mozilla mission + financials – 2007 and beyond

Mitchell Baker has posted some results from Mozilla’s 2007 financial filings and how they relate to our ability to execute against our non-profit mission over the coming years.  The numbers are what the press will likely report, just given history as a guide.  But there’s a deeper message that I suspect needs repeating here.

When you’re in the thick of operations – shipping, feedback, building programs, executing and talking to people on a day to day basis – sometimes it’s hard to take a step back and really think about what has happened over the last couple of years and how far Mozilla as a project has grown.  Mitchell’s post is a reminder that the project is very healthy and I think over time it’s become even more mission-focused as the basic mechanism to drive the change that we want to see has fallen into place: Firefox market share.

In order to illustrate I’m going to offer up some quotes from Mitchell’s post that help quantify our community health.

This global reach is driven by our focus on local contributors, local product and local empowerment. Firefox 2 shipped in thirty-six languages. Firefox 3 shipped in forty-six languages in June 2008 and 4 months later, our Firefox 3.1 beta is now localized in over 50 languages. We continue to invest very heavily in what we call “localization” for short but which in its broadest sense means everything that allows global participation in building and accessing the Internet.

…

Our community remains healthy and vibrant. The percentage of code contributed to Firefox by people not employed by Mozilla remained steady at about 40% of the product we ship. This is true despite a significant amount of new employees in 2007. Our geographic expansion is powered by active and committed volunteers, from the localizers to Spread Firefox participants to others who introduce Firefox to new people.

…

The number of people using Firefox on a daily basis nearly doubled from 27.9 million in 2006 to 48.9 million in 2007. As of October 2008 that number has grown to 67.7 million. In 2007 and 2008 three titans of the Internet and software industry — Microsoft, Apple and Google — all released competitive Web browsers. [...] The impact of our userbase allows us to help move the Internet industry to a more open and participatory environment — accessible content, standards-based implementations, and bringing participation and distributed decision-making to new aspects of Internet life.

I think this is the key message that I would like to highlight.  Mozilla is still a very healthy project.  We use the funds that we gather to grow both the user base (which helps us drive our mission) but also to enable and grow a community that also shares the same values that we do.

Much of that effect can be felt in direct market share numbers – people directly using Firefox.  But Mitchell’s post also mentions something else as well.  That releases by other market players who have to compete with us also help us meet our mission in keeping the Internet alive and vibrant.

It’s a good time to be a Mozillian.