The rift:

I became aware of the increasing rift between the small group of Firebird developers and the larger Mozilla (Suite) developer community via a weblog post by Neal Deakin of XulPlanet.

Neal was referring to a heated discussion at the MozDev project owners email list about the potential conflicts created by the ushering in of the stand alone Firebird and Thunderbird browser and email programs in favor of the older bundled Mozilla Suite.

All projects start with a small team:

People who have been following Firebird from its early days (when it was called Phoenix) will remember that it was started by and worked by two or three people. Since then Firebird has grown from a side project to the Mozilla Foundation's central focus, and its user base has also greatly increased.

The rift between Firebird developers and the rest of the developers:

While Firebird's popularity with end users is a clear reaffirmation of the Mozilla Foundation's strategy of positioning Firebird and Thunderbird as its future products, the issue regarding Mozilla's support by the older Mozilla Suite developer community is another story.

Netscape is no more, while there are many active external contributors working in different areas:

While the browser division at Netscape Communications still existed, some 50 people worked steadfastly on the Mozilla Suite and Netscape. But now that that the browser development division no longer exists, there are only a handful of people employed by the Mozilla foundation and working actively on the Firebird and Thunderbird projects.

Sure, outside contributors such as Arvid Axelson have been crucial in providing the artwork for the new Firebird and Thunderbird interfaces, and David Tenser's tireless work has produced great end user documentation for Firebird users. But still, as I understand it, the core group of programmers working on Firebird and Thunderbird actively is about four or five.

It's nice to have a small team with a strong leader, but the long term success of a project can only be ensured by opening the development process:

As I know from projects which I have worked on before, it is nice to be the one calling the shots. It's nice to be able to change things easily, and be the driving force within a small team. But if the Firebird and Thunderbird projects are to rapidly develop and gain wide acceptance from both developers and end