Sure thing. Let's try this again:
I've been aroundMozilla a long time, but I'm not an employee, what keeps me
comingback is my passion. It's also what keeps me frustrated. But needlessto
say, I have over the years, accumulated my own insights that Ibelieve are
overlooked and this comes at a cost to both Firefox andMozilla.
The attitude ofMozilla is that development (coding) rules the roost, but if you
lookaround, how's that working out for you? That's the attitude of acompany
that is self-sustaining and quite frankly that's not anaccolade that Mozilla
has to its name. What should be ruling theroost at Mozilla is engagement and
that's the one place where Mozillaconsistently falls down.
One of thefundamental goals of Mozilla is to ensure the web remains free,
openand accessible to everyone everywhere. Any individual that wants tocreate
any application that can render standards should be able toaccess the internet
in all of its glory. It's a hard unappreciatedroad but it's a road that Mozilla
walks upon.
When Microsoft wassubverting the web with Internet Explorer, Firefox was there
to fightit back and provide us a better tomorrow, not just for the users
onWindows, but Mozilla provided the foundation to ensure that anyone onany
platform could access and use the full potential of the worldwide web.
Firefox should havegiven birth to the Mozilla platform. The Mozilla platform
should havebeen a basic UI and a bunch of APIs and any developer should
havebeen able to create an application and plug the guts of thatapplication
into the Mozilla platform and have that application runon any OS that the
Mozilla platform supported. Thunderbird shouldhave been the shinning example of
that platform at work. By switchingout most of the functionality of Firefox for
Thunderbird, Mozillashould have had a low maintenance application that was a
proof ofconcept of the viability of the Mozilla platform. By virtueThunderbird
should be available for Windows, Linux, OSX and Android.We failed to bring that
to fruition. In failing to do so, we failedto create an ecosystem that would
bring more contributors to theMozilla platform and by association Firefox.
Imagine things likeLibreOffice, Jdownloader, qBittorrent, Corebird, GIMP, etc
running onthe Mozilla platform. That was how sustainability was supposed to
becreated, by becoming the bedrock of open source development.
Recently Mozillamade a tough call that made many turn their heads. It was the
call tosupport DRM in Firefox. The reality is that this was the right call.It
may have sucked and may continue to suck but it remains the rightcall. We
decided to partner with Adobe to ensure that the needs ofthe evolved internet
could be met by users of Firefox. However we'vegone about this in the oddest of
ways. Instead of creating an API andputting the responsibility on Adobe to
ensure that not a singleFirefox user is left behind, we have instead decided to
create morework for Mozilla and embark on a course that requires us to
staggerout what we've recognised as fundamental functionality for the modernday
internet with Windows leading the charge. This isn't what westand for nor what
we believe in. Any discussions we had with Adobeshould've ensured that all of
our users were to get the ability tostream Netflix at once.
Firefox is supposedto stand for open. It's supposed to be the counter-measure
thatensures that no one corporation is able to manipulate the internet.Yet in
attempting to chase that goal in its name, we seem to bethrowing the actual nut
and bolts of that goal out of the window.Case in point is Firefox for iOS. In
our failure to engage a wideenough community, rather than prevent the
subversion of webkit ofderivatives by lobbying our parliamentary
representatives for an openiOS that would allow Firefox to exist as intended,
we've decided tofurther entrench the dominance of webkit and its derivatives in
theinternet. We're literally selling our soul for numbers/users. At whatcost?
It's our failure to again create and engage the community thatsees Google
requiring that Chrome is bundled as the default on anyAndroid device that wants
to come preloaded with the Play Store.
We are horrible atcommunity engagement. We have raised the bar as high as we
possiblecould in order to ensure that our community shrinks as much aspossible.
We believe that by holding a few summits a few times ayear, we're doing
something great but in reality, we're an internetcompany and that's where our
strength should lay. The hurdles tobecome a Mozillian are too high. Everything
we do in our home patchis horrible and antiquated. The mailing list as an open
and viablemeans of following anything is gone. It's a remnant of the past.
Itevolved into forums and yet we have all these mailing lists becauseapparently
we like to make it as hard for everyone as possible.Bugzilla is just 'ugh', you
know this, I know this. The separationbetween discussion of a bug discussion
about a bug is too wide. As asoftware company, we need to realise that the
mailing lists andBugzilla are two our first points of contact. They shouldn't
behorrible to use and they shouldn't be hurdles. In fact, they shouldbe a
single entity.
