On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 1:15:59 AM UTC-5, Daniel Glazman wrote: > Let me bring a dinosaur's point of view (more than 15 years old > mozillian), a FOSS developer's point of view (BlueGriffon) and a user's > point of view:
It is nice to find another long term mozillian. Most people don't consider themselves to be a Mozillian previous to the Mozilla Foundation being created in 2003. But I am also a long enough user to remember the "README" file which indicated that Mozilla was the correct way to pronounce the browser. On that basis, I guess I will be a Mozillian for 20 years starting sometime next year. I would like to stay away from the term dinosaur. I don't want any meteors getting the wrong idea and there is few enough as it is. > 7. yes, I think integrating a commercial product is not the best thing > ever in the FF world but, after observing Pocket, certainly not > the worst thing ever in the current case As a 15+ mozillian, you should remember this isn't this first time a commercial product has been integrated/used in the open source browser. It used to be that it wouldn't even compile without Motif. One key difference was 100% of the Motif calls made where openly documented. Another key difference is install browser didn't imply any privacy policy with the OSF/Motif. Another commercial integration discussed during your 15+ years was Tamarin from Adobe. Again, the API was 100% openly documented and no privacy policy was implied with the contribution. Several open source projects benefit from commercial contributions to the code. I don't think that really should be the issue. Rather, it is should be how the contribution adheres to being open and transparent than fixating on the author of the code. > 1. I am using Pocket at least 50 times a day, and I find it fast, > reliable, and often better than other solutions including ones > available inside other browsers. I am rather happy it's integrated > to FF. > 2. all the people around me (not developers) use it all the time I don't think anyone is debating if it is useful to people. Reading back through the thread, it seem more like people are debating if it's usefulness to most should mean it can't be individually uninstalled by some. Again, based on the wording of the ToS, disabling/removing the button does not achieve the same thing as uninstalling. Also, given how useful it is, wouldn't it be nice if an employer could provide it immediately to all new hires? Currently, the terms of service of prohibit this. > 4. I removed the Pocket button from the toolbar in seconds > 5. I have shown all people around me how to do the same I don't think anyone is debating how easy it is to hide the button. However, this is not the same as not installing as stated in the Pocket Terms of Service. > 6. I trust Mozilla to make the right decision if, in the future, Pocket > does something that is not in line with users' interests. My point is that by including an at *install* activated Terms of Service and undocumented/private API calls that they already are not in line with users' interest. The ideals that have been promoted in the past should prohibit the current integration. Hopefully Pocket is willing to work towards something that adheres to those ideals but currently they have remained silent. > 8. yes, the plusses of Pocket easily balance the minusses of Pocket, > from a user's perspective > 9. I think FF has much more important issues on its radar. Its user base > is decreasing and integrating Pocket was an absolute must, from a > strategic point of view. > > In summary, not such a big deal. My opinion only, of course. I agree it's user base is decreasing. I also agree a remote bookmark storage system was a must-have item. I still think this type of feature should have been achievable with a ToS that only activates at *use* instead of at install and uses a 100% openly documented API instead of private API calls. If we reached the point that growing the user base now must be done at any cost, then here are some thing that Mozilla Foundation could also do but as far as I know rejected: (1) Chrome installs Adobe Flash and Mozilla Foundation has a pre-existing relationship with Adobe, why not just do the same? (2) Chrome will play back h.264 via the HTML5 video tag regardless of if the platform/OS supports it. Cisco has made clear with it's OpenH264 project it is willing to help open source projects do the same. Why not just throw that into Firefox? (3) Chrome uses PPAPI which makes it easier for plugin authors to write plugins which generate audio and also makes it easier for the user to see which tab is causes sound to be played. Why not just throw in PPAPI support? (4) Opera announced that with limited resources it isn't worth maintaining their own HTML rendering engine and went with Blink. Should Firefox do the same? Right now most browser market share data providers show Chrome as the dominate browser. If getting users is so critical, maybe Firefox needs to just be more "Chrome" and less Firefox? But then the question is, how much of Firefox a product and how much of Firefox a set of ideals? How much of the ideals and mission statement can be thrown out to get users and Firefox still remain Firefox? At what point does it become a big deal? _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
