What is organic software?
As software companies go, we’re a little unusual. We use the term ‘organic software’ to sum up the various ways we’re different from the other guys:
Our most well-known product, Firefox, is created by an international movement of thousands, only a small percentage of whom are actual employees.
We’re motivated by our mission of promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the web rather than business concerns like profits or the price of our stock (guess what: we don’t even have stock).
And as a non-profit, public benefit organization, we define success in terms of building communities and enriching people’s lives. We believe in the power and potential of the Internet and want to see it thrive for everyone, everywhere.
What is Open Source?
This might sound crazy at first, but bear with us: we believe that the more people who know our “secrets”, the better.
So, we exposed the Firefox source code – the very nuts & bolts of what makes it all work – to the world and encouraged everyone to have a look.
Some people saw things to improve and made the fixes. Others had ideas for new features and made them happen. And others yet took that code, applied their own innovations and built completely new (and amazing) products.
The moral of the story? Being open means good things will happen. Anyone can peek behind our curtains…in fact, there really aren’t any curtains at all.
Why should you care?
We may not be a typical company, but we still know how to focus on the bottom line: making the web better for you.
Being open means the next big idea can come from anyone across the world rather than just relying on a few dozen employees at our company offices. When you look at the situation in those terms, why do it any other way?
All this talk about organic software and open source ultimately means a better browser for you and the 150 million regular Firefox users. It means a higher-quality, more secure product. It means innovation, freedom and supporting an Internet that’s accessible to all.