Wrangler Doodles, green.

Building a Better World through Technology

co-founder Mozilla

( from the LizardWrangling Archive )

Category: Mozilla

  • Review of Summer ’08 Goals

    Here’s a review and evaluation of the “Summer 2008 Goals” that I described in my last post. Indented text is the material that was written two years ago.

    Summer 2008 Goals

    1. Make the Mozilla project a centerpiece of the Internet. Why? To make our values, our “meme” a fundamental piece of the Internet’s future

    • Contributors come to Mozilla to get involved
    • Developers come to Mozilla resources to build good web-related apps (akin to going to MS to build their type of app
    • Thought leaders come to Mozilla to see our technology and learn what we think
    • Security world comes to Mozilla to see how we do things
    • Users come to Mozilla because they trust us and our products
    • MoFo, MoCo, others well integrated for benefit of the project
    • Others follow our lead even if don’t support our values (e.g., IE7)

    Background: If I were to have picked only one goal, this would have been it. We’re trying to move Internet life towards the views expressed in the Mozilla Manifesto. To do that we need to be a significant actor (not the significant actor, but one of the central actors) in Internet development. The more central we are the more we can promote an open, secure, distributed style of online life.

    Evaluation: Wow. We’ve done this. I don’t mean that we’ve accomplished every example, the examples are just that, examples of indicators. Here’s where we are:

    • We’re a centerpiece of the user experience, with over 170 million people worldwide experiencing the Web through the Firefox ecosystem.
    • Mozilla’s development and testing communities have scaled along with our user growth.
    • Our outreach/adoption/marketing communities have expanded dramatically in both numbers and scope of activities undertaken.
    • Thought leaders, the press and the industry come to Mozilla both to see our technology and to learn what we think in areas as diverse as Firefox, Prism, Weave, mobile and even small projects such as our social project the “Coop” some time back.
    • People use Mozilla technologies to build products far beyond our focus; in fact people are positioning Mozilla technology as an entry into the “Rich Internet Application” realm even as we’re promoting the Web as the platform.
    • The “browser” is once again understood to be a fundamental piece of the Internet experience, rather than an esoteric piece of the operating system that people can safely forget about. As a result Microsoft has recreated a browser team and has made some improvements to its browser offering.
    • Technology thinkers, governments, developers and users are all interested in what Mozilla is doing.
    • Mozilla is a key voice in the development and adoption of web standards and is often used by website developers as a reference implementation for critical web standards. This is great for the Internet as it promotes compatibility for all browsers.
    • We’re a centerpiece in the awareness of open source and free software, where our consumer products are often the first open source/free software product that a consumer interacts with directly. Our increased contact with people in India, Brazil, Argentina and China reveal intense interest in Mozilla, and nascent communities eager for greater contact and involvement.

    We’re not perfect of course and there’s plenty of room for improvement. The Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation (and now Mozilla Messaging) are still confusing to many people and need to be more understandable. Our security record is outstanding, and yet we still find our transparency leads to inaccurate press reports and analyses. Our planning processes are radically transparent and yet sometimes there is so much publicly available information that it’s hard to determine what is important.

    We can’t lose focus and we can’t stand still, we need to keep moving forward. We start today from a different place than we did two years ago, and that is a tremendous achievement.

    2. Increase Firefox usage to 30% of global browser usage. Why? To embed our values deep in the Internet and make the other goals far more likely.

    • Increase use in many locales
    • Increase use in current high-use locales through creative distribution
    • Must be done in ways that further our product vision, not at its expense
    • 30% not intended as absolutist or maximum target

    Background: In this goal we set out one of the key drivers in making us a centerpiece of the Internet — Firefox usage. Mozilla is much more than Firefox, but it is the Firefox userbase that gives us such great mindshare and that causes the Internet industry to respond. There wasn’t any science in picking 30%. We thought other numbers (20%, 25%) might be plenty, but we felt comfortable that there would be no doubt at 30%. We also knew that we’re not done at 30%. There are plenty more people who would enjoy their online experience more with Firefox. We picked a number — and an extremely aggressive one at that — to have something concrete in our minds.

    Evaluation: We set an audacious goal –something between doubling and tripling our then-current market share — and we’re well on the way to achieving it. We’re making great progress but can’t check off the 30% marker as done yet. Current third party reports show us at 29 or 30% in Europe and something like 22% worldwide. We have achieved the underlying goal, which is growing marketshare, mindshare and significance in the marketplace. Firefox adoption is growing constantly, and quite dramatically in specific locales. Our momentum has not slowed, despite the introduction of new browsers.

    To be clear, I’d feel even better if we are at 30% worldwide. I’d feel ecstatic in fact. And ecstatic is where I want to be. 🙂 There’s still nothing magical that I know of about a 30% number, but it still feels like a number where we can be confident we can influence the quality of Internet life. We’re doing this today as we work our way to and beyond 30% — I’m eager to do more.

    Some may see this in a different way, along the lines of: they set a number, they may not reach it by summer ’08, and that means failure. That’s an easy, black-and-white view, and it makes for great headlines. But it’s simplistic. That type of interpretation could be correct IF we had ever believed that the 30% number was special — that for some reason 28 or 29% meant one thing and 30% or 31% meant another. In some settings a number like 30% may well be the switch, where yes turns to no, or no turns to yes. That’s not our world. We knew 30% wasn’t magic; we said so in the goal itself: “30% not intended as absolutist or maximum target”.

