Mozilla in Asia

Chris Beard, VP of Mozilla Labs, will be in Tokyo this week for two speaking engagements.

On Feb. 28th, Chris will be keynoting at ZDNet Japan’s “builder techday: open apis and beyond.” David Recordon and Tatsuhiko Miyagawa from Six Apart will be speaking about open ID and the social graph (Brad Fitzpatrick, Read/Write Web, Google code repository.) Chris will be speaking about the “open web” from Mozilla’s perspective and will probably touch upon many of the subjects Recordon will speak about but also aspects of information that we keep in the browser and how we might share that as well. I’m afraid registration for this event is already closed.

On Feb. 29th, Chris will be keynoting at the Open Source Conference (Tokyo) - Spring 2008.  Registration (jp) will be closing soon so please sign up asap if you plan to attend.

Chris Beard will provide an overview of recent activities at Mozilla including information on exciting new Mozilla Labs development projects currently in the works. He will talk about his vision for the future of the Web and the role of open source in improving our online lives.

This is the first time for any presentation on Mozilla Labs projects in Japan and we’re very excited to have Chris in Tokyo.  Hope to see you at either of these events.

This year I will be focusing more on evangelism of Mozilla in Asia and so I was glad to be able to accept an opportunity to speak about open source and Mozilla in Asia at the upcoming Lift 08 Conference in Geneva, Feb. 6-8, 2008.

My presentation as it stands right now will use Mozilla as an example of open source in Asia, looking at our situation in both East and South East Asia.  I will try to address Glyn Moody’s question about the weakness of GNU/Linux in Japan, and puncture some myths in the process, but I’m not sure there is a clear answer for this complex question.

I would very much appreciate any information you may have about the success or lack thereof of open source software in Asia.  Feel free to leave me comments here.

Also, if you are attending Lift08, please say hello and introduce yourself to me.  I look forward to meeting fellow Lift 08 attendees and hope to hear from others who are working on open source in Asia.

Jasmina Tesanovic and Gen Kanai added to the speaker program

Chang-Won Kim calls for an Asia-wide Internet conference in 2008:
An open letter to Asia’s web industry people - What do you think about AsiaWeb 2008?

But I don’t think I’ve seen many “pan-Asian” web conferences so far. So I think we could imagine a conference where things like these are happening…

- Keynote speeches being made by well-known tech entrepreneurs in China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hongkong, Taiwan, etc. as well as a host of internationally renowned speakers.

- An international launchpad where new ventures in Asia can showcase their newest products (Think TechCrunch 40 or the Demo). English translation will be provided - we all know English-speaking skills and product-development skills are two different sets of skills. VCs are more than welcome to join.

- Panel discussion between professionals from different countries where different web cultures and business environments can be compared, perhaps in search of some universal success strategies across the Asian web industry.

I think language is one hurdle but I think English will end up being the defacto language of such an event.  More importantly is location, sponsorship and organization.  That will be the challenge.  Japan only had a “Web 2.0″ event in 2007 (many years after the first “Web 2.0″ event in the US) and the Japan event was very different than any of the US ones.

I would be happy to see such an event happen and would do what I could to make it happen, but I think finding an appropriate site, an organizer and anchor sponsors is critical (and a full-time job for a team of people.)  Even if discussions started today, 2008 may be too early for such an event (if the goal is to make a very large event.)  I look forward to such an event but I don’t see any of the current incumbents (event organization incumbents) stepping forward for such an event.

As web browser diversity broadens both on mobile and the desktop, web site compatibility and support of open web standards are more and more important.

In light of the non-compatibility of many websites in Asia outside of Internet Explorer, an open source software promotion forum funded by the governments of China, Japan and Korea have pooled resources to prepare a report that extensively reports on the discrepancies in web interoperability looking at the dominant browser (Internet Explorer) and the leading open source browser (Firefox.) This is not necessarily new information per se, but it is information that was compiled by web experts from China, Japan and Korea.

The foreword of the report states:

NEAOSS Forum (Northeast Asia Open Source Software promotion Forum) was formed by China, Korea and Japan governments and regional organizations for OSS promotion; China OSS Promotion Union, Korea OSS Promotion Forum and Japan OSS Promotion Forum. The Forum intends to promote Open Source Software in the northeast Asia area. NEAOSS Forum formed “WG3: Standardization and Certification Study” in order to study Open Source Software standardization and certification in July 2004. NEAOSS Forum WG3 formed subsidiary group SWG2 in June 2006 to accelerate promotion of OSS, to enhance Web interoperability between an existing proprietary browser, which currently has large market share, and OSS Web browsers. This document was prepared by the NEAOSS Forum WG3 and is classified as Technical Report type 3.

Northeast Asia OSS Promotion Forum Working Group 3 - Report of Web interoperability discrepancy (pdf)

Abstract: This technical report is to identify current situation of Web interoperability and to provide information to public. By figuring out and classifying the Web interoperability discrepancies, this report provides the foundation of further research.

The summary of the report states:

There are total 168 discrepancies reported in the survey. The result of this survey, however, does not reveal all discrepancies between IE and Firefox. It is impossible to gather all discrepancies because this laborious work is similar to fixing all bugs of software.

… (long list of incompatibilities)

It is important that Web developer make their Web content with opened [sic] and widely used format to be accessed by many users.

I am often asked about web site compatibility in Japan or Asia. While this report only covers China, Japan and Korea, it is a clear indication that website compatibility has a long way to go in North East Asia. As the report says, it is “the foundation of further research.”

The AP is reporting that Microsoft has stopped appealing the anti-trust suit it lost in South Korea in 2005. The official decision is available for download here.

The ruling imposed a multimillion dollar (euro) fine imposed on the U.S. software maker for unfair business practices and required Microsoft to provide two separate versions of Windows, one stripped of the Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger and the other carrying links to Web pages that allow consumers to download competing versions of such software.

This is an important decision for the Korean Fair Trade Commission.  Let’s hope that the KFTC takes seriously the new concerns around the defacto monopoly of the web in South Korea.

Microsoft wants to drop antitrust appeal in South Korea - International Herald Tribune

Even though I did recently join Facebook, I’m very much of the same opinion as Jason Kottke regarding Facebook vs. the Internet.

As it happens, we already have a platform on which anyone can communicate and collaborate with anyone else, individuals and companies can develop applications which can interoperate with one another through open and freely available tools, protocols, and interfaces. It’s called the internet and it’s more compelling than AOL was in 1994 and Facebook in 2007.

Facebook is the new AOL [kottke.org]