This FAQ attempts to answer a variety of questions that might be asked about the usage guidelines that we’ve proposed for the “feed icon” (also known as the “RSS icon”) that the Mozilla Foundation is promoting for use in association with open web syndication formats such as RSS and Atom. Feed icon basics What is the feed icon? The feed icon was created originally for use with the Live Bookmarks feature of the Mozilla Firefox browser. In that context the presence of the icon in association with a displayed web page indicates that information contained in the page is also available in the form of a web feed using the RSS or Atom web syndication formats. ...

Earlier I posted about a proposed Mozilla Foundation approach to promoting use of the “feed icon” (also known as the “RSS icon”): As part of that approach I proposed having the Foundation (or some other organization) publish a set of usage guidelines for the feed icon as used in association with open web syndication formats such as RSS and Atom. This document contains a first draft of such proposed guidelines the (hopefully final) draft of the guidelines. ...

UPDATE 2023-03-27: This page is obsolete, as it refers to a prior version of this blog. However, it may be of historical interest. When I originally put up my blog one of the major things lacking was support for comments and TrackBacks. After looking at the various alternatives (the writeback plugin, the writebackplus plugin, and so on) I decided to embark on a complete rewrite of the writeback plugin in order to support my particular requirements for a comments system. After much struggle I created an initial version of my feedback plugin for publication and use on my site; since that time I’ve upgraded the plugin and incorporated bug fixes suggested by various people. ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending July 14, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week; most of my time was taken up with travel and the board meeting, so not much else went on from my point of view: Certification Authorities. I approved the application from Wells Fargo for inclusion of its root CA certificate in Mozilla-based products. ...

As part of my day job I try to keep track of what’s happening in the various Mozilla discussion forums. Today I happened an interesting post in the mozilla.jobs forum: “XPCOM/XUL developer needed at eMusic.com (New York, Manhattan).” Based on the information in the post it appears that eMusic is looking to develop future eMusic client software based on Mozilla technologies used in the Firefox browser. My best guess is that eMusic is planning to develop a Firefox-compatible version of the eMusic toolbar for IE; such a toolbar would be developed as a Firefox extension using the technologies (XUL, XPCOM, etc.) mentioned in the job listing. (Note that an eMusic toolbar for Firefox already is available from a third party, but is not officially supported by eMusic.) A more remote possibility is that eMusic is planning to develop a standalone Mozilla-based application, e.g., a replacement for the current eMusic download manager or an eMusic equivalent to iTunes. A twist on the latter possibility is that eMusic could piggyback on the Mozilla-based Songbird media player currently in development, either adding eMusic-specific extensions to Songbird or doing an eMusic-specific version. ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending July 7, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week: Grants. I did a blog post about the Mozilla Foundation’s grant activities. Next action(s): Follow up on accessibility grants, and see what other grant opportunities surface in other areas. Certification Authorities. I worked on CA applications from Firmaprofesional, the Korean Information Security Agency (KISA), SwissSign, Trustis, and Wells Fargo, and approved Firmaprofesional’s application for inclusion in Mozilla-based products. ...

In past blog posts I’ve mentioned Mozilla Foundation grants that we’ve made for various purposes; in this post I go into more detail about what kind of grants we’re making, why we’re making them, and how you can be a part of it all. Foundation != Corporation First, though, let me make a critical distinction: some time ago Mitchell Baker blogged about the possibility of the Mozilla Corporation making grants and donations and more recently added more details about Mozilla Corporation plans for grants and donations. What I’m discussing here is separate from that, and involves grants by the Mozilla Foundation, not the Mozilla Corporation. ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending June 30, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week: Accessibility grants. Still working on another accessibility grant. Next action(s): Do a blog post to update folks on grant-related activities. Certification Authorities. I worked on CA applications from Firmaprofesional, the Korean Information Security Agency (KISA), and Wells Fargo. ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending June 23, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week: Feed icon. I got some more comments on the usage guidelines. Next action(s): Review all the comments I can find and publish a new version of the guidelines. Accessibility grants. Håkan Waara formally started work on the follow-on project to implement OS X accessibility changes. ...

UPDATE 2023-03-29: The piece below was originally written in 2006, and has been cited by Dave Herman of Mozilla Research as an influence on Rust community governance. I’ve fixed dead links where possible. This article is an outgrowth of my personal experiences as a participant in the Mozilla project working to create policies for the project that are both reasonable in terms of addressing the presumed problem at hand and acceptable to the various people who have a perceived stake in how the problem is addressed. In the course of doing that I evolved my own personal approach to approaching the problem of creating policies in an environment where people might disagree deeply about what such policies should be. ...