Category: Mozilla

November was MozCamp month for Mozilla. We held MozCamp Europe, including the Mid-East and Africa, and MozCamp Asia. For each MozCamp I gave an opening talk that touches on:

• what mozilla is, our key goals
• a bit of history about what we’ve done so far to meet our goals
• what we’re working on today
• what we should be doing in the future to meet our goals.

I’ve embedded the opening talk from MozCamp below. It’s a video, but the audio is the important part. It’s about 40 minutes long, so it’s not a set of sound-bites and it may seem slow-paced.   It is however, a pretty good summary of my view of the world and Mozilla’s place in it.

I also have a set of slides that reflect this talk. I’ll get them posted shortly as well.

Here’s the MozCamp Asia opening talk:

Over the summer and fall I wrote a set of posts about how Mozilla’s mission is leading us to develop new offerings and new ways of bring user sovereignty and freedom to online life.

My colleague David Ascher has written a piece which I find to be a nice summary of these goals. I’m planning to write a summary next year, after some discussion of user data, so I was very pleased to see that David has done so now. It’s a week or 10 days old, but if you haven’t seen it already it’s a nice, personal voice thinking about Mozilla in the new era.

We’re all creating large amounts of online data about ourselves. How should that data be treated? One key element is encryption, and the ability to store data in a format which is not easily read by people who aren’t authorized to do so. “Encryption” gets complicated pretty quickly, and the cryptography which underlie can also be complex. As a result, it’s easy to think of “encryption” as the answer, thinking that my data is safe if it’s encrypted.

My colleague Ben Adida has written a very helpful post about the value of encryption. He describes why is part of the solution for protecting data, but isn’t a complete solution. It’s a great post because it respects those of us who aren’t cryptographers and provides a thoughtful, understandable outline of the problem space.

Figuring out better ways to handle user data will be on our minds a great deal in the future. I was happy to see this post because it helps me think about the issues in a smarter way.

We build Firefox to build freedom and excellence into the web.  We build Firefox to make sure that each person can be sovereign over the technology he or she uses to interact with the web.   We build Firefox to combine user sovereignty and freedom with a great product experience that enriches web life.

We launched Firefox 7 years ago to make these goals real.  We started with the browser because it was the single greatest point of leverage.  At that time the existing browser provided neither user sovereignty nor high quality product.  We do both.  Mozilla is astonishingly successful at the browser layer.  We proved that the conventional wisdom of the time was wrong.  Browsers do matter.  People will notice.  The dominant commercial player need not be in control forever.  Something better is possible.

Firefox remains different from other browsers.  Everything about Firefox is designed to make sure that Firefox never has more control over your life than you do.  We design Firefox to provide a great experience, and many of the features look similar to that of other browsers.  Look deep into the product though, and you’ll find the utter commitment to the individual being more important than us, more important than our control or our convenience.   You’ll find an utter commitment to the good of the web as a whole.  We’re organized as a non-profit precisely to  allow us to focus on these commitments.

There is more to do.   There are new Internet experiences such as mobile, identity, sharing and data control.  Each of these areas needs a product that combines user sovereignty and a great product experience.  Each needs a product build to ensure that the product never has more control over your life than you do.

This is a big challenge.  It’s our future.  It’s as important as ever.

Last week I spent a few days at the World Economic Forum’s annual brain-storming event, the gathering of its “Global Agenda Councils.” One of my fellow-council members (Julia Hobsbawm — an extremely focused and efficient communicator) has already published her description of this year’s event. Rather than duplicate her work, I’ll simply thank her and add a bit about my experience.

The WEF asked me to facilitate a discussion during one of the break-out sessions. The overall session was Digital Governance, and probably 100 or 125 of the attendees choose this topic. Within this session there were 5 discussion groups, each with a particular question for discussion, and people  chose which questions they wanted to address.

The discussion I was asked to facilitate was “The Rights of the One vs the Needs of the Many — How does the digital world affect the way we think about this question?” I wasn’t sure how the discussion would go, but it was great. We covered very practical aspects such as “What is ‘the many,’ in a world where groups from across boundaries and may shift freely?” “What about jurisdictional issues?”

We also delved into some very theoretical topics such as the nature of pluralism, and does one need a “center that holds” to turn a bunch of groups into a pluralistic society? One upon a time I was well versed in political theory and facile with its use as an analytic tool, but it has been a while. I had to listen carefully and think hard to engage with the theoretical thinkers in the group. It was exhilarating.