    3. Diversify browsing focus beyond Firefox today. Why? To increase innovation, improve user experience for new activities people do through the browser (e.g., creating and sharing content)

    • New add-ons, new types of add-ons, “official” extension packs, etc.
    • “.moz” services integration idea to improve the Firefox experience
    • Innovation and experimentation through the Mozilla Labs program
    • Increasing participation (making it easy to engage in)
    • “Expanded” browsing activities such as generating (standards-based) content, sharing content, and collaborating
    • This is not limited to “front-end” work; it includes the platform as well

    Background: This was our marker to make sure we’re looking to the future. Internet life is changing as new capabilities appear online. We need to be relevant in these new areas to continue moving the Internet towards our goals.

    Evaluation: We’re doing this. The initial steps of launching, understanding, and funding a set of critical new initiatives are done. We don’t yet have new end user product offerings for these areas; that work is in progress. We can’t claim that our impact in these other areas is of the scope of that of Firefox, but that wasn’t the goal. As in the first goal, we’ve used the examples as precisely that — examples of the kinds of things that could move the goal forward. We’ve focused on some but not all of them, and added others. Here’s what we’ve done:

    • Created a new team, new focus, new organization, and revitalized community participation and development for Thunderbird and Internet communications
    • Launched a serious mobile effort, created a team for the mobile work, done the platform performance and memory work to make it feasible now, developed prototypes and become an active part of the mobile discussion
    • Created Mozilla Labs as the home for experimentation, giving us a place to design and prototype
    • Started to deal with data, and doing so in a Mozilla way through Mozilla Labs
    • Launched exploration of deep integration of the browser and online services through the Weave project

    Summary

    The last two years have been extraordinary. Two years ago we were looking at at giant opportunity created by years of hard work combined with some good fortune. Today that opportunity is much larger. The scope has grown. The scale has grown. The breadth and depth of Mozilla contributors has grown. The responsibilities have grown. We should celebrate and marvel and be proud and feel honored.

    We shouldn’t get cocky or spend too much time patting ourselves on the back. The challenges before us are real. The allure of closed systems is not gone. Some create closed systems because of the economic advantages of controlling a part of the Internet; some are drawn by the desire to control, some drawn unconsciously by good tools and seemingly simple, safe choices.

    In the next few years we need to push hard to make sure new capabilities are developed in and for the open web, not limited to proprietary parts of the web. We need to continue to create the products people need for accessing the Internet. We need to use our voice to make open, transparent and participation ever more deeply engrained in the fabric of the web.

    It’s time to identify the next big multi-year milestones: what can we do with our products and technologies to move the Internet towards a more open, participation environment? I’ll make some suggestions soon. In the meantime, ideas, proposals, thoughts are more than welcome.

  • “Summer 2008” Goals

    As we approach the release of Firefox 3, it’s time to focus even more on the future. What can we do with our products and our community-based processes that moves the Internet further toward our vision? The release of Firefox 3 is a giant step forward, bringing improvements in almost every area that the browser touches. We’ll do more releases of Firefox, as there is plenty of room for innovation left. But it is not enough to think of our future in terms of Firefox and Thunderbird releases.

    We should ask the bigger questions: how do we use our products and product development cycle to improve overall life on the Internet over the next few years? What can we do that moves the Internet towards our vision?

    It’s a broad question. That’s a mark of success, and reflects the size of the opportunity before us. It’s also easy to imagine how a discussion could be interesting but fail to result in good goals. “Good” goals need to be broad enough to be meaningful over several years and yet formed enough to motivate action and lead to concrete tasks. Maybe we should think as far forward as the next ten years. But at the least we should think of the next two or three years.

    We have some experience in doing this. Just about two years ago Mozilla employees spent some time figuring out what we would like to accomplish over an approximately two year period ending in mid 2008. Those goals became known as “Summer 2008 Goals.” This was an early attempt attempt to create long term goals and it wasn’t a public process. At the time it was hard enough to have this discussion even among the set of Mozilla employees. We were just learning how to talk about goals bigger than “fix these bugs for this release.” It required a change of mindset, longer term thinking and a bit of audacity to set difficult stretch goals. This time we’ll look at long term goals as a community process, involving the broad set of people who are critical to making our products great.

    The Summer 2008 Goals are a good set of goals. They are good in their scope and good in expressing big ideas rather than specifying implementation plans. And even better, they were forward-looking goals when we set them and provide a means for evaluating the scope of the progress we’ve made to date. On the other hand, these goals aren’t measurement tools. Anyone looking for specificity will be disappointed. They are directional goals. They are intended to describe the kind and scope of accomplishment we wanted to see.

    Broad aspirational goals are a good starting point because Mozilla as a project needs to motivate many thousands of people (tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, actually) to move in the same general direction, most of whom aren’t full time, aren’t employees and may not even be known personally to the project leadership. We won’t know and don’t seek to control all the things people will do that make us more successful. Articulating a broad, commonly shared set of aspirations helps many disparate groups of people organize themselves and work towards very practical, concrete tasks that make our aspirations real. Sometime during the summer of 2008 I’d like to have a good draft of our goals for how we want to promote the Mozilla vision of the Internet through our products during the next few years.

    In my next post I’ll look at the Summer ’08 goals and what we’ve accomplished over the last couple of years.

  • Upcoming “Firefox Plus” Summit

    For the last couple of years the Mozilla Corporation has organized and hosted an event known as the “Firefox Summit.” We’ve done this twice so far; once after the release of Firefox 1.5 and once after the release of Firefox 2. The Summits have been a gathering of the people most deeply involved in creating the just-released product, and likely to be deeply involved in the design and creation of the next version. The summits are part celebration, partly closure, and mostly planning and consensus building for the future efforts.

