Asa Dotzler
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| Asa Dotzler | |
 Asa Dotzler during a meeting at Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 2, 2007
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| Born | June 5, 1974 Summertown, Tennessee, United States |
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| Occupation | Director of Community Development, Mozilla Corp. |
| Spouse | Deanna L. Pierce |
| Website http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/ |
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Asa Dotzler (pronounced /ˈeɪsə ˈdɒtslɚ/), born in Summertown, Tennessee on June 5, 1974[citation needed], is best known for his work as community coordinator for several Mozilla projects. He was an early member of Mozilla’s Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing Program[citation needed], which grew under his leadership from just a few contributors when Dotzler joined the project to tens of thousands of volunteers today.
Dotzler is co-founder and community coordinator for the Spread Firefox project[citation needed], launched in October 2004, where he spearheads open source marketing projects. Spread Firefox is charged with empowering Firefox community members to raise awareness of the popular web browser. He also works with drivers@mozilla.org, the project management group at Mozilla, to define requirements and development roadmaps for the Mozilla projects[citation needed].
Dotzler has been an active member of the Mozilla community since 1998. After volunteering for more than a year, Dotzler joined the Mozilla organization[citation needed], 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 and usenet client. He attended Middle Tennessee State University, The Savannah College of Art and Design (AKA SCAD), and Auburn University[citation needed].
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[edit] Mozilla work
Asa 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[citation needed]. He was hired by Netscape in May of 2000 to work with the "staff@mozilla.org" team[citation needed]. Before joining Netscape, Dotzler worked on Mozilla as a volunteer for over a year while living in Austin, Texas[citation needed]. Dotzler moved to Austin in 1997 after meeting his spouse, Deanna Pierce[citation needed].
[edit] Blog
Dotzler maintains an active weblog with an emphasis on Mozilla development and news. Other topics include the exploration of Mars and other astronomy, general technology news, his and his wife's pet male rabbit, Munch, and pet cat, Ptolemy, a female so named for her feline-centric view of the universe (after Claudius Ptolemaeus and his geocentric theory).
He has been known to criticize competing web browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Opera in his blog, the latter of which has alienated him from some Opera supporters; in an interview with Opera Watch, Blake Ross, a friend of Dotzler's and one of the founders of the Firefox browser, called Dotzler a troll in a tongue-in-cheek comment.
[edit] Quotes
- "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."
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- Regarding website owner practices; from Dotzler's article: No Respect for the User
[edit] 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."
[edit] External links
[edit] Official sites
- Asa Dotzler's Blog — Asa Dotzler's personal weblog
- Deanna Pierce & Asa Dotzler — Asa and his wife Deanna's website
[edit] 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).