The people who are invited to the Global Agenda Councils have already become known through their work. As a result, the group tends to be older, more “successful,” more male, more Western than general demographics. I found this version of the event to make some progress in these issues. Maybe it’s because my Council had good geographic distribution, as Julia chronicles. The Councils still don’t reflect the giant part of the world’s population that is under 25, and sometimes I feel this acutely. On the other hand, I don’t think I had the experience of being the only woman in any of the groups I came across, which happens to me regularly in Silicon Valley.

The work product of the few days together is a bit abstract, since the task was to figure out new models for approaching the world’s big problems. I agree with Julia that there’s a great deal of benefit in “mash-ups” of people with different areas of expertise. I always think carefully about attending, because it takes close to a week and there are some drawbacks. But I’m always drawn by the amazing assortment of people, and leave feeling the event is unique and worthwhile.

Today I am pleased to share with you this year’s annual State of Mozilla report.  It details our opportunities, our community and our expanding set of initiatives. Included in this post is the full text of the video from the “Ahead” section of the site.   I invite you to learn more about the Mozilla Project and join us in our ongoing efforts to build a better Internet.

Mozilla’s  mission is to ensure that the Internet remains open, interoperable and  respects user sovereignty. We do this by building software that puts  people in control of their digital lives, like Firefox. We do this by  empowering a global community of people who volunteer to champion these  efforts.

Internet  life is changing. We are connecting through more devices. We are living  in apps as well as browsers. We are interacting with friends and  followers and acquaintances. We can experience the Web through a highly  personal, highly customized lens.

The  challenges ahead of us are very real. Mobile platforms are more closed  and more centralized than we have seen in decades. As individuals, we  are losing the ability to act on the Web without permission from large, centralized gatekeepers. We are all being tracked, logged, cataloged,  monetized and turned into products to be sold. We’re seeing the  universal platform of the Web fragmenting back into multiple different  worlds.

As  the Internet experience is changing, Mozilla, too, is changing. The  products and tools that we use to advance our mission are expanding and  evolving. A browser is necessary but not sufficient. Equally important  is expanding the number of people who understand our values and identify as Mozillians. Mozilla has both the challenge and the opportunity to  expand our reach dramatically.  We have the ability to bring our values to life in new ways.  Embracing these opportunities means  embracing change, embracing hope and embracing determination.  This is how we will continue to give people ultimate authority over their digital lives.

Rapid Release

My recent post on the rapid release cycle generated a lot of response, some very thoughtful and some also very frustrated.   Many of the comments focus on a few key issues listed below.   We’ve been working on how to address these issues; I’ll outline our progress and plans here.

1. large deployments that certify software before permitting use can’t manage a 6 week cycle
2. add-on compability issues
3. update notices and fatigue
4. frustration that we didn’t get these things addressed better before making the change.

1.  Large Deployments. We’ve made a proposal for extended support for large deployments.This proposal is under discussion now in the relevant newsgroup and in our Enterprise Working Group.  We are incorporating feedback and expect to come to closure on this proposal shortly.

2.  Add-On Compatibility.  There are a couple of related issues that have made add-on compatibility difficult.  First, we have historically assumed that add-ons are incompatible until proven to be compatible.    This is a very conservative assumption which creates work for all add-on developers and notifications to all add-on users.    We’ve corrected this for the add-ons hosted by Mozilla.  Work is underway to correct this for the remaining add-ons.  Here is a  more detailed explanation of the topic; feature planning details are also available.

3.  Update Fatigue.  In the past we have been very careful to make sure people know something is changing with their web browser before it changes.  We did this to make sure people are aware and in control of what’s happening to their environment.   Our position was to err on the side of user notification.   Today people are telling us — loudly — that the notifications are irritating and that a silent update process is important.  This work is underway.    The first set of improvements should appear in the next Firefox release, with more improvements appearing in the next few months.   Also, one main reason people are notified of updates is due to incompatible add-ons which will be addressed by the work on add-on compatibility.  More details can be found in this blog post:  http://www.brianbondy.com/blog/id/125/mozilla-firefox-and-silent-updates

4.  Frustration.  The comments also registered frustration that we didn’t get these issues better addressed before making the shift.  The change was abrupt and we should do better in the future.  We focused very effectively on making sure we could make the core engineering aspects of a rapid release process work.  We focused well on being able to deliver user and developer benefits on a much faster pace — we’ve already brought major memory improvements to make browsing faster, Do Not Track to Firefox for Android, developer tools and HTML5 support.  But we didn’t focus so effectively on making sure all aspects of the product and ecosystem were ready.  We believe we have plans in place to alleviate the issues that resulted, with improvements rolling out in in the coming weeks.

