Ben Goodger, lead Firefox developer, announced in his blog that he's leaving the Mozilla Foundation's pay roll, for Google. He'll continue leading the Firefox project and releases, but will increasingly leave the Mozilla Foundation for Google business. Exactly what he'll be doing at Google is unknown.

Changes

Hi.

For those that don't know me that well, let me introduce myself. My name is Ben Goodger, and if you've found this page you've probably come here from some site talking about Firefox - since that's mostly what this page is about. My role with the Firefox project throughout 2004 and much of 2003 has been to plan, organize and execute on its development, up until recently with the goal of shipping Firefox 1.0 to the world - this has involved a great many things including project planning, estimation, resource allocation, working with various contributing groups, keeping some of our online documentation (web site, release notes etc) in order, poking my head in on some of our marketing initiatives every now and then, working with our visual design group and of course the small matter of writing code.

Well, it's been an interesting, eventful, and educational experience. I don't think any of us saw all of what has happened happening at the outset. I feel privileged to be a part of something like this, to work with the diversely talented, driven people that I do, to know that the work that I do is helping people everywhere. Anyway, as is the norm for a large project over a long period of time, when a major milestone is met, people tend to pause momentarily, take stock, look at the world around them and decide how to proceed. I have been doing this on many levels. I'm here today to tell you about some changes that apply to me.

As of January 10, 2005, my source of income changed from The Mozilla Foundation to Google, Inc. of Mountain View, California. My role with Firefox and the Mozilla project will remain largely unchanged, I will continue doing much the same work as I have described above - with the new goal of successful 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 releases. I remain devoted full-time to the advancement of Firefox, the Mozilla platform and web browsing in general. I'm sure you have many questions. While I will be spending more time at Google, I will work out of the Mozilla Foundation offices regularly as the need arises. For all questions regarding Google, I ask that you contact Google directly, rather than myself.

For work related matter, my contact information will remain the same, email regarding Firefox and Mozilla should still be sent to ben at mozilla dot org.

Happy New Year,

Ben Goodger
Lead Engineer
Mozilla Firefox

More information

• Inside Firefox: Changes