By crossing the billion downloads mark, Mozilla is well on its way to become the dominant Web browser on computer desktops.
But being the #1 Web browser does not appear to be the “be all, end all” goal for the Mountain View non-profit maker of Firefox.
“We don’t have an idea of what the end goal is but… we feel we are successful if the Internet feels vibrant, fun and exciting and still feel relevant to you as an individual.
An oddity at Mozilla: our mission is to bring choice and innovation so having dominant marketshare is not a success condition by definition… so being the monopoly browser is not in the cards for us… but being able to shape the future of the Internet is,” explains Mozilla’s Chief Innovation Officer Chris Beard during a panel discussion at the Lunch 2.0 event hosted today at Kosmix in Mountain View, Calif.
Spearheading Mozilla’s innovation programme, Beard’s mission is to bring more people/volunteers into Mozilla’s design and developing process to help the 200-people organisation build Internet technologies for desktops, mobile, etc.
“Our Mozilla Labs programme where we invite anybody who has an idea for how the Web or the Web experience could be better and to come and participate. From there, we then prototype, then incubate new ideas that potentially become product features or new capabilities for the Web.”
However, Beard was also quick to point out that despite everything that Mozilla does is open, “we do not do design by commitee, we do not vote on what the user interface should be, because that barely works. So we still need to exercise leadership and vision but also figure out how to engage our users.”
On the software patent issue, Beard had this to say: “there’s not a whole lot we can protect, or go after people for stealing. In fact, please come take our stuff, it’s all open source license!”
Here’s a video excerpt (more videos after the jump) where Chris Beard explains his role at Mozilla, as well the reasons behind developing Fennec, Mozilla’s future mobile browser expected to publicly launch in September.
In this video, Mozilla’s Chief Innovation Officer Chris Beard explains how the non-profit deals with a big competitor like Microsoft:
Beard on upcoming Fennec mobile browser due this Fall:
For Beard, fostering a community of developers is key to Mozilla’s and Firefox’s successes:
Sometimes too much experience is bad for innovation says Mozilla’s Chief Innovator:
Finally, why Beard does not believe in software patents:
[...] folks at techpulse360.com provided a more detailed reporting of this event. I have just written down a few points that I find poignant for those of us who are [...]
[...] folks at techpulse360.com provided a more detailed reporting of this event. I have just written down a few points that I find poignant for those of us who are [...]