At a recent gathering of Mozilla folks I gave an informal talk on the early history of Mozilla. It’s unpolished, it’s low production value (one mike in a big room) and it’s clearly a talk to a live audience that was filmed. Ideally we’d do some editing, add some text for the questions that can’t be heard and maybe try to improve the oddly abrupt ending. But it’s the early part of Mozilla history that isn’t written down and people enjoyed it. So rather than wait I’ll point to what’s available now. It’s about 40 minutes long.

Recently Mozilla implemented a rapid release process, where we release a version of Firefox every 6 weeks. This has involved changing a number of our processes.  It’s also raised some new issues. For example, some enterprises find the idea of rapid browser change to be disconcerting at best and potentially unmanageable at worst.  Add-on compatibility is another.  I acknowledge these issues are complex and difficult.   There is work to be done to make the rapid release process smoother and hopefully more useful to more of our userbase.   I’d like to describe why I believe the rapid release process is important enough to pursue despite these difficulties.

Before Mozilla instituted the rapid release process, we would sometimes have new capabilities ready for nearly a year before we could deliver them to people.  Web developers would have to wait that year to be able to make their applications better.

A browser is the delivery vehicle for the Internet.   And the Internet moves very, very  quickly.    Philosophically, I do not believe a product that moves at the speed of  traditional desktop software can be effective at enabling an Internet where things happen in real time.    If we want the browser to be the interface for the Internet, we need to make it more like the Internet.  That means delivering capabilities when they are ready.  That means a rapid release process. If we don’t do something like this the browser becomes a limiting factor in what the Internet can do.

Sometimes we can address this problem without a new release of code.   For example,  if one goes to the Firefox Menu Item for “Add-ons” the content one sees is a web page.  This part of the browser enjoys all the benefits of the web.  It can be managed in the ways people have come to expect of a web experience.  The rapid release process is another technique we’ve adopted to allow the browser to deliver new capabilities quickly.

As my colleague Brendan is fond of saying, “There is no free lunch.”    This means we need to listen carefully to those who are experiencing difficulties.  We need to be creative and try to find practical ways of alleviating these difficulties if we can.   This is true for the enterprise use case, and it’s true for the add-on experience.  I know that’s not a perfect answer, and it’s not a promise that we can meet everyone’s needs perfectly.  Despite this, I believe the rapid release process is the right direction.

Recently I’ve been writing a series of blog posts about what I think Mozilla needs to do to remain relevant as Internet life changes. Testing the ideas in these posts through a community – wide discussion is critical.    This is because Mozilla doesn’t succeed based on the ideas of any one person. We succeed when an idea gains traction among a critical mass of Mozilla leaders. We succeed when those leaders take an idea and make things happen; when Mozilla contributors become a powerful force for bringing the Mozilla mission to life in new ways.

My post on Mozilla’s future are intended to start a discussion and chart a path for Mozilla.   Over the next few months, with Mary Colvig’s help I plan to  encourage this discussion by doing the following:

• Start with a series of online conversations with groups of key Mozilla contributors.    The current plan is to start with groups based on time-zone, then move to more diverse groups.
• Ask those contributors to take the ideas to their communities, giving more people the background to participate in subsequent discussions
• Continue the discussion at Mozilla meetups
• Have public online discussions
• Come to a shared understanding of where we agree and disagree
• Come to a shared understanding of Mozilla’s direction and goals for this era.

If you’ve got thoughts, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to leave comments here or drop into #mozillians.

We won’t reach perfect agreement. There will always be cases where some of us will disagree with some of the activities we undertake. Requiring perfect agreement will lead to paralysis. We need excitement, creativity, mutual respect, and shared goals for the nature of the Internet we’re building.

My hope is that we develop a path that is wildly energizing for the vast majority of us. This will be a path that builds the Internet we want to live in, and brings the Mozilla mission to life.