原文請見 http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/charter.html

Firefox 設計準則

Ben Goodger (9/12/2004)

Firefox grew out of the desire to make the best browser for Microsoft Windows. Eventually we began to build on Linux as well, and also Macintosh. Most of our evelopment work is done on Windows, and so that platform naturally tends to lead although we express a desire to work as well as is feasible on every system we can. Today, our goal is to be the best browsing solution on Windows and Linux, while at the same time striving to improve our functionality on MacOS X in order to be competitive.

Firefox began because a group of people who used to work on the Netscape browser releases wanted to show the world what a browser would look like if it were developed using the flexible Gecko layout engine and XPFE, but without the constraints of commercial interest and the creep of esoteric features from the developer community. Given that User Interface development is not a committee driven process, where mob rule is not useful, a more discriminating, closely directed solution was sought.

Beginning with the core Mozilla code, unnecessary UI was removed, existing UI were refined and new UI added with the goal of providing efficient (speedy, easy to use, useful) web access. The goal was, and is, not to have more or less features than any other client (Mozilla included) but to have the right set of features to let people get their jobs done.

The initial version of this charter included the phrase:

"The target market for Firefox includes all users who are sufficiently sophisticated in computer skill as to be able to download and install their own browser.

This statement was made based on the expected reality of our marketing reach, distribution and so on. It was never intended to be used as a crutch by people wishing to add esoteric features to the browser, or to claim that Firefox was not designed for the "average" human being. Reality has shown that we are getting adoption in areas we had not seen before, and so in this revision I will expand the phrase above to read:

"The target market for Firefox includes all users who wish to use the Internet safely and efficiently."

This implies that our default presentation should be clean, simple and efficient, familiar where possible to the bulk of transitioning IE users. At the same time we recognize the role the web development and early-adopter/techie community plays in the dissemination of our software, so we try to provide an elegantly integrated set of tools to make their lives easier (including our Extension system) while not encroaching on the baseline performance of the browser.

At the time of writing, Firefox has already been very successful, scoring converts from Internet Explorer and much praise. We are not done. We have a lot of work to accomplish before we can reach 1.0. At the same time we are realistic - no product is perfect, 1.0 is not a panacea, there will still be bugs that need to be fixed, features that could work even better, and so forth. That's what 1.5s and 2.0s are for. Nonetheless we believe that when we hit 1.0 we will have achieved our original stated goal - to be the best browser, bar none.