On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 at 2:56:26 PM UTC-5, Mike Connor wrote:
> The master goal requires Mozilla to attract and retain users. Without our
> users we don't have the same influence over standards, public policy, or
> the direction of how the Web evolves. The master goal is not about every
> service being open source, but about keeping the Internet open for all, and
> that explicitly includes for commercial entities. The Mozilla Manifesto
> [1] even calls this out in Principle 9:
>
> > Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many
> benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is
> critical.
>
> Nowhere in the Manifesto does it say proprietary services are inherently
> bad, or that commercial entities can't innovate in useful ways for users.
> Nor is it our mission to make open source versions of everything that we
> could possibly build. We don't have unlimited time or resources, so we have
> to pick our battles. If a market segment is effectively contended (i.e.
> there are a number of competitors competing effectively and providing real
> choice) then the system is working. Users have choices, and there's room
> for new, better entrants to come in with better offerings.
>
> [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/
What you are saying is true if you want to pull one single principle from the
manifesto and treat it in a vacuum from everything else. However, you add back
in the manifesto principles #7 ("Free and open source software promotes the
development of the Internet as a public resource") and #8 ("Transparent
community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust"),
then adding an undocumented private "/v3/firefox/save" API call very much goes
against the manifesto. I can't meaningfully maximize the potential for the
remote bookmark storage system integrated into firefox when the full scope of
the "/v3/firefox/*" API is only known to the employees of a company that I
don't work for. This is not a transparent community-based process.
I will acknowledge that the Mozilla Foundation does not have unlimited time or
resources. That is why when the Mozilla Foundation makes videos and blog posts
to clarify their missions, they should be kept consistent with what they intend
as being the master plan. To expend resources on something that directly
contradicts the is a waste of resources. So, Mozilla Foundation has expended
resources creating and publishing a "The Web We Want: An Open Letter" video
which starts off "I am not a data point to be bought and sold."
Let take just that one piece of clarification of the Mozilla Foundation mission
and compare it with what you are saying. You claim Pocket(TM) being integrated
into the core of Firefox to be pre-installed is justified because "the master
goal requires Mozilla to attract and retain users." As such, Firefox is by
extension a Pocket(TM) application. According to Pocket(TM)'s Terms of
Service, merely by installing a Pocket(TM) application the user should have
both read and agreed to the Pocket(TM) Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
According to Pocket(TM) Privacy Policy, the users are a data point to be sold
in the form of aggregated information.
Why was the resources wasted on this video? Why didn't start off a statement
of the master goal?
Another example (I could go on a great deal further giving example but I will
just stick with one more for now), for some reason the Mozilla Foundation felt
it needed to write blog posts about "Reconciling Mozilla's Mission and W3C
EME." They explain that while the EME would be closed source, the API would be
openly documented and the EME would be optional to *install*. Then two
different Firefox installers were made available where one installs the EME and
the other doesn't. So, not only was it optional to install the EME but it was
even optional on if the EME was even downloaded as part of the installer.
I doubt many people would debate that being able to watch Netflix would be
consistent with a master goal that "requires Mozilla to attract and retain
users." So why would the openness or the option require any reconciling at
all? Based on your stated master goal, the API could have been kept
private/undocumented and instructions on how to disable the EME after a forced
installation could be provided. However, instead, it was important to state
that Mozilla's Mission did require reconciling. The API had to be openly
documented, download the EME would be optional and agreeing to Adobe's terms of
service and privacy policy is also optional.
So why are we picking and choosing when Mozilla's Mission need to be reconciled
and when we can choose to ignore manifesto principles #7/#8, the Web We Want
campaign and many others forms of communication from Mozilla Foundation about
it's mission statement?
If you really believe using private/undocumented API calls is the long term
solution to attract and retain users, then strip the multiple search engine
(and the open API) support out of the Awesome Bar. Just have it be an
private/undocumented API call to Yahoo search. Because that is what is
happening with Pocket(TM). There is no interface outside of about:config to
choose alternative hosts and even if an alternative host is selected, what
future private API calls the Firefox integration will make use of is unknown.
What is even worse is choose a single vendor storage solution is just wrong for
the end user. Companies fail and change strategies. Yahoo's flagship product
was a manually curated indexing of the web. Where is that flagship product
today? If you need, I can give several other examples where a company's
initial flagship product or service failed or stop being provided. Who are you
to claim Firefox best way to retain users will be if all of their remotely
stored bookmarks go dark when a single storage vendor solution disappears? Why
even justify such a gamble? How is this the "best way?"
So I'm going to BS on any claim that Manifesto #9 is proper justification for
any of the following issues:
(1) An undocumented/private "/v3/firefox/*" API namespace
(2) Lacking any convenient end-user way to select alternative or multiple
storage sources (doesn't have to support multiple APIs, just has to allow for
other supporters of the same API)
(3) Non-optional install when the Terms of Service requires a ToS/Privacy
Policy agreement merely for installing (without even having to use it)
There is "commercial involvement" and there is betraying what has been
repeatedly the mission statement. It should be possible to accomplish
commercial involvement without any of those three above issues.
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