Blake Ross did not get up on the stage at Gnomedex to talk about any of those minor glitches in Firefox or the map for their future. Here's some of the stuff he did want to share with us:
To this day, Firefox has over 200 million downloads.
How was it originally initiated?
There are some misconceptions about all of that. No, it wasn't to alienate Bill Gates and feast on the bloody remains of his shattered empire.
No, it wasn't to liberate the world from the encumbering bondage of property software.
It was for simplicity. The intention was never to compete with the giant, bigger browsers.
They wanted to create a browser that was user friendly for the general population; specifically, their parents.
Most developers don't wake up in the morning thinking about how to make a browser that will be better for their parents. This is what they tackled.
What did the average person want in a browser?
They found people were looking for the alternative to Microsoft. Excitement was generated based on open source and community support.
The original message was to make this easier to use for every day users.
Firefox is very customizable. Extensions were a smart way to offer a base set of features, while still allowing room to create extensions on top of that.
IE7 is coming out soon, wanting to be a player again. They've heard the complaints, and seeing Firefox made them move.
What is the future of Firefox and how do they continue and get beyond the 10% of the market?
firefoxflicks.com: We watched an ad created by a fan of the browser, mocking other browsers, IE specifically, of course.
Dave Winer felt they were in complete poor taste and thinks that Firefox will follow the ways of IE as they continue to grow. He pretty much laid into him, off topic somewhat, wanting answers to questions that were not specific to the session. But young Blake took it all in stride and handled himself perfectly.
Time wound down and Pirillo stepped in and saved the day: offline it is!