![]() The commercial activities of the foundation are handled by the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation delegates all its development and business-related activities to this commercial subsidiary. Initially, the remit of the Mozilla Foundation grew to become much wider than that of, with the organisation taking on many tasks that were traditionally left to Netscape and other vendors of Mozilla technology. Hardware and intellectual property was transferred to the organisation from Netscape and AOL. When AOL (Netscape's parent) scaled back its involvement with Mozilla Organization, the Mozilla Foundation was launched in July 2003 to ensure Mozilla could survive without Netscape. Netscape created the Mozilla Organization in 1998 to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite. The Mozilla Foundation, which he runs, is best known for the development and distribution of The Firefox browser for free. Therefore, he has serious credibility among the open-source developer community. Some see this as the future of online video. As a developer, he has overseen the development of standards in multimedia and interactivity on the web.īefore joining Mozilla, Surman was awarded one of the first Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowships (founded by Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu Linux fame), where he explored the application of open-source principles to philanthropy - basically extending a software development philosophy to area such as school text books.Īs a developer of note, he also oversaw the development of Popcorn.js and its integration into the HTML5 standard. Surman describes himself as a 'community activist' and technology executive of more than 20 years. He believes that the EU-mandated cookie warning has helped to educate web users on how these small tracking files are used. "Maybe in Europe, because of the cookie warning, users are more aware that cookies exist and it's great to see the amount of people turning on their do not track flag," says Surman when I ask about how savvy European web users are. Lightbeam is a tool to allow users to better visualise the interactions they are having online with the websites they are using by tracking how the cookies are used. Unfortunately, there's not room for the three of us, so my interview about Lightbeam, Mozilla, Firefox and global Internet privacy issues takes the form of a private chat. Surman is in the UK to launch Lightbeam, a privacy tool for Mozilla's Firefox Internet browser. ![]() It's not an easy task considering that this small office/meeting room is home to a keyboard (of the musical, rather than the typing, variety), an electric guitar and a full-sized drumkit. After being ushered into the 'Red Dwarf' room, I take off my coat, check my digital recorder. The meeting rooms at Mozilla Spaces are all named after iconic British comedies. Dubbed 'Mozfest', this global get-together is for developers and inventors to exchange ideas and work together to create socially beneficial applications. ![]() I'm here to interview Mozilla Foundation's executive director, Mark Surman, on the eve of the Mozilla Festival at London's O2. This is designed as a welcoming drop-in area for Mozilla's thousands of voluntary developers to work and collaborate together to create free software applications that fit into the organisation's social ethos. My eyes roll with typical corporate pessimism when I scoot past the reception and see a central area dominated by pool tables, pinball machines - and a large bar area serving bean-to-cup coffee, smoothies and soft drinks.īut what may seem as customary kooky US West Coast office culture serves a more pragmatic purpose for the mega social enterprise that is the Mozilla Foundation. The third floor houses offices of Mozilla Foundation, Mozilla Spaces. I enter a modern office reception at the heart of the fashionable theatre district in London's West End.
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