The Mozilla Manifesto
Introduction
The Internet is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives.
The Mozilla project is a global community of people who believe that openness, innovation and opportunity are key to the continued health of the Internet. We have worked together since 1998 to ensure that the Internet is developed in a way that benefits everyone. We are best known for creating the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
The Mozilla project uses a community-based approach to create world-class, open source software, and to develop new types of collaborative activities. We create communities of people involved in making the Internet experience better for all of us.
As a result of these efforts, we have distilled a set of principles that we believe are critical for the Internet to continue to benefit the public good as well as commercial aspects of life. We set out these principles in the Mozilla Manifesto presented below.
These principles will not come to life on their own. People are needed to make the Internet open and participatory - people acting as individuals, working together in groups, and leading others. The Mozilla Foundation is committed to advancing the principles set out in the Mozilla Manifesto. We invite others to join us and make the Internet an ever better place for everyone.
Principles
1. The Internet is an integral part of modern life - a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.
2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
3. The Internet should enrich the lives of individual human beings.
4. Individuals' security on the Internet is fundamental and cannot be treated as optional.
Too abstract? Too concrete, specific? It's definitely not a theoretically-argued ethics, but rather a statement of internet-specific (but specific enuff?) morals. Internet morals. How many of us could agree with it. Would a reformational-Christian statement of moral guidelines for the Internet look at all like this one? Not at all? Somewhat? Could you adopt this Statement for your own Internet praxis? Could groups? businesses?, IT businesses?, bloggers like you? adopt this Statement to guide their collective moral guidance online?
5. Individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences on the Internet.
6. The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
7. Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource.
8. Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust.
9. Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial goals and public benefit is critical.
10. Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.
How much is that statement technics-oriented? For instance, "free and open-source software"? "Accessiblity?--for the blind? the handless?, and many other disability/challenged kinds of persons having Special Needs for computing, internetting, blogging?
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