Mozilla.org - An Open Source possibility?

[bscott at ntisys.com]

Hello list,

  Has anyone been to http://www.mozilla.org lately?

  I find it rather interesting.  Heavy marketing, with quotes from reviews,
just like for a commercial product.  Links to order CDs right from the front
page.  Links for "affordable telephone support", too.  All very slick, with
nice graphics and layout.  All in all, it looks like a company pushing their
products.

  One more thing: There is practically no mention of anything to do with the
process of software engineering what-so-ever.  There is one sole, solitary
link for "developers" in the upper-right hand corner.  That's it.  This is
not a site for hackers.

  Contrast that with most of the FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project
websites I see.  Most of them look like a rehash of Slashdot: News down the
middle, boxes on the side.  Even the ones that don't do that generally have
a very "news-ish"  feeling to the site.  That's great for for hackers, and
even for the involved user community, but most "users" don't (and shouldn't)
care about that sort of thing.  They just want to get some software.

  Mozilla.org satisfies that need; most FOSS sites don't.

  All-in-all, Mozilla.org gives me the impression of a sustainable,
self-sufficient entity, while (e.g.) KDE.org does not.  I realize that's
largely surface impressions, but even so, it makes me think that the
Mozilla.org approach is one that will enable large, independent FOSS
projects succeed, long-term.

  I'm not saying that this is the only way, but it certainly seems like *a*
way.

  Comments?

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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