Anybody andeverybody should be able to access this lobby of Mozilla and
discussanything and everything. Discussion about a bug should take place onthe
bug. Yes, it seems like it would be messy for people wanting towork on a bug,
but there should simply be a toggle that hidesnon-technical comments. Everyone
should be welcomed and embraced inthe same place.
A pre-requisite forworking at Mozilla should be a desire to work within the
communityand most importantly with the community. If an employee doesn't wantto
teach or discuss a position/decision they shouldn't be a part ofMozilla.
Engaging one person and making one person feel like they arebeing heard, even
if they are wrong, could mean that personcontributing something that can
further the growth of Mozilla. Yes,in some regards it is tedious, but
necessary. I myself am subscribedto bugs where years later people are asking
for some implementationsto be reversed. However I am not saying that every
reply needs ananswer or that conversations never expire but I am saying for
thetime that the conversation is ongoing, anyone that's taken the timeto engage
an organisation the size of Mozilla should feel like theirvoice does matter.
In regards toBugzilla, the failure of the software and perhaps our approach
isthat we recognise coders above all else. Designers and testers bedamned! We
don't show nearly enough respect to the non-coders andthat's saddening. If
someone files a bug but a developer has comealong and posted some code in
another bug, if anyone evenacknowledged your bug in the first place, you're
going to get itduped over. Code is movable, the fact that patches can't be
moved toanother bug is a failing of Mozilla, but the fact that someone
tooktheir time to engage us and file that bug can't. Those people shouldalways
be recognised, in fact those people should be lauded. Becauseeven if it's a
utopian train of thought, that bug could be the bugthat leads them to learn
something that has traditionally beenconsidered tangible by Mozilla, i.e. code.
In failing us all,Bugzilla can't merge bugs, can't move patches, can't host
discussion,can't produce daily digests, can't produce summaries and most
damningat all, can't serve mobile content. Remember what I said aboutdelivering
content to everyone. How is it that as a company who'svery raison d'êtreof the
flagship product is about providing a window, aplatform to consume the content
of the internet, we neglect to ensurethat the products that facilitate that can
be consumed by everyoneindependent of the device they use. The lack of mobile
accessibilityat this company is nothing short of damning, whether it's Bugzilla
orPlanet Mozilla or even Nightly.Mozilla.org. We neglect our very meansto grow
our reach, our very means to engage. Another example of thisis our failure to
have enough people triaging bugs, the goal shouldalways be to have no
unconfirmed bugs and yet anyone that's beenaround Mozilla a while will have a
large number of unconfirmed bugs,which are simply examples of our inability to
show the respect to theefforts of people attempting to engage us.
Mozilla should beabout providing a platform for people with a passion to
embrace thosepassions. Whether they're designers, coders or whatever. To
succeed,we can't want to be or replicate the likes of Apple or Google butrather
do it the Mozilla way. We have a contributor that's passionateabout both Ubuntu
and Firefox, that's great, Mozilla is the perfectmarriage. We'll embrace you
and grow you and give the platform youdeserve to further Firefox on a Ubuntu
from a usability point of viewand you'll teach us things. The same goes for
Windows, OSX andAndroid. We'll not sit in our ivory tower of Apple products and
talkdown to you, we'll marry our knowledge to take us all forward. We arethe
home of a unique set of coders, designers, testers and communityofficials that
want to teach and want to engage. The type of usersthat aren't particularly
suited to the likes of Google or Apple.
Design engagement issomewhere we are horrid. We're discombobulated. Take for
example'share', we use a share icon on desktop that is a generic share icon.One
that acts as a means to replace the various little buttonssprinkled around the
internet. Yet on Android we use that same shareicon for Firefox sync services.
It doesn't take a User InteractionDesigner to tell you that's confusing.
There's no need for ambiguityand yet to raise that to the point of actually
getting somethingsorted out is practically impossible. Even if you go as far as
tosubmit alternative artwork. In failing our users in simple
andstraight-forward things like that, we fail ourselves, we fail Firefoxand we
fail Mozilla.
In order to takeMozilla forward it's time we actually took Mozilla forward. We
needmore emphasis on all things user-facing. We need to invest more intriage,
evangelism and all round engagement. We need to invest inensuring that the
tools we use not only work but are accessible. It'stime to put the mailing
lists and Bugzilla to bed and come up withsomething that's easier to use and
takes pointers from the evolutionof internet based communications systems of
the past five years.Planet Mozilla should be more akin to HackerNews or
Slashdot. Or wecould just continue to stagnate.
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