The Mozilla Foundation has announced the launch of www.mozilla.org.cn and the creation of Mozilla China, a non-profit organization to help develop, promote, and deploy Mozilla products in China.

The launch of Mozilla China follows similar international affiliate programs Mozilla Europe and Mozilla Japan.

The Mozilla China project has been spearheaded by the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) and the Sun (China) Engineering and Research Institute (ERI). ISCAS is a government-funded research institute in China which focuses on the fundamental theories of computer science as well as software technologies and their applications. ERI is an integral part of Sun's international R&D program.

"We are extremely excited to announce the launch of Mozilla China," said Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. "Mozilla China will be responsible for promoting our mission of software choice and innovation throughout China. We believe there is tremendous potential for success in this new market and that the people of China will embrace our award-winning open source products. Additionally, China is a great resource for the open source community and we look forward to building a strong developer community."

Mozilla China will be co-chaired by Dr. Li Gong of Sun ERI and Mr. Mingshu Li of ISCAS, both of whom will sit on the steering committee with Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla China will build a Chinese version of the Mozilla web site, provide technical and architectural direction for Mozilla development in China, organize and operate discussion forums, and develop Mozilla source code in China.

"We believe the market should not be dominated by one provider and that customers deserve choice and innovation," said Dr. Li Gong, Co-chairman of Mozilla China Foundation and General Manager of Sun ERI. "Sun supports open source software and is one of Mozilla's largest developers worldwide. We have an excellent Mozilla browser development team in Beijing and look forward to playing an active role in Mozilla China and sharing our knowledge with all China developers through mozilla.org.cn."