Stories about: Mozilla Foundation

What is it about April Fools' Day jokes that we love so much? Perhaps it's that, in the midst of the crushing influx of information that many of us cope with daily, a well-constructed prank provides a welcome break. For a moment, we smile, even when the joke is a tried-and-true chestnut.

The Mozilla Foundation's new e-mail spin-off is aiming at a quick delivery of the first alpha version of Thunderbird 3.0, according to discussions among developers.

For years, open source software advocates have been holding "installfests," gatherings to help others learn how to install and use Linux and other open source applications on computers. This weekend in the US, a nonprofit group and a open source vendor are taking the idea a step further by co-sponsoring an all-day "Installfest for Schools" to create what they hope will be 500 refurbished computers to be used by underprivileged students in schools in nearby neighborhoods.

The Mozilla Foundation early this week put a name to its e-mail subsidiary and said the first job of the spin-off will be to produce Thunderbird 3.0, the next update to the open-source group's e-mail client.

The Mozilla Foundation Tuesday opened Mozilla Messaging, a new subsidiary focused on developing its free, open-source Thunderbird e-mail software.

Just two days before it was to end support for Netscape Navigator, on Wednesday AOL gave the browser a last-minute reprieve, saying it would extend support until March 1.

MindTouch Monday unveiled updates to its open source enterprise wiki aimed at making it easier for companies to integrate enterprise applications and mashups into the wiki.

Many organizations can't understand why their software doesn't perform as expected, or why users make unexpected errors. According to David Crow, usability advisor at Microsoft Canada and Jay Goldman, president of Radiant Core in Toronto, waking up to the need for usability testing is akin to hitting rock bottom. At Seneca College's Free Software and Open Source Symposium last month, the two offered a 12-step program to get back on track, along with some recommended reading.

Mozilla will walk away from Google and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised yesterday.

By developing a version of its open source desktop Firefox Web browser to run on mobile devices, Mozilla hopes to break the hold some handset makers and carriers have on what mobile applications consumers can use, an executive of the company says.

Just three weeks after Mozilla spun off its Thunderbird to a new subsidiary, the only two paid developers working on the e-mail client said they were quitting the company.