    The Summits bring together a range of contributors, both volunteers and those employed by Mozilla and other organizations. The fundamental goals are to build closer bonds between contributors who rarely meet face to face, and to do serious planning and focusing for the future Firefox work (including the underlying platform). We also try to have some fun, of course. 🙂 Mozilla funds participation — travel, lodging, food, etc — for our volunteers. Mozilla Corporation employees are expected to attend, others attend by invitation.

    We’ll be having another Summit this July. This time we plan to expand the focus a bit to move beyond Firefox and the platform technologies that make work. The main focus will still be Firefox and the technology that underlies it — that’s still the key that so much of our vitality. This includes discussions about how our products and technologies can and should move the Mozilla vision forward. And we’ll undoubtedly have discussions about building strong communities, this is an element that runs through every Mozilla activity.

    Eventually it would be great to have a broader Mozilla Summit, discussing not only our technology and products but also the range of other activities that the Mozilla project is, or should think about, undertaking. We’re not ready to plan and take that one quite yet, but it’s time to see if we can broaden the focus somewhat.

    We’ll clearly broaden this to include Thunderbird, email, and Internet communications. That’s an official Mozilla product that shares our technology and the Mozilla mission. We’ll undoubtedly broaden this in other ways; mobile, Weave, data, and Prism are obvious candidates.

    So while we’ll probably refer to this as the “Summit” or the “Firefox Summit,” its official, somewhat-awkward name is the Firefox Plus Summit. If we knew exactly the scope we could figure out a more precise name. I came up with this name to be clear about what we do know: most discussions in the context of Firefox, not completely Firefox, not aiming to cover the entire possible scope of the Mozilla project.

    We’re just starting to plan for the Summit. This includes invitees, content, how to get the most input into the discussions and how to get the results dispersed to greater audiences. We hope to make progress in the next couple of weeks, and the bulk of the content development will happen as more and more people finish up their work on Firefox 3.

  • Mozilla Manifesto in Portuguese

    One of the results of my trip to FISL (9th Annual International Free Software Forum) in Brazil last week was a version of the Mozilla Manifesto in Portuguese. The Mozilla Manifesto sets out basic values and goals of the Mozilla project; it describes the driving force behind products like Firefox and Thunderbird and our other activities.

    I’ve had a draft version of the Manifesto in Portuguese for some time now (many thanks, Carolina). As part of this trip a couple of law professors reviewed and made some changes (thanks Ronoldo, thanks Bruno). I’m excited because I’d like to see discussions of the Mozilla Manifesto in a few different languages before we move from the “0.9” to a “1.0” version. Each language has its own subtleties and its own ways of conveying distinctions and focus. I suspect that questions and critiques of the Manifesto that arise from the variations between languages could be very helpful in creating a stronger document.

    The Portuguese version is below. (And here is the English version.) If there are Portuguese speakers who have questions or thoughts that come out of such a review please let me know, either by comment here or feedback in the mozilla.governance newsgroup.

    Mitchell

    O Manifesto Mozilla, v0.9

    Introdução

    A internet está se tornando uma parte cada vez mais importante de nossas vidas.

    O projeto Mozilla traduz-se numa comunidade global de pessoas que acreditam que a abertura da rede, inovação e oportunidade são elementos chave para a continuidade de uma Internet saudável. Nós temos trabalhado conjuntamente desde 1998 para assegurar que a Internet seja desenvolvida de forma a beneficiar a todos. Somos melhor conhecidos por ter criado o navegador Mozilla Firefox.

    O projeto Mozilla baseia-se numa perspectiva que tem na comunidade a fonte de criação de software de código aberto e de desenvolvimento de novas formas de atividades colaborativas. Criamos comunidades de pessoas envolvidas em fazer a experiência de uso da Internet melhor para todos nós.

    Como resultado destes esforços, destilamos uma série de princípios que acreditamos sejam críticos para que a Internet continue beneficiando tanto o bem público e comum, como os aspectos comerciais da vida. Estes princípios estão listados abaixo.

    Os objetivos do Manifesto são:

    1. Articular uma visão sobre a Internet que reflita o que os participantes da Mozilla desejam que a Fundação Mozilla siga;
    2. Falar com as pessoas independentemente da profundidade de seu conhecimento técnico;
    3. Fazer com que os colaboradores do Mozilla sintam-se orgulhosos do que estamos fazendo e nos motivem a continuar;
      e
    4. Fornecer um arcabouço para que outras pessoas propaguem esta visão sobre a Internet.

    Estes princípios não se tornarão realidade por si próprios. Pessoas são necessárias para fazer com que a Internet mantenha-se aberta e participativa – pessoas atuando como indivíduos, trabalhando em grupos e liderando outras pessoas. A Fundação Mozilla tem um compromisso com o avanço dos princípios estabelecidos neste Manifesto Mozilla. Convidamos a todos para nos acompanhar na tarefa de tornar a Internet um lugar cada vez melhor para todo mundo.

