This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the weeks ending May 26, June 2, June 9, and June 16, 2006. I should be back on my regular weekly update schedule next week. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did the past few weeks: Feed icon. I published multiple blog posts on the topic of the feed icon (aka RSS icon), including draft usage guidelines and an accompanying FAQ. I also initiated the process of abandoning the previously-submitted trademark registration application for the icon. ...

I got behind in doing the weekly Mozilla Foundation activity reports (for which I apologize); see the report for the week ending June 16, 2006 for activities during this week and the others I skipped.

I got behind in doing the weekly Mozilla Foundation activity reports (for which I apologize); see the report for the week ending June 16, 2006 for activities during this week and the others I skipped.

I got behind in doing the weekly Mozilla Foundation activity reports (for which I apologize); see the report for the week ending June 16, 2006 for activities during this week and the others I skipped.

Now that I’ve posted the feed icon usage guidelines and the accompanying FAQ and gotten some comments on the guidelines and other feed icon issues, I wanted to do a follow-up post. Here it is. First, there have been at least three substantive changes proposed to the guidelines: Lower the minimum allowable size of the icon to 12x12 pixels, in order to better match the fonts sizes used on many web sites. I think this is a reasonable change, but I’d like to hear from at least a few more people, especially anyone who disagrees. If I don’t see any disagreement in the next couple of days then I’ll go ahead and update the guidelines to make this change. ...

From Digital Music News comes this reminder that the music industry can likely have profits or control, but not both: Research Group Puts Price Tag on Interoperability Quagmire. Based on a report by the research group iSuppli, “The inability of several industries to resolve their differences over DRM could stunt the evolution of future digital markets, while potentially putting ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ at risk.” Essentially attempts by record labels, equipment makers, and others to over-control consumer use of digital music, video, etc., poisons the overall market by making digital media offering much more complex and hence much less attractive. The winners in all this: companies like Apple that can potentially offer an integrated “one-stop shopping” experience. The losers: record labels, equipment makers other than Apple, the rest of us.

Mitchell Baker recently posted two articles about the use of the “feed icon”) (also known as the “RSS icon”), originally created for use with Firefox, and how best to promote universal use of the icon for use with RSS, Atom and other open web syndication formats. In this post I discuss how the Mozilla Foundation proposes to approach this issue. However first I want to personally apologize for any confusion and miscommunication around the issue of the feed icon and our proposals for promoting its use, as well as the delays in getting this issue dealt with. (I had meant to post on this topic earlier this week but family medical issues kept me occupied and offline.) I pledge to do what I can to get things back on track and get this issue resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. ...

Ever since its founding eMusic has been repeatedly discovered by people who either don’t get the concept (“Hey, where’s Britney Spears?”) and/or have severe difficulty using a computer and the Internet; these people also often seem to have a fuzzy grasp on such matters as grammar and spelling. And thus on August 11, 2003 (a date which will live in infamy), after experiencing problems with downloading music mrcat first uttered those immortal words, ”E Music is SWindle.” ...

For quite some time now I’ve been a subscriber to eMusic, a digital music site that offers DRM-free MP3 tracks by artists on independent (non-major) labels. (At one point I cancelled my subscription because I wasn’t finding that much to download, but I re-joined after a few months and have been with the service ever since.) eMusic also has a quite active set of message boards, and from time to time I’ve posted on various topics, most notably my thoughts on eMusic’s business model and prospects vis-a-vis the digital music industry in general. ...

I previously blogged about the Mozilla Foundation and the CSUN conference on information technology and persons with disabilities. As noted in the post the Mozilla project and Firefox are really gaining traction with people concerned about web accessibility, thanks to the hard work of people like Aaron Leventhal. Inspired by Aaron’s recent interview in the online publication Voice of the Nation’s Blind, I want to take a broader view and present my thoughts on why accessibility is important for the Mozilla project, the role that Mozilla and Firefox might play in the world of assistive technology (AT) as it evolves, and what the Mozilla Foundation might do to help this process along. ...