MOSS/Talking About Your MOSS Award

So you've been awarded a MOSS award - congratulations! The continued viability of the MOSS program depends on people continuing to apply, and Mozilla continuing to want to fund it. Both of these things are assisted if you mention MOSS positively when you talk about the MOSS-funded work you are doing or the audit you had, whether in a blog post, conference talk or other medium. People who hear your talk or read your blog post may want to apply, and Mozilla is more likely to continue to fund the program if it can see that it generates positive goodwill for Mozilla, and that we get appropriate recognition for the money we are awarding.

General Guidance

• Please don't start telling the world you've been awarded a MOSS award until after the contract is fully signed by all parties. (Your contract signer should be notified when this happens.) While we want very much to make all the awards we approve, this way, no-one ever gets disappointed or misled.
• Please refer to it as a MOSS "award", not a MOSS "grant" or MOSS "contract". The word "grant" is not appropriate for some types of award, and we like to keep the language neutral. So this means you were "awarded" it, not "given" it.
• The first time you mention MOSS, expand the acronym. So:

We recently were awarded a Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) award to improve our API documentation. MOSS is a program from Mozilla...

• If your project got an SOS Fund audit, use instead "an audit from Mozilla's SOS Fund".
• The best URL to link back to is https://mozilla.org/moss . That link works for all award types, is a professional-looking site rather than a wiki, and helps people get their heads around the program.
• If you are able to, please include the call-to-action with words something like the following:

MOSS has a number of types of award, which are open to different sorts of open source/free software project. If your project is looking for financial support, do check <a href="https://mozilla.org/moss">the website</a> to see if you qualify.

Contracts

Confidentiality

Some MOSS contracts have the following clause:

3. CONFIDENTIALITY

3.1. Definition. The Parties agree that the terms of this Agreement shall be considered “Confidential Information.”

3.2. Obligations. The Parties agree: (i) to hold and maintain in strict confidence the Confidential Information and not to disclose it to any third party other than their employees and subcontractors who have a need to know and have executed confidentiality agreements with the Party that are no less protective of the Confidential Information than this section; and (ii) to protect the Confidential Information from disclosure with the same degree of care they use to protect their own proprietary information similar in nature, but in no event less than a reasonable degree of care.

Mozilla does not consider "this Agreement" to cover the SoW attached to the agreement. So you are welcome to tell the world about your planned work, milestones and financial remuneration in as much detail as you choose. Mozilla will normally (but not always) speak publicly about the total amount of the award and the work involved, but not any financial breakdown.

Press Releases

Some MOSS contracts have the following clause:

6. PRESS RELEASES

Neither Party will issue any press releases regarding this Agreement or relationship without the prior review by and written approval of the other Party.

We consider a press release to be any document released by you where you draw to it the specific attention of any newswire, newspaper, online news source, or other organization or person who could be reasonably called a journalist. Otherwise, there is no need to notify. A post on your or a project blog, for example, would not normally fall under this clause. If your posting does require this approval, email Gerv with the details, the outlet(s) concerned and the full text.

If you are uncertain about how to talk about your MOSS award, please do contact Gerv who would be happy to help you.