    Princípios

    1. A Internet é parte integral da vida moderna – sendo um componente chave para a educação, comunicação, colaboração, negócios, entretenimento e para a sociedade como um todo;
    2. A Internet é um recurso publico global que deve permanecer aberto e acessível;
    3. A Internet deve enriquecer a vida dos seres humanos como indivíduos;
    4. A segurança dos indivíduos na Internet é fundamental e não pode ser tratada como opcional;
    5. Os indivíduos devem ter a habilidade de moldar suas próprias experiências na Internet.
    6. A efetividade da Internet como um recurso público depende de interoperabilidade (protocolos, formato de dados e conteúdo), inovação e participação descentralizada mundialmente.
    7. Software livre e aberto promovem o desenvolvimento da Internet como um bem público.
    8. Processos transparentes e baseados em comunidades promovem participação, responsabilidade e confiança.
    9. Envolvimento comercial com o desenvolvimento da Internet traz vários benefícios; um equilíbrio entre os objetivos comerciais e os benefícios ao público é essencial.
    10. Ampliar o benefício público promovido pela Internet é um importante objetivo ao qual vale dedicar tempo, atenção e compromisso.

    Implementando o Manifesto Mozilla

    Existem diversas formas de implementar os princípios do Manifesto Mozilla. Consideramos bem-vinda uma ampla gama de atividades e prevemos o mesmo tipo de criatividade que os participantes do Mozilla apresentaram em outras áreas do projeto. Para indivíduos não profundamente envolvidos com o projeto Mozilla, uma forma básica e muito efetiva de apoiar o Manifesto é usar o Mozilla Firefox e outros produtos que incorporam os princípios do Manifesto.

    Compromisso da Fundação Mozilla

    A Fundação Mozilla compromete-se a manter e empregar o Manifesto Mozilla em suas atividades. Especificamente, comprometemo-nos a:

    • construir e permitir o desenvolvimento de tecnologias abertas e comunidades que apóiam os princípios do Manifesto;
    • construir e distribuir aos consumidores bons produtos que apóiem os princípios do Manifesto;
    • utilizar os bens gerados pelo Mozilla (propriedade intelectual como por exemplo direitos autorais e marcas; infra-estrutura, recursos financeiros e reputação) para manter a Internet como uma plataforma livre;
    • promover modelos que criem valor econômico para o benefício público, e
    • promover os princípios do Manifesto Mozilla em nosso discurso público e com a indústria da Internet.

    Algumas atividades da Fundação – atualmente vinculadas à criação, distribuição e promoção de produtos ao consumidor – são conduzidas, primordialmente, por meio da Corporação Mozilla, subsidiária controlada pela Fundação Mozilla.

    Convite

    A Fundação Mozilla convida a todos que concordam e suportam os princípios do Manifesto Mozilla a juntarem-se a nós e encontrar novas formas para tornar esta visão sobre a Internet uma realidade.

  • Mozilla Websites, Web Analytics and Privacy

    This document discusses the application of web analytics tools to Mozilla websites.

    We live in a world of data; we should be thinking carefully about that data and its impact. Many people don’t realize how much information about them is collected by websites and used as a business asset. Some of those who do understand don’t care, or figure there’s no sense talking about it. But a core of the Mozilla community is intensely focused on privacy and the individual person’s ability to understand and control personal information. This has always been the case, and it is part of our strength. These aspects should continue to inform the development of both our software and our websites. With this in mind, I’ve put together a discussion of a particular data-gathering proposal, together with the safeguards that make me comfortable with it.

    We would like to understand how people interact with Mozilla’s websites, in particular the consumer-facing websites such as www.mozilla.com, mozilla-europe.org and mozilla-japan.org. To do this we want to implement tools that measure what people do when they visit these sites. These tools are generally known as “web analytics” tools. In particular, we want to implement a product called SiteCatelyst from a company called Omniture for a range of Mozilla websites. The specific sites, the phased rollout plan and the evaluation details are below. Using this services means that data about Mozilla visitors will be processed by Omniture, and will be stored on servers that are not under the direct, physical control of Mozilla. This is new to us and requires consideration of appropriate safeguards. Some wonder if it should even be done. I believe the proposal below is worth trying, and that our arrangement with Omniture includes appropriate safeguards.

    Commitments

    Mozilla will use the web analytics data only to determine aggregate usage patterns for our website. We will not seek to determine personal information from this data. Omniture will use the data from Mozilla websites only to provide and maintain the service for Mozilla; it will not share the information with others or use the information for other purposes. Omniture will not “correlate and report on any Customer Data with any other data collected through other products, services or web properties.” The domain names in Mozilla cookies will clearly identify their affiliation with Mozilla and the Omniture service. We will have public discussions of the results. Before the end of 2008 we will have a public discussion about the benefits (or lack thereof) of using this system. There will be a clear public statement about which web analytic services, if any, are in use with our websites. There will be a public notice and discussion period before including other types of websites, such as developer.mozilla.org and spreadfirefox.com.

    Description

    One aspect of the Mozilla project that is bigger than many people realize is our website presence. There are actually a number of Mozilla sites. (Or, in industry terms, “website properties.”) There are the development and community-focused sites like developer.mozilla.org, and spreadfirefox.com. And then there are the websites that consumers visit — in particular the download, support and services mozilla.com, mozilla-europe.org, and related sites. The latter are significant web presences, causing Mozilla to periodically appear in the list of top 50 most visited websites published by comScore (an Internet measurement firm analogous to Nielson in the TV space).

    1. Our websites act as integral components of our users’ experience. They are also a primary way of communicating with most of our users who aren’t likely to read Planet Mozilla, the newsgroups or other community tools. Today we know very little about how people interact with our websites, in particular the consumer-facing websites. To improve the experience we first need to know some basic data about how users interact with our website properties. We’d like to understand things such as:

    • Is something we think should be easy — like getting from a top-level page to useful add-ons — simple enough for people who aren’t familiar with Mozilla?
    • If we add a landing page with explanations, do people get lost at those pages? Or do these pages help people as we had hoped?
    • How many users successfully find, download, install and become long-term Firefox users?
    • What paths do people take through the website?
    • Is something new (like the dropdown content on the “whatsnew” page) useful to people? How many people see that page and actually click on the links?
    • Do people find the language version of Firefox that fits their location?

