Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2008/01/18

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending January 18, 2008. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures I’m happy to announce a major new grant from the Mozilla Foundation to NV Access to support development of the NVDA open source screen reader for Windows; the NVDA developers blog has all the details. Scott Haeger completed the final milestone on his Foundation-funded project to improve rich document browsing in the Orca screen reader for Linux. For more information see the GNOME wiki pages for Firefox 3.0 ARIA widget support in Orca, Firefox 3.0 Live Region support in Orca, and integrating the Collection interface into Orca. Codethink Ltd completed its Foundation-funded study on the feasibility of migrating the AT-SPI accessibility API to use D-Bus. I got a grant agreement in place for another major new grant to be announced later. CAs and related issues I reviewed the applications from KISA and WISeKey, tentatively approved them, and started the two-week public comment periods prior to final approval. For more information see bugs 335197 and 371362 respectively. Other Gerv is recovering well from his recent surgery. David moved out to California (not without some excitement). I completed my migration to Google Apps, as discussed in my last status report. (However I’ve postponed my blog migration for a week or two until I have more spare time.) Upcoming trips and events I’ll be attending (at least part of) the CSUN conference March 10-15 in Los Angeles CA, and the Freedom to Connect conference March 31 and April 1 in Silver Spring MD. Zak will be speaking at the Southern California Linux Expo February 8-10 in Los Angeles, the PHP Quebec Conference March 12-14 in Montreal, and other events later in 2008. A reminder: We’re still accepting donations to the Mozilla Foundation through our directed giving program. Help support Bugzilla, Camino, SeaMonkey, and the Mozilla accessibility project, as well as general Foundation activities for the coming year. ...

2008-01-22 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2008/01/11

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending January 11, 2008. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures I worked on more paperwork for new Foundation grants (to be announced). Steve Lee published a report on his Foundation-funded Jambu on-screen keyboard project. I got grant agreements in place for two new grants (to be announced later), finished a grant agreement for one more, and received proposals for more grants. CAs and related issues I started going through the EV-related CA applications to see which were most ready for approval. Public communications David Boswell worked on more changes to www.mozilla.org, including changes to the Timeline and Projects pages and a new Mozilla-Based Applications page. Other I was out part of the week on family business, and also lost some time dealing with system problems affecting email. Upcoming trips and events David Boswell will be moving out to California Real Soon Now. I’ll be attending at least part of the CSUN conference March 10-15 in Los Angeles CA, and the Freedom to Connect conference March 31 and April 1 in Silver Spring MD. Zak will be speaking at the Southern California Linux Expo February 8-10 in Los Angeles, the PHP Quebec Conference March 12-14 in Montreal, and other events later in 2008. Random notes Due to intermittent but annoying problems, I’m about to make two major changes to my current system setup. First, several months ago I started using Gmail as my preferred mail interface, using address aliases and mail forwarding to avoid having to change my canonical email address, and running my old IMAP server configuration in parallel. I’ve now decided to stop trying to run my own mail server, and as of this week I’m switching to Google Apps to provide email and other services for my hecker.org domain. All of my existing email addresses will continue to work, so this should be a transparent switch unless something goes wrong. ...

2008-01-14 · 3 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2008/01/04

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending January 4, 2008. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures I got grant agreements in place for two new grants (to be announced later), finished a grant agreement for one more, and received proposals for more grants. Licensing and legal I worked with Gerv on a plan to make progress on the proposed replacement for the CVS contributor form, with Gerv contributing drafts of related documents. CAs and related issues I approved the application for inclusion from TÜRKTRUST and filed bug 410821 to have the TÜRKTRUST certificates added to NSS. Public communications David worked on more proposed changes to www.mozilla.org. Other Zak coordinated proposed Mozilla Foundation participation in various 2008 conferences and other events. Upcoming trips and events I’ll be attending the Freedom to Connect conference March 31 and April 1 in Silver Spring MD. Zak will be speaking at the Southern California Linux Expo February 8-10 in Los Angeles, the PHP Quebec Conference March 12-14 in Montreal, and other events later in 2008. A final note: Although 2007 has ended, we’re still accepting donations to the Mozilla Foundation through our directed giving program. Help support Bugzilla, Camino, SeaMonkey, and the Mozilla accessibility project, as well as general Foundation activities for the coming year. ...

2008-01-07 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2007/12/28

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the weeks ending December 14, December 21, and December 28, 2007. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on in the last three weeks; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures A number of significant grant proposals were approved in December; I’ll make public announcements on these soon and will update the 2007 grants report to reflect all 2007 activities. Eitan Isaacson completed work on a Mozilla Foundation-funded project to improve performance of the Orca open source screen reader; for more information see GNOME bugs 446277, 495077, 502924, and 491756, as well as Marco Zehe’s report on the overall improvements to Orca performance with Firefox 3. Eitan is now working on a new Foundation-funded project to enhance the Braille output of Orca, including adding support for contracted Braille. Licensing and legal I looked over the proposed replacement for the CVS contributor form to determine what’s needed to complete the project. CAs and related issues I went over the application for inclusion from TÜRKTRUST and all the public comments prior to making a final decision on approval. Web sites David Boswell worked more on proposed changes to www.mozilla.org. Other Gerv had surgery and is now back home recovering. Zak worked on Mozilla Foundation participation in various upcoming events. Upcoming trips and events I’m planning to attend the Freedom to Connect conference March 31 and April 1, 2008 in Silver Spring MD.

