Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) is an open and collaborative learning platform for Web technologies
(HTML, CSS and JavaScript). MDN goes beyond providing essential coding information; it addresses
developers’ needs through its supporting community of volunteer developers, with the aim of inspiring
ideas, encouraging collaboration and ultimately, fostering the growth of the open Web. For a wide
range of Web developers, from learners to hobbyists to full‐time professionals, MDN provides useful
explanations for coding practice, instructions on downloading and building code, articles on how the
code works. It also gives guidance on how to build add‐ons for Mozilla applications and apps for Firefox
OS, user‐submitted runnable demos of Web technologies, and helpful answers on development
planning and strategy.
Openness is central to MDN, in that anyone can create an account to edit the content, and anyone can
copy and reuse the content, under its Creative Commons (Attribution‐Share‐Alike) license. Likewise,
anyone can join in discussions about planning and task management, via publicly accessible tools. This
openness has coalesced a community of volunteer contributors that extends far beyond the small staff
who keep pace with the rapid release cycle of Mozilla’s flagship browser. The online collaboration also
manifests in face‐to‐face events such as monthly MDN‐focused meet‐ups in Mozilla’s London and Paris
offices (joined by a video conference link), and other ad‐hoc gatherings that members may take
initiative to throw.
Currently, MDN has over 4 million users per month and more than 1000 volunteer editors per month,
worldwide. In July 2015, MDN will celebrate its 10th anniversary, as the original MDN wiki site
launched on 23 July, 2005.
Chronology
2005: Mozilla obtained a license from AOL to use content from Netscape’s DevEdge site. The
DevEdge content was mined for still‐useful material, which was then migrated by volunteers
into a wiki so it would be easier to update and maintain. The new wiki was launched in July
2005 as Mozilla Developer Center (MDC), also known as “devmo,” shorthand for its domain
name, “developer.mozilla.org.”
2010: The name was changed to Mozilla Developer Network (MDN), reflecting the site’s
growth into a nexus for all developer documentation related to the Mozilla Project and open
web technologies.
2011: A “Demo Studio” section was added for web developers to share and show off their
code, along with learning pages to provide links to tutorials.
2014: The basic learning pages have been expanded into “Learn the Web” content for
beginning web developers, including a web terminology glossary, which Mozilla staff and
volunteers will continue to develop over the next few years.
Key facts
Original MDN wiki site launched on 23 July, 2005
Today it is one of the richest resources on the Web for documentation with 34,500
documents and climbing
Currently MDN has about 4,2 million users per month
More than 20,000 contributors have made about 510,000 edits to date
1000+ people edit MDN every month
So far, MDN editors created 13,200 English pages and made 21,200 translations in 42 locales
142 HTML elements documented, including all standard elements in HTML5, stillexperimental
ones like <dialog>, and never‐standard, deprecated ones like <blink> (for
historical reference).
275 CSS properties documented, covering 60+ CSS‐related specifications, many of which are
still being defined for example, writing‐mode, which controls whether lines of text are
horizontal (such as for Latin and most other alphabets) or vertical (for Japanese and Chinese
characters)
300+ web terminology glossary
90+ articles for complete beginners and learners in the “Learn the Web” section, e.g.
explaining the basic difference between a webpage, a website, a web server, and a search
engine.
Further information on MDN
Web: https://developer.mozilla.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MozDevNet
Newsgroup: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.mdn
Events: MDN community events
