Posts tagged mozilla

Please give a brief introduction of yourself

My name is Arun Ranganathan, and I’ve been working on Mozilla, on and off, for about 10 years. I first joined Netscape Communications as an engineer, and soon found myself working on the launch of Mozilla-based browsers within Netscape. Later, I was a System Architect for AOL LLC, which acquired Netscape. Joining the Mozilla Corporation as an employee is like coming full circle. Nowadays, Firefox accounts for over 25% of the browser market, and is a really successful product.

What are your contributions to FOSS projects ?

My main contributions to FOSS projects are to Mozilla. Essentially, my contributions are to the open web platform through active participation in developing web standards. Not all browsers that support web standards are necessarily open source, but open standards plus open source is our vision for the web.

What will your talk be, exactly ?

My talk will combine a number of technology demos with a technical discussion of emerging capabilities on the web.

What do you hope to accomplish by conducting this talk? What do you expect ?

All the demos I show, and all the slides I use, will be posted for others to reuse as they wish. I hope that others will be inspired by what the web can do, and will talk about the technologies to their peers. I expect a lot of great questions from the GNUnify crowd, since they are typically an intelligent and highly motivated audience.

What is WebGL and how do you see WebGL affecting web development ?

WebGL is an API on top of OpenGL ES 2.0, with a Shader-based model for 3D graphics. It is ideally suited to memory-managed languages like JavaScript, and it is a web standard, just like CSS, HTML, and other web APIs exposed to JavaScript. WebGL brings an API for a 3D drawing context within the HTML5 Canvas element, providing DOM interfaces to leverage hardware-accelerated graphics. I see WebGL ushering in a new era of web-based computer games, and new data visualizations, including medical imagery.

With so many new web technologies on the horizon, what in your opinion will be the web applications of next decade ?

The web applications of the next decade will seamlessly blend audio, video, and text data, and will be able to leverage graphical contexts to make them truly visually rich and interactive. They will also be able to leverage the underlying device’s capabilities, which will give rise to location based services, layouts based on positioning, video games, and new ways to experience data. The web will thrive as a communications medium, with “in browser” features that no longer require plugins.

Which are your favorite technologies from Mozilla labs ? Which ones will you like to be available in default Firefox release ?

My favorite technology from labs is really Weave. I really like the idea of carrying my preferences around with me wherever I go, including on mobile devices using Fennec (Firefox for Mobile). It would be amazing if Weave were a part of Firefox. We’ll need a lot of testing before that happens.

Have you enjoyed previous editions of gnunify ?

GNUnify is one of my favorite events. I always make new friends, and hope to get to know many more students and new Mozilla contributors, just as I did last year.