Firefox
= open source browser
Description
“Tuesday, the answer to IE arrived: a safe, free, fast, simple and compatible browser called Mozilla Firefox. Firefox (available for Win 98 or newer, Mac OS X and Linux at www.mozilla.org) is an unlikely rival, developed by a small nonprofit group with extensive volunteer help. Its code dates to Netscape and its open-source successor, Mozilla, but in the two years since Firefox debuted as a minimal, browser-only offshoot of those sprawling suites, it has grown into a remarkable product. Firefox displays an elegant simplicity within and without." (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/business/yourmoney/19digi.html?th)
Discussion
Community aspects of Firefox browser
"John argues that the Firefox platform is actually more robust and easier to use than "rival" platforms like Facebook, iPhone, etc. Unlike these others, Firefox is a true community platform, reflecting the tastes, requirements, and whims of a broad array of users. It plays host to a wide array of third-party plug-ins.
But the community angle doesn't end with plug-ins. 40 percent of the Firefox code wasn't written by Mozilla. This has stayed constant as Mozilla has grown. This is exceptionally impressive when you consider that Firefox is 6 million lines of code.
This community input is demonstrated by the last launch of Firefox. It came out of the gate localized into 37 languages. Mozilla wrote one of those, the English language version. By comparison, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 launched only in English, despite having far more internal resources.
Still another way to look at it is through its quality assurance program. Mozilla employs a few people (8 to 10) internally to focus on QA, but 10,000-plus people download and install its nightly builds. The feedback from this community is immediate and very pointed: "You broke Thai on X page," etc. Mike noted, "It's a little bit unnerving at times," but it's also a significant indicator of the "outside" buy-in that Mozilla garners.
Clearly, Firefox has the community." (http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9893479-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20)