2008-01-02 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2007/12/07

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending December 7, 2007. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures Ariel Rios completed his Foundation-funded project to add the Accessibility::Collection interface to the AT-SPI accessibility API for GNOME; for more information see GNOME bug 326516. Patrick Michaud produced a progress report on the Perl 6 work jointly funded by the Mozilla Foundation and the Perl Foundation. Zak and I worked on some new grant proposals. Licensing and legal Gerv worked on revising and updating the Mozilla license policy, to bring the document in line with current practice. CAs and related issues I approved the application for inclusion from SwissSign and filed bug 407396 to have the SwissSign CA certificates added to NSS. Web sites David Boswell worked on various changes to www.mozilla.org, including a new Mozilla Foundation home page and a new “Featured Projects” page (bug 393447). Miscellaneous We have a new #foundation IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org for anyone wishing to contact us real-time. Upcoming trips and events I’m planning to be in Mountain View on December 11 (afternoon only) and 12. A final note: We have just over two weeks left in 2007 for you to donate to the Mozilla Foundation through our directed giving program and support Bugzilla, Camino, SeaMonkey, and the Mozilla accessibility project. ...

2007-12-11 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2007/11/30

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending November 30, 2007. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures Steve Lee provided a report on his participation in the RAatE conference. (Steve’s Jambu project has received funding from the Foundation.) I received some new grant proposals for the board’s consideration. CAs and related issues I worked on the applications for inclusion from SwissSign and TÜRKTRUST, as well as on the EV applications from VeriSign and QuoVadis. I made updates to the pending list to reflect the current status of CA applications. I created a wiki page to track recommended practices relating to CA applications. Web sites David Boswell posted a proposed new Mozilla Foundation page mockup for comment. Upcoming trips and events I’m planning to be in Mountain View on December 11 (afternoon only) and 12.

2007-12-03 · 1 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2007/11/23

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending November 23, 2007. Note that this was a short week for those of us in the US due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Projects for the week Here’s a summary of what Foundation-related activities went on last week; for more information about others’ activities please see the weekly status reports published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Grants and related expenditures I did a blog post describing Mozilla Foundation grants and related expenditures in 2007. David Humphrey pointed us to a press article about Mozilla activities in Toronto and at Seneca College. (Seneca is a Mozilla Foundation grantee.) Donations I did a blog post on the new Mozilla Foundation directed giving program. David Boswell published a FAQ about donating to the Foundation and a new page describing Foundation activities, and coordinated updates to the main Mozilla Foundation donation page and the per-project donation pages for Bugzilla, Camino, SeaMonkey, and Mozilla accessibility to people with disabilities. CAs and related issues I worked on the applications for inclusion from SwissSign and TÜRKTRUST CAs, announced my intent to approve TÜRKTRUST’s inclusion, and started a two-week comment period on TÜRKTRUST’s application. Other Gerv helped resolve some licensing-related issues. Gerv provided detailed feedback on Alex Faaborg’s UI mockups. Upcoming activities I’m planning to be in Mountain View on December 11 (afternoon only) and 12.

2007-11-26 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Directed giving to the Mozllla Foundation

Yesterday I posted information on the Mozilla Foundation’s grants and related expenditures in 2007 to date, and concluded by briefly mentioning our intention to fund projects in more areas as we move into 2008. In connection with that, today we’re announcing what I call a “directed giving” program for the Mozilla Foundation that allows you to donate to the Foundation and designate your donation for any one of a set of Mozilla-related projects. ...

2007-11-20 · 3 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation grants and related expenditures for 2007

I previously posted some information on the Mozilla Foundation’s grants and related expenditures in 2006. Since then I’ve been expanding our internal database of information about such expenditures, and have now gotten to the point where I can provide the same information for 2007. I’ll continue updating this post in the remainder of the year as we add new projects. Background In my previous post I provided information important to understanding the Mozilla Foundation’s grant and grant-related activities. See the post for the full details; here’s a brief recap of the two most important points: ...

2007-11-19 · 14 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation grants and related expenditures for 2006

As noted in a blog post by Mitchell Baker, yesterday we posted various 2006 financial documents for the Mozilla Foundation, including our 2006 Form 990, a 2006 consolidated financial statement for the Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation, and a FAQ on 2006 finances. The 2006 financial FAQ in particular contains some figures on Mozilla Foundation grants and related expenditures for 2006. In this post I wanted to describe in a bit more detail what activities the Mozilla Foundation funded in 2006. ...

2007-10-23 · 10 min · Frank Hecker