    2. Each of these websites is large and complex, and each gets an enormous number of visits from general consumers — that is, from people who are not familiar with Mozilla, may not be power users, and whom we can’t claim to understand from our own experiences. Those of us who work on the Mozilla project have — by definition — some familiarity with Mozilla. That is not the case for most of our current 150 or so million users. What feels “easy to use” or comfortable to us could be completely wrong for many people who visit these websites. Furthermore, what might make sense in one language or locale might not be helpful in other languages or cultural contexts.

    3. How do we develop a better understanding of how people interact with a website? The basic answer is to gather aggregate data about how people use the website. The term generally used to describe this is “web analytics.” Aggregate data will help us answer the types of questions listed above.

    4. What techniques are used to instrument a website so that it aggregates data about usage patterns? Two elements are used together to gather data– “cookies” and “web beacons.” A cookie is a string of information that a Web site stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the Web site each time the visitor returns. Because the browser provides this cookie information to the website at each visit, cookies serve as a sort of label that allows a website to “recognize” a browser when it returns to the site. A “web beacon” is a marker placed in a webpage that makes it easier to follow and record the activities of a recognized browser, such as the path of pages visited at a website.

    5. Are there negative things that could happen with this data? As with many kinds of data, yes. It is possible to correlate web analytics data with other data and potentially figure out persona information. Mozilla does not do this and Omniture is not allowed to correlate Mozilla data with any other data to derive personal information.

    6. What precisely is Mozilla proposing to do? Use a web analytics product from Omniture called SiteCatalyst to measure interaction with a number of our other consumer-facing websites. The proposed rollout of the web analytics is in phases:

    • Phase 1: www.mozilla.com, firefox.com, getfirefox.com, *.mozilla.com. Rollout is pending discussion and feedback on this document. I believe the concerns raised in the newsgroup discussion are addressed, so there may very little discussion to be had. In that case, the implementation will occur shortly. We would also amend our Privacy Policy as appropriate to describe the storage and processing of this data by a third party.
    • Phase 2: www.mozilla-europe.org, possibly mozilla-japan.org, pending discussion and feedback on this document.
    • Phase 3: Discussion and review period of usefulness of data at the end of 2008.
    • Phase 4: (Pending outcome of Phase 3): add other Mozilla websites such as: addons.mozilla.org, developer.mozilla.org, www.mozilla.org, spreadfirefox.com, planet.mozilla.org; or consider use of a different or additional web analytics program.

    7. Isn’t there an open-source or free software version that will do the job? Not that we know of.

    8. Why don’t be build our own? This is a significant project in which we have no expertise. We need a solution that works at scale, in a complex, distributed setting, and is available now. That’s a serious project to take on, and one that would certainly take a lot of time and focus. We’d need to build a new community of people that embodies Mozilla DNA and values AND build a world-class piece of software. We’re not experts in analytics or in defining requirements, so we would have to wait until a fair amount of development was done before we could even begin to evaluate how helpful the project was. For those people who were around Mozilla since the early days, you will undoubtedly remember the enormous pain of trying to build the application (in those days the Mozilla Application Suite) before we had a solid infrastructure (the Gecko implementation.) The idea of building an analytics package while trying to use it at the same time on websites as complex as the those in question is a recipe for disaster.

    9. Why Omniture? Omniture has many positive points. The use of the data is limited to providing the web analytics service to Mozilla. The product SiteCatelyst is widely used solution for large websites; it’s known to scale, be stable, and provide reliable, trustworthy results. Access to the data is highly secured and Omniture provides support resources. In addition, there is a user interface for allowing individuals to opt out of the web analytics processing. There are some drawbacks of course, there usually are. Omniture is not open source code, which we always prefer. Our arrangement with them is contractual. That’s helpful in that it allows us to include the privacy safeguards in the contract. But as is almost always the case the complete contract is confidential. Omniture has been criticized for its business practice of using cookies that don’t clearly say they are from Omniture. It turns out Omniture allows its customers to specify whether they want a cookie with the Omniture name in it. Mozilla cookies will do so. And finally, Omnniture is not free. Use of Omniture requires payment, unlike other options and the cost generally rises with the usage of the sites. So it could get expensive and we’ll have to monitor this.

    10. How will we evaluate if the data is worth the effort to get it? We’ll look at the results. We have a set of people who are adapt at looking at data — Ken, Polvi and Daniel, who just joined us. Ken and Polvi have been publishing what we’ve learned from the data we do have, and we’ll see what can be learned from the additional data. We’ve already moved the data (known as “metrics”) discussions into the public via the Metrics Blog We will continue to do this.

    11. Will Omniture be used with all Mozilla websites? We don’t know yet. As noted above, we’ll do a review of the consumer-facing sites and see how valuable the data is and how we feel about gathering it. We may also look at alternative providers as part of this discussion. Then we can decide about other sites as well such as our developer and community facing websites.

    12. Privacy Policy. Our current privacy policy says that Mozilla data won’t go to an outside third party. So it will need amendment to allow for this case. Details on the proposed changes will follow, but for now I’d like to talk through the goals and proposed techniques.

