Why Is Mozilla Successful — Speaking at ICOS in Taipei
November 7th, 2007 by lgong
Last week I attended the International Conference on Open Source (ICOS) held in Taipei. The 3-day event was well attended by open source community activists (including geeks, techies, and school teachers, Chinese and westerners, among many others), government officials, and corporate sponsors. There were a lot of the usual “soul searching” on what an open source based company should be doing, how to counter Microsoft, etc. So by the time my speaking turn came on the second day, I gave a talk that focused on what Mozilla is and why it has been so successful. I include my slide deck here for those interested — Mozilla and Its Success Factors.
My main points for Mozilla’s success are as follows (not in any particular order):
- Mozilla is a successful product (something that a lot of users love);
- It is an open platform (that enables the building of numerous add-ons and standalone applications);
- It is a movement supported by an ever expanding community where members drive, contribute, and participate in all facets of the movement;
- Mozilla’s primary interest is for public benefits, not for commercial gains (as demonstrated by the Mozilla Manifesto);
- Mozilla is well run with maximum transparency and accountability.
It is hard to find any other entity that matches the above profile. In particular, I strongly believe that the last two points are benchmarks that truly distinguish Mozilla from other pretenders.