Lessons from MozillaNASA Open Source SummitMarch 30th, Ames Research Center

Seven InsightsTwo Problems & Some Thoughts

Hello.

Caution: Your results may vary

ContextSome

Mozilla is…

FOX News thinks differently

PromoteChoice and Innovation

on the Internet

Mission

Seriously.

That’s it.

The Webis

too important!

Factoids

• Mozilla project started in 1998 within Netscape• Mozilla Foundation started in 2003• approximately 350 paid staff in 20 countries

• 40% of code contributed by volunteers• Testing community of 60,000+

• More than 400 million users• Global browser market share ~30%

Open Source

Wishful thinking

Reality

Hone your MacGuyver-Skills

Seven Insights

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Superior ProductsMatter

Withoutexcellent experience & utility,

the rest is meaningless

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Push (most) Decision Making to the Edges

Build Dee Hock’s Chaords

1. Distributed Decision-Making

2. Nodal Authority

3. Ways to Route Around

1. high agreement on core values

2. decision-making rests with module owners

3. groups have distinct ways of working

4. many decision-makers outside the “official” org

5. communication is central

Mozilla is a Chaord

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Communication will happenin every possible way

* so make sure it’s reusable

People will communicate inevery useful way possible

Wikis

Blogs

Twitter

Our main channels: Bugzilla, IRC & newsgroups

More: Video, Audio, Chat (and Robots)

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Make it easy for yourCommunity to do the

Important Things

Firefox ships in 80 languages;79 of them localized by volunteers

Making it easy is a huge priority

Our focus now (increasingly) is onmaking it easier to help others do more

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Surprise is overrated

Surprise is the

of EngagementOPPOSITE

Grow the Circle of Participation

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Communities are not Markets:Members are Citizens

Citizens are more than consumers,are more than bystanders,

are more than stakeholders

THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM – THEY ARE US – WE ARE THEM

The best citizens challenge the status quo, propose improvements and make the conversation richer

They don’t just make products better. They make them what they are.

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The key is the art of figuringout whether & how to apply

each of these ideas

1. Superior Products Matter

2. Push (most) decision-making to the edges

3. Communication will happen - make it reusable

4. Make it easy to do the important things

5. Surprise is overrated

6. Communities are not Markets

7. Figure out whether & how to apply these ideas

Two Problems

Engaged citizens are

noisy#1

“I love tabs!”

“Everyone uses tags,not bookmarks.”

“My mom doesn’tunderstand tabs.”

“OpenID is the future!”

“What’s with thedirty house?”

“Nobody uses the ‘Go’ button.”

“There should bea preference setting.” “Add support for

BitTorrent.”

“Fitts’ says biggerbuttons are better.”

“Add support forOgg Vorbis.”

“That’s great!”

“That’s awful”

“The profile managershould be redesigned.”

“Closebuttons are better atthe end of the tabstrip.”

“The URL bar shouldbe removed.”

Noisy

Dem

andi

ng

Contradictory

They help products, technology & organizations make hard decisionsin the right way.

vital

There are

NO#2

maps…

Actually… there are maps.

They just aren’t yours.

Dragons

Key is to define what you care about,how to measure it and how to communicate a litmus tests.

Thoughts…and some

Communitybuild

alongside your tool-chain

Planningwiki.mozilla.org

Dev & BuildTinderbox , etc

AutomationNightly / Testing

Project Mgmtbugzilla.mozilla.org

QAquality.mozilla.org

Crash Statscrash-stats.mozilla.org

Feedbackinput.mozilla.org

…

Tools matter

10x

pfinette@ – @pfinette