Asa Dotzler

Asa Dotzler
Asa Dotzler in 2005
Born	June 5, 1974 (1974-06-05) (age 37) Summertown, Tennessee, United States
Occupation	Director: Product Manager for the Firefox desktop browser, Mozilla Corp.
Spouse	Deanna L. Pierce
Website
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/

Asa Dotzler ( /ˈeɪsə ˈdɒtslər/; born June 5, 1974) is an American software developer best known for his work as community coordinator for several Mozilla projects. He was founder of Mozilla's Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing Program, which grew under his leadership from just a few contributors when Dotzler joined the project to tens of thousands of volunteers today

Dotzler is also co-founder of the Spread Firefox project, launched in October 2004, where he spearheaded Mozilla's open source marketing program. Spread Firefox is charged with empowering Firefox community members to raise awareness of the popular web browser. Today, he works with Mozilla's Technology Evangelism team, helping people understand, build, and benefit from the Open Web.

Dotzler has been an active member of the Mozilla community since 1998. After volunteering for more than a year, Dotzler joined "[e-mail]", the leadership team for the Mozilla organization, and has played a key role in delivering products including the release of Mozilla 1.0 and the release of the Mozilla Firefox web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client.

Dotzler has also helped his local community and beyond as part of a model to others in use of social network for safety in such a case as when he tracked the 2009 Lockheed Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Santa Cruz County wildfire information grows with online maps, social networks: [1]

Mozilla work

Dotzler is currently an employee of the Mozilla Corporation, producers of the Firefox Web browser. Before moving to the Corporation, Dotzler was one of the original employees at the non-profit Mozilla Foundation^{[citation needed]}. Dotzler's first paying job on the cross-platform Mozilla web browser was in Mountain View, California as an employee of Netscape Communications Corporation. He was hired by Netscape in May 2000 to work with the "[e-mail]" team. When AOL shut down the Netscape browser unit in July 2003, Dotzler was a member of the team to start up the Mozilla Foundation. Before joining Netscape, Dotzler worked on Mozilla as a volunteer for over a year while living in Austin, Texas. Dotzler moved to Austin in 1997 after meeting his spouse, Deanna Pierce.

Blog

Dotzler maintains an active weblog with an emphasis on Mozilla development and news, although it does at times cover topics of personal or academic interest.

Quotes

• "I think we're going to see some serious bottom up pressure in the enterprise space... We'll even get some of the big boys in the Fortune 500... It's going to be a great year for Firefox, and it won't be limited to the home user."

In a 2005 entry on his Mozilla blog: Enterprise Adoption - weblogs.mozillazine.org.

• "Even more exciting is how much progress Firefox is making [in enterprise usage] and how quickly. At nearly 20% and growing almost half a point per month, I don't think anyone can discount Firefox's potential to succeed in the enterprise as well as it is with consumers. Go Firefox!"

In a 2008 entry on the same blog: Stats from tall buildings - weblogs.mozillazine.org

• "Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours."

Regarding the effect of Mozilla's new rapid release cycle on enterprise and Firefox's user niche market, June 2011: "Mozilla: We Care About Business, Really" PCMAG.COM

• "Yes, I’m basically saying that I don’t care about making Firefox enterprise friendly."

Responding to a question about Mozilla's support for corporate users; from Dotzler's comments, June 2011: Mike Kaply's Blog

• "Webmasters, listen up. Respect your users or you will lose them. With Firefox, the user is no longer just a spectator, he's a participant. Play nice or face extinction. Seriously."

Regarding website owner practices; from Dotzler's article: No Respect for the User

• "Yeah, I'm just a critic and I had absolutely nothing to do with bringing Firefox to 250 million users. Dave, go piss up a rope."

Responding to Dave Winer in Feb. 2009 stating, "It's so easy to be a critic, and so much harder to make a contribution. To some extent because of people like yourself.": brilliance

Quotes about Dotzler

• "Finally, Mozilla had a product that could compete with Microsoft. The question now was how to publicize it. Open-source management seemed to work well when it came to developing software. But open-source marketing was an unexplored concept. Would people be willing to volunteer to get the word out on Firefox? Baker thought they might, and one reason was Asa Dotzler."

Inc. Magazine February 2007; "Mitchell Baker and the Firefox Paradox"

• "Asa Dotzler, director of Firefox, has made it clear he doesn't consider enterprise users worth supporting. In several comments added to a follow-up post by Kaply, Dotzler did not mince words. "Enterprise has never been (and I'll argue, shouldn't be) a focus of ours," Dotzler said. "I can't imagine why we'd focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about.""

Computerworld, June 2011: "Microsoft exploits uproar over Firefox 4's retirement to beat IE drum"

External links

Official sites

• Asa Dotzler's Blog — Asa Dotzler's personal weblog
• Deanna Pierce & Asa Dotzler — Asa and his wife Deanna's website

News and media

• LQ Radio Interview — Interview with Dotzler on LinuxQuestions Radio (July 27, 2005)
• Behind the scenes at Mozilla HQ — A glimpse of the Mozilla Foundation office including Dotzler from ZDNet UK (July 19, 2005).
• Firefox: The alternative history — Interview with Dotzler from ZDNet UK (July 19, 2005).
• Firefox: Doing it for love — Another interview with Dotzler from ZDNet UK (July 19, 2005).
• Mozilla: IE 7 to boost Firefox growth — from CNet (July 18, 2005)
• Why Linux isn't ready for desktops — Commentary by Dotzler from ZDNet Australia (July 18, 2005).
• Job Morph: Herding Cats — Fast Company magazine article on Dotzler (March, 2007).
• 25 Years of PC Magazine: Year Twenty 2001, Innovators: Asa Dotzler — PC Magazine article on Dotzler (September, 2007)
• Firefox Turns 500 Million — Interview with Dotzler on NPR (February 25, 2008).
• Mozilla's Asa Dotzler on Firefox, Fighting Bloat and the Problem with Democracy — Interview with Dotzler on WIRED Blogs (March 27, 2008).
• Mozilla at 10: A Photo Tour of the Lizard’s Lair — Dotzler in WIRED Gallery celebrating 10th anniversary of the birth of the Mozilla project (March 29, 2008).

Persondata
Name	Dotzler, Asa
Alternative names
Short description	Software developer
Date of birth	June 5, 1974
Place of birth	Summertown, Tennessee, United States
Date of death
Place of death