Open Source

The following is background that may be necessary for some readers to understand the issues raised in the Thompson v. Zotero lawsuit, discussed below. The Mozilla Firefox web browser (the second-most popular web browser, after Microsoft Internet Explorer) allows anyone with the talent and interest to develop “add-ons”. An add-on is a computer functionality that is added to and integrated with the Firefox browser. The Firefox user downloads the add-on from the web, and the add-on is automatically “installed” by Firefox. The add-on can be used, disabled or deleted, at the user’s choice. What makes this possible is that Firefox is an open source web browser, allowing developers to fully integrate their software with the browser. Developers can register their add-ons with the Firefox web repository, where over 6,000 add-ons are available. The add-ons are rated and critiqued by users, creating a reliable marketplace based on reputation. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has add-onsin name, but it is a much more restricted, less open and less integrated technology, and therefore is far less robust than the Firefox add-ons. For this reason, the Firefox add-ons are growing at an exponential rate, and their availability is contributing to the growing popularity of Firefox. Some of the add-on technologies are so robust that they are taking market share from conventional, for-profit companies. This seems to be the case with the Zotero add-on, which may be…