The Book of Mozilla - The Book of Mozilla, 11:9

The Book of Mozilla, 11:9

Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.

from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9

This verse landed in the Mozilla trunk codebase on January 9, 2008. It first appeared in Firefox 3.0 Beta 3. This is also produced in the alpha 1 version of Mobile Firefox, codenamed "Fennec", Flock Browser Version 2.0.6, Waterfox and Songbird.

In the HTML source of the Book of Mozilla page, this verse is accompanied by the following annotation:

"Mammon" (Money) is again Internet Explorer, which "slept" for the 5 years between releases (between Internet Explorer 6 and 7). The "beast reborn" refers to Firefox, which gained supporters who self-organized through Spread Firefox, and undertook publicity for the browser, taking out an advertisement in The New York Times and making a crop circle shaped like the Firefox logo. The "cunning of foxes" is a direct reference to Firefox's name. The "new world" refers to modern, standards-based dynamic websites and open source applications. The latter half of the passage links to the Mozilla Manifesto and the about:Mozilla newsletter. The last part, starting with "Mammon awoke" speaks of the release of Internet Explorer 7 and with "it was naught but a follower" describes it as a follower, copying several of the functions in Firefox that Internet Explorer previously lacked. Additionally, this quote from the "10th edition", is an allusion to the Mozilla Foundation's 10th anniversary during the Firefox 3 development cycle.