Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Firefox 3 download day - Mozilla just got into politics

Well, Firefox 3 finally arrived and all is well in the world. I was just browsing the downloads map and was ready to call it a night when something caught my eye. Something was strange about that map... Ah, that's it, there seems to be one state missing on the map. For all of you that don't know which one is missing, let me give you a hint -- it's a small state just north of Albania, south of Serbia. You guessed it, it's Kosovo. Yes, Kosovo. The state that got its independence in February this year is not plotted as a separate country, but rather as a part of Serbia (of which it was a part until recently). Now, it may be considered overranting, but I wonder why isn't Kosovo listed as a separate country. After all, it is recognized by the US (country which Mozilla calls home), the UK, France, Italy, Germany... The list goes on. And it's not like the guys at Mozilla didn't have time to prepare, Kosovo got its independence in February which gave them some four months to add it to the countries list. So, why can't I see how many people from Kosovo downloaded Firefox 3? And more importantly, who decides if a country is relevant enough to be added to a company's list? It seems that nowadays a country has to be recognized not only by other countries, but also by companies if it wishes to make a meaningful existence...