    13. Sensitivity to data, privacy and user control. Most websites (and the organizations running them) are unabashed about collecting data, and using that data to improve their business. The use of web analytics is a standard practice, taken for granted by many website operators. This proposal is an extremely mild version. Some people have suggested to me that this discussion is “much ado about nothing” and reflects an extreme focus on privacy of a portion of the Mozilla community. I agree that this is a mild proposal, collecting the most basic of data. But I don’t believe this discussion, or the basic concern is irrelevant or extreme. As noted above, we live in a world of data; we should be thinking carefully about that data and its impact.

    ***

    Comments welcome here. If you’re interested in the full discussion, head over to the mozilla.org Governance newsgroup. You can also read a set of past comments and participate through the mozilla.governance Google Group.

  • Mozilla Turns 10 Today

    Today is a special day.

    March 31, 1998 is the date that Mozilla was officially launched. It’s the date the first Mozilla code became publicly available under the terms of an official open source license and a governing body for the project — the Mozilla Organization — began its public work. It’s always been known in Mozilla parlance as “3/31.” We’ll be celebrating Mozilla’s 10 year anniversary throughout 2008. Today I want to look at our first ten years, and a bit at the next ten years.

    Ten years ago a radical idea took shape. The idea was that an open source community could create choice and innovation in key Internet technologies where large, commercial vendors could not. This idea took shape as the Mozilla project.

    Mozilla was not the first group to pursue this idea. GNU/Linux and the BSD operating systems were already providing a very effective alternative at the server-side operating system level; the Apache web server was already proving that an open source solution could be effective even in areas where the commercial players were actively competing. Each of these gave strength to the idea that this new effort could be successful.

    At its inception, Mozilla was:

    • An open source codebase for the software we call the browser
    • A group of people to build and lead an open source development effort — the Mozilla Organization (also known as “mozilla.org”)
    • A larger group of people committed to the idea — and the enormous work involved — in building a browser we all needed
    • An open source license granting everyone expansive rights to use the code for their own goals — the Mozilla Public License (which is now at version 1.1)
    • A website
    • A mascot (the orange T-rex, alternatively referred to as a lizard)

    During the years since 3/31 we have taken that radical idea and proved its power. We have broadened the idea beyond anything imagined at our founding. And in the next ten years we’ll continue to be radical about building fundamental qualities such as openness, participation, opportunity, choice and innovation into the basic infrastructure of the Internet itself.

    What have we accomplished?

    • Converted a closed, proprietary development process into a vibrant, transparent, open source project.
    • Grown into a massive global community, quite possibly the largest open source project in the world
    • Developed exceptional technology
    • Developed a set of long-term, vibrant projects — Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Camino, Bugzilla, Calendar –most, and possibly all of which have millions of users
    • Become the software provider of choice for over 170 million people
    • Proved that open source development can product great end user products
    • Brought the Internet to millions of people in their language
    • Moved the overall state of browser software forward dramatically
    • Become a technology platform others use to create products built on Mozilla technologies, and in some cases competitive with Mozilla products
    • Developed and implemented systems and community norms for a massive distribution of authority
    • Conducted all sorts of new activities in a transparent and participatory way, including product planning, marketing, public speaking, UI and organizational decisions
    • Developed a reputation that people trust and feel they have helped create
    • Developed a sustainability model using market mechanisms to support a public benefit mission
    • Become a significant force in the development of Internet technology industry-wide
    • Developed a sophisticated organization that can — for example — service, update and respond to 170 million users
    • Built and operated giant open-source web applications — where the source code that runs the application IS open source and available to others;
    • Articulated our mission in broad, non-technical term
    • Encouraged others to try open, transparent and collaborative techniques in a broad range of activities
    • Created public assets of enormous value

    That’s a lot. And we’re not done yet. The next ten years have challenges and opportunities equal to those of our first decade. The Internet is now interwoven into modern life, and it will certainly grow to be more powerful. There’s no guarantee that it will remain open or enjoyable or safe. There’s no guarantee that individuals will be able to participate in creating or (for the general non-technical consumer) effectively managing their experience. There’s no guarantee that there is an effective voice for individuals benefiting from the increased power of the Internet.

    Mozilla can and should fulfill this role. But not as a guarantor. Mozilla is an opportunity for people to make this vision happen. Mozilla is about opportunity and participation. Mozilla is people getting involved, “doing” things, creating the Internet experience we want to live with. We’re not alone in doing this. Other open source and free software projects play a strong role, as do other organizations focused on participation, collaboration, and openness.

    We want the Internet to be an open environment, where it’s easy to innovate, and where individuals, small groups and newcomers all have rich opportunities to create and lead. So, we’ll build technologies and products that make this happen. Mozilla offers each person who wants to see this happen an opportunity to do something. Using Mozilla products is an important step in its own right — every person using Mozilla products makes our voice stronger. And there is much, much more that any one of us can do.

    What do we know is ahead of us?

    • Hundreds of millions of people relying on us for the quality of their Internet experience
    • Ensuring that the Open Web itself remains the developer platform of choice for new web applications; providing a compelling alternative to closed, proprietary development environments
    • Bringing openness and consumer choice to the mobile environment as we have to the desktop world
    • Handling data in a more transparent, participatory way for general consumers
    • Bringing openness, paticipation and opportunity to more — and as yet mostly undetermined — aspects of Internet life
    • Evolving the “browser” to support the new things we’re doing on the Internet
    • Creating a new style of global organization: one where local involvement around the globe has increasing project-wide influence
    • Broadening the sustainability options for “hybrid” organizations — that is, organizations that support public benefit activities through market funding mechanisms as well as traditional fundraising

    And these are just the things we can see today. Many of the best, most exciting activities of the next ten years will seem to come from nowhere. In reality they will come from people combining their own ingenuity with Mozilla tools, techniques, technologies to build new, wildly innovative aspects to life that none of us can imagine today. And because the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization we are focused on creating the maximum possible public benefit rather than revenue. We don’t limit how people can use our technology to maximize revenue; we encourage people to challenge us to be better.

