software Design and Development (This was put together from existing pages.)
- Roles and Leadership of the Mozilla Organization
I want anyone visiting the web site to be able to see the Mozilla project the way I see it, the way I've come to know it over the many years I've been involved. I want a visitor who's genuinely interested in getting to know the project to be able to find out what it's all about, not just about what we have to "sell". Many of the documents that define(d) the project were just heedlessly buried in the reorganization after July 15th. Yes, they were somewhat outdated, but none of the information buried with them — documentation about what the project is, and where it came from, why it exists, and where it is going — has been available to the casual visitor for the past several years.
my unanswered email soliciting review from Hecker/website-drivers (emphasis added)