Mozilla’s success with open source software is beyond dispute. But can it parlay that same model to encourage broader Internet usage? Datamation takes a look at Mozilla’s new Drumbeat project.
Open source has dramatically reshaped the software development landscape. Yet is it enough to help propel the Web itself forward for the next decade?
That’s what Mozilla believes. After having been synonymous with open source for over a decade, thanks to its efforts behind the popular Firefox Web browser, Mozilla is now creating a new effort to help shape the Internet’s development using the same sorts of techniques that have made open source a success.
The goal of the new Mozilla Drumbeat effort is to go beyond open source code to encourage and nurture projects that help to expand understanding and participation in the open Web. While Drumbeat is today only in its early stages of development, Mozilla is budgeting more than $1 million in funding for the effort — a project that it thinks could help to direct the very future of the Internet.
“Mozilla has been successful at shaping where the Internet is going in a positive way and in getting people to participate,” Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, told InternetNews.com. “At the same time, we feel that if we take a 50- or 100-year view on our mission, which is to guard the open nature of the Internet, it’s not just going to be technologists that participate and it’s not just technology questions that will shape what the Internet is in 10 or 50 or 100 years.”