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Yesterday was Mozilla’s 10th birthday. Ten years ago Mozilla was launched and they made their source code available to the public.
Mozilla is most popular for their web browser Firefox, which is favored by most internet marketers for their excellent plugins. They also offer the email program Thunderbird and bug tracking program Bugzilla.
Mozilla started out as a codename for the Netscape Navigator web browser. It used to be their logo until they decided they wanted to portray a more professional image. Mozilla wanted to bury Mosaic, the most popular web browser at the time.
Take the word Mosaic and the slang for killer (killa) and you get Moz+illa. And just to give it a little geek punch to the concept, it also references the ferocious monster Godzilla. I wonder if developers there have Mozilla action figures on their monitors.
Sounding so tough is hardly what you think of when I think of Mozilla, which is all about openness and public benefit. If the company started today, they’d have the name Goog-illa. (Now there’s a great April Fool’s joke idea for a startup that pokes fun at Mozilla and ends with birthday greetings).
Here’s a little Mozilla trivia: Netscape acquired the website directory NewHoo in 1998, and renamed it as the Open Directory Project. The nickname “dmoz” refers to it as the Directory of Mozilla at directory.mozilla.org. An image of Mozilla is still on every page of the famous directory.
Mitchell Baker is Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation and Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer of the Mozilla Corporation. She’s also a woman in a tech world that’s often largely male. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She has the nickname: “Chief Lizard Wrangler” at Mozilla. You can read more about Mozilla’s birthday and Mozilla milestones on her blog.
Happy Birthday Mozilla!
