Mozilla-funded NVDA project gets support from Microsoft

Some of you may recall that about a year ago the Mozilla Foundation provided a grant to NV Access, an Australia-based nonprofit organization dedicated to developing NVDA, an open source screen reader designed for blind users of Windows applications like Firefox. This grant went to support NV Access hiring a developer (James Teh) to work full-time on NVDA. (The Mozilla Foundation had previously provided a smaller grant as well.) I’m happy to pass on the news that NV Access has now received financial support from Microsoft sufficient to allow Mick Curran (the original developer of NVDA) to also work full-time on NVDA....

2008-12-18 · 3 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla and the future of education, part 2

[This is part 2 of a two-part post. Part 1 discusses the future of education and the possibility of customized online educational offerings as a disruptive innovation that might eventually grow to rival and even dominate traditional educational systems. It ended with a question: what does this have to do with Mozilla? I now attempt to answer that question.] Online education evolves to be user-driven, not vendor-driven By definition disruptive innovations allow users to do things they could previously not do, or could do only at great expense and/or effort....

2008-07-24 · 14 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla and the future of education, part 1

[This is part 1 of a two-part post; part 2 is here.] Lately there have been a flurry of posts and associated comments discussing possible future activities that the Mozilla Foundation (and by extension the Mozilla project) might undertake in support of its overall mission and the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. This post is an experiment in thinking about an area the Mozilla Foundation (and Mozilla in general) might consider getting involved in, one possibility out of the many that have been discussed in the various posts referenced, and one of a number of themes that might inspire particular elements of an overall strategy....

2008-07-24 · 7 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2008/07/18

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending July 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 blogs published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Future of the Foundation Mitchell Baker announced that Mark Surman is being considered for the Foundation executive director position....

2008-07-21 · 2 min · Frank Hecker

Mozilla Foundation activities, week ending 2008/07/11

This is my report on activities related to the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending July 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 blogs published by David Boswell, Gerv Markham, and Zak Greant. Legal issues Gerv worked on a variety of licensing issues involving software to be used in the context of the Mozilla project....

2008-07-14 · 2 min · Frank Hecker