    Opportunity, Challenge, Excitement, Fun

    During much of our first ten years people “knew” that our goal of creating choice and innovation in the browser space was impossible. From that perspective we have achieved the impossible. It certainly wasn’t easy, but here we are today in a radically different setting.

    The challenges before us are great. But the opportunity is many times larger. We have the ability to affect aspects of Internet architecture and user experience. We have the organization, we have the frameworks we need to work in, we have the voice. And most important of all, we have the Mozilla community. The many thousands of people actively engaged, and the multiples of that who support Mozilla goals and offerings.

    It’s our world. Let’s make it great.

  • FISL in Brazil

    Mozilla will be participating in the Fórum Internacional Software Livre (FISL) this April, which is exciting both for Mozilla and for me personally. FISL is a non-governmental organization that promotes the adoption, distribution and contribution of free software. This is the 9th year of the forum– hence FISL 9.0 as they put it on their site– and will be held in Porto Alegre. Over 5000 participants from a variety of backgrounds– end users, contributors, professionals, government officials, and corporate partners– will gather to meet and share ideas.

    This will be my first trip to Brazil, but it is only one in a growing series of interactions between the Mozilla Foundation and free software / open source participants in Brazil. JT Batson and Asa each wrote about their trip last year, which made it very clear to us that Brazil has very high enthusiasm for free and open source software. There are also some fascinating experiments going on in Brazil today, such as energy self-sufficiency. It’s clear that greater interaction between Brazilian participants and Mozilla could have some very interesting results.

    FISL will be a great chance for my Mozilla colleagues and I to learn much more about what’s happening in Brazil and how we might work more closely together. And hopefully, to meet some of the people we’ve heard so much about!

    At the same time we’ll be hosting a set of activities. You can find information about Mozilla-specific events on the Mozilla wiki, and Chris Blizzard has posted an annotated schedule of events that is well worth looking at. Mozilla will be hosting a workshop on April 18, and my talk is currently scheduled for the 19th. This should be a very exciting chance to experience the free software and open source community in Brazil first-hand. Now, if only I could find a way to get my family there as well!

  • Module Ownership – Part 2

    New Module Proposal

    In a previous post I proposed that we create a group of people to be responsible for the overall health of Mozilla’s module ownership system. I also proposed that the group itself be a module within the module system. This way we can build on our shared understanding of how modules work.

    More specifically, I propose we use the module and sub-module model currently used by the Firefox front end teams. This system adds another layer of delegation to deal effectively with the scope of activities, while ensuring there is an owner and peers responsible for the integrated whole that people experience as the front-end.

    For those interested in more detail, there is an uber-module, known simply as the “toolkit” module. It has an owner and peers. This group has authority across the toolkit module. Within the toolkit module there are sub-modules. These are more specific aspects of the front-end. Each of these has sub-module owners and peers. The sub-module owners and peers have the standard degree of authority in their sub-modules, subject to the authority of the uber toolkit module owners and peers. In reality there’s a lot more consensus and back-and-forth than “subject to the authority of” might imply. But there is an identified escalation path and decision-maker when the need arises.

    In this case I propose we create an uber-module called Governance, for which I will be the owner. (For those not familiar with Mozilla, this is not new. I’ve been the ultimate decision-maker for all non-technical decision at Mozilla, including policy and governance, since 1999.) We then create a sub-module called Module Ownership. In the future we’ll create other sub-modules. An example of one that comes to mind immediately is our policy for handling security bugs, for which Frank Hecker has always been the owner.

    For the Module Ownership module we should have two owners: Brendan primarily for modules relating to technical matters, and me for modules relating to non-technical matters. We would have a set of peers. This would be a group of about seven to ten people with authority to address issues relating to modules and module ownership. They would act as peers generally do, giving us a set of experienced people, any one of whom could become qualified to become the sub-module owner. This will help us build a deepening set of people with the reputation and authority to lead.

    I view my involvement here as part of my Chief Lizard Wrangler role, not related to my employment status. I will count it as a mark of success when it becomes clear that there are several people other than me doing the relevant work who could be a good sub-module owner. It’s a mark of success not because I’m not interested in this. It’s a mark of success because our organization is healthier when there are several people who are able to lead in important areas.

    Designating Members

    In this proposal, Brendan and I would behave as module and sub-module owners generally do, delegating authority to peers. I don’t have a complete list in mind now, and I don’t think Brendan does either at this point. Naturally, I hope to soon.

  • Module Ownership – Part 1

    The Module Owner System

    The module owner system is at the heart of how we manage ourselves. We’ve used this system for coding activities for many years, and I’ve got an open bug for extending this to cover non-coding activities as well. We have an identified set of modules, module owners and a policy document describing the responsibilities and authority of a module owner. (In brief, we divide our code into logical chunks called modules. A person with a good reputation for the area covered by a module is tapped to become the module owner, and he or she is responsible for that module.)

    We also have a final decision-maker for conflicts among module owners or issues with a particular module owner; that decision maker is Brendan Eich. Brendan has been doing this since 1998. For those not familiar with Mozilla, our basic rule has been that Brendan is the ultimate decision-maker for technical matters within the Mozilla project, and I am the ultimate decision-maker for other issues. We each try to use that authority only when necessary– when the people involved in the daily activities get stuck, or there is disagreement or some other problem that requires a decision. This is not weakness. It stems from the realization that Mozilla succeeds because many people make decisions, find ways to solve problems, and provide leadership. It is more effective in the long run for us when a group of peers solves a problem together. Distributed authority is the norm. Overuse of a central, final decision-making power will not make Mozilla healthy.

