The Web has changed a lot in the last few years.  One of the big changes is how much we now use the Web for messaging, communication and social interactions. We post messages on social networking sites, we tweet, we get messages (often known as “notifications”) from applications, we use Web-based mail systems.  The pace and importance of innovation in this space is enormous and growing.

Mozilla has been exploring new ways to put people in control of their online communications and social interactions for a couple of years now. We currently have two teams.  One is the team at Mozilla Messaging, which produces Thunderbird and messaging innovations such as Raindrop and F1.  The second team is within Mozilla Labs, and has been working on identity, contacts and related topics.

We intend to combine the two teams to increase our effectiveness.  Practically this means we’ll be integrating Mozilla Messaging with Mozilla Labs.   David Ascher will lead a new innovation group within Mozilla Labs focused on online communications and social interactions on the Web. After the teams merge into Mozilla Labs we will dissolve Mozilla Messaging.  This simplifies our overall structure.  I’d like to offer deep thanks to Marten Mickos and Chris Beard for serving on the Mozilla Messaging Board of Directors, along with David Ascher.

The Thunderbird team will continue to develop and release Thunderbird from its new home within the combined organization.   David Ascher will  continue to oversee our Thunderbird product.  Thunderbird users and contributors should see no difference in their experience.  Email is a solid and foundational technology which retains immense value.  The Thunderbird team has re-made Thunderbird into a modern email client. Thunderbird now has a more modular architecture, vastly modernized codebase, effective add-on mechanisms, a vastly improved user interface, and incremental innovations that continue to evolve and move the product forward. We intend to continue our work with the Thunderbird email product to meet this need.

The innovations occurring today in online communications and social interaction are astonishing. It’s a wildly vibrant time.

Please join us as we put more concentrated focus on our efforts in these areas.

If you’ve got an Android phone, grab yourself a copy and see how much better mobile brewing can be! Firefox for Android and Meamo is built usage the same great technology as Firefox on desktop platforms, so it’s fast, sleek and full of features that make mobile browsing better. For example:

• safe and easy synchronization and access to history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data across desktop and mobile devices
• share page, save to PDF and other features to minimize typing
• unprecedented customization capabilities
• HTML 5 capabilities for developers to build rich and interactive websites and Web apps.

It’s currently available in 13 languages today with more to follow.

Firefox for Android and Maemo platforms is also more than a great browser. Like all Mozilla offerings, this product is about putting human beings at the center of the internet. It’s built by a global community of contributors who dedicate time and effort into making the Internet better. We build our products so that the more you know about them, the more we hope you trust them. That way individuals have the ability to control our lives online.

Firefox answers to no one but you.

Firefox 4 is here! If you’re not using Firefox 4, go grab it and see how exciting the web can be.

Firefox is a great browser. Fast, sleek, and full of features that make the online life better — App Tabs, Panorama, Sync, Do Not Track, HTML 5 features, and more — all focused on respecting individuals.

Firefox is also much, much more than a great browser. Firefox is a big part of how we build a web that is fun, powerful, trustworthy, and fundamentally about empowering individuals to shape our own lives. Firefox is created by a non-profit community precisely to build these values into the fabric of the Internet. Firefox marries public benefit, non-profit goals with great product and technical advances.

Firefox is also a community; a community dedicated to building the web the way it should be. A community ensuring that technical excellence serves individual empowerment and public benefit.

Firefox represents a state of mind; a state of mind that asserts that people matter, that individuals can make a difference, that we can create as well as consume, that we can build a part of the Internet that belongs to all of us.

And of course, Firefox brings open source, cutting-edge technology and great user features to hundreds of millions of people in over 80 languages, based on openness, transparency, and empowering local communities. Check it out and get involved!

Dear Chibi-San, Dear Mozilla Contributors, Dear Mozilla Japan

We are only a few hours away from launching Firefox 4 on our desktop platforms, and a few short days away from launching Firefox 4 on our mobile platforms.

I know that you have worked hard to get Mozilla ready for this day, and that you would be among our most excited and active participants were it not for the recent catastrophic events. You are part of our global launch and I hope that you know that we know this. Your role in Mozilla, in Firefox 4 and in the launch is not determined by the activities you engage in on launch day. Your role has been built over the years.

We’ll support whatever activities, if any, you think make sense for the launch. We’ll also keep looking for ways to support our community in Japan as the rebuilding process gets underway.

In March of this year we kicked up a process to update the Mozilla Public License. We recently released the first beta of the MPL 2.0 and we believe that this beta is now feature complete, meaning that it addresses all major known issues. Of course if there are policy changes that come up and need to be made we will address them. We’ve kept both OSI and the FSF appraised of our efforts. We’ll be submitting the final versions for approval, and we believe that the MPL 2.0 meets all requirements for approval of these organizations.

When we launched this process I said the goals are to

make the MPL easier to use and incorporate a decade’s worth of experience. In particular I’m hoping to modernize and simplify the license while still keeping the things that have made it and the Mozilla project such a success.

Here’s what we’ve done:

• Simplified and shortened, reducing the MPL by about a third (Luis tells me that specifically this draft reduces the length from 3702 words to 2289)
• Made the notification requirements dramatically simpler and easier to fulfill
• Modified patent language to be more in line with other major open source licenses, while still maintaing the patent defense clause
• Improved compatibility with other licenses, making it easier to incorporate Apache code into Mozilla, and modernizing language regarding (optional) GPL compatibility
• Improved globalization, including removal of many US-specific terms and concepts
• Removed “Original Software” and “Initial Developer” concepts.

You can find detailed information on the beta 1 draft and how to participate at our MPL update website. We welcome general discussion through the governance-mpl-update mailing list, and specific comments through the co-ment web commenting tool.

Now is also a good time to distribute the Beta elsewhere. If you know of other MPL users who have not heard of the process, please reach out to them and let them know what we’re doing.

We’re eager to make the MPL the best it can be.