    So we have a system that works well for us on a daily basis and we have an ultimate decision-maker for settings where we need one. But what we don’t have today is a group of people with responsibility for the health of the module ownership system. These topics include:

    • Filling vacant roles where appropriate;
    • Ensuring module owners are fulfilling their responsibilities, and replacing those who are not;
    • Creating and staffing new modules as new parts of the project evolve;
    • Figuring out what to do if a module isn’t getting enough attention;
    • Resolving conflicts among module owners.

    I propose we create such a group. More precisely, I propose that we create this group as a module within the module owner system. I’ve put the details of how I think this module would be organized and operate in a subsequent post. First I want to address the functions of the group and why I believe it’s important. Then we can turn to whether the precise structure I’m proposing makes sense.

    Responsibilities of the Proposed Group

    There should not be a giant amount of work to do on a daily basis. Over the years David Baron and Brendan have periodically updated the list of module owners. Last year Stuart took on and completed a review and updating of our modules, which was overdue. These things should happen periodically. Occasionally there is a question of whether a particular module owner is still active enough to be a module owner, or we need to identify new module owners. Every so often there are questions about a module owner’s work. We should look at whether the policy document governing modules and module owners should be updated. We might want to think about better ways to handle modules that are under-owned, or where someone is module owner out of a sense of civic duty rather than an inherent interest in the module. One part of the role will probably be providing advice as we extend the module owners system to non-coding activities. So I don’t envision this group having a giant amount of work on a daily basis. There will be some periods of focused activity.

    If there isn’t a huge amount of work, why do I think it is worth formalizing a group of people to do it? Several reasons.

    • The work is really important. Module owners have a high degree of authority. This is part of ensuring our vitality as a project, and ensuring we have clear roles based on merit, reputation and general acclaim. We will be stronger when we have a group of people proactively thinking about the module system and working though some of the issues listed above.
    • It’s important to build a group of people who are knowledgeable and experienced in governing important areas of our project such as the module ownership system. Even if Brendan and I were quick and perfect in all our decisions (which we most certainly are not) having only one or two people involved in making decisions is a weakness in our system. More people with experience is better.
    • We’re bound to have some conflicts, that’s how life is. Having a group of people who have been working through issues in calm times is very helpful when something comes up and tensions rise.
    • The clearer the system is the easier it will be to extend it to new, non-coding activities.

    Criteria

    Members of this group should be module owners (of either coding or non-coding activities). In addition they should have:

    • Interest in how we govern ourselves. Ideally, a person has previously demonstrated this interest by some set of activities. Someone could be a great module owner but still poorly suited for this role;
    • Appropriate understanding of Mozilla activities as a whole and the “pulse” of a good chunk of the project;
    • A good feel for whether suggestions, comments, and complaints are broadly applicable or represent an unusual viewpoint;
    • Interest and ability to help others accomplish things. This is probably more important than what one can accomplish oneself for this role;
    • Ability to balance varying perspectives and needs;
    • Internal understanding of the value of non-coding activities to the Mozilla project.

    Structure of the Group

    I propose we create this group as a module and use the module ownership system as the basic governance. That way we’ll have a module owner, peers and a way of interacting that we understand. I will put a more precise description of how I think this will work in the module owner system in a follow up post, mostly because I think it will be helpful to separate the mechanics of how this might work from the discussion of whether such a group is valuable in the first place.

    Comments welcome here. If you’re interested in the full discussion, head over to the mozilla.org Governance newsgroup. You can also read a set of past comments and participate through the mozilla.governance Google Group.

  • Revenue and Motives

    John has a post today about how some people impute revenue motives to everything we do. In his case John made a statement about how one of Apple’s business practices is bad for the overall security and health of the Internet. (In this case the practice is to encourage consumers to download and install new software by identifying it as an “update” to software the person already has on his or her machine.)

    Some of the reactions address the actual issue. But there’s also a set of responses along the lines of: ‘All Lilly really cares about is using Firefox to make money from Google, and all this talk of what’s good for the Internet is just a smokescreen for protecting the revenue stream from Google.’ (This is not an actual quote, it’s my description of a set of responses.) I’m coming to wonder if any statement or action we take that is controversial or based on mission with get this response. I’ve had this experience myself when discussing a number of topics.

    Periodically I’ll be in a discussion about Mozilla’s plans for something and people respond by saying “Oh, that’s because Google cares about [fill in the blank] and your revenue comes from Google.” On several occasions I’ve been utterly dumb-founded and speechless because I have never even thought of Google in relation to the discussion. (I’d give some examples but I am concerned that we’ll end up rehashing old issues. )

    But much of the world is driven by money and all sorts of people say they have different or additional motivations. So suspicion may be warranted. At Mozilla we can only do what John notes — keep pursuing the mission, keep demonstrating by our actions that our mission is the critical piece, and being authentic.

    A separate problem is that a focus on money makes it easy to miss other, important topics. In this case the question is: what happens if consumers stop accepting security upgrades because they don’t trust the other software that comes along with it? That’s a disaster for all of us. That’s the question John is raising and it’s an important question to consider. Those commentators who dismiss this topic because Mozilla competes with commercial offerings and generates revenue miss this point. If the commentators you turn to dismiss everything for this reason, then I’ll hope you’ll add some additional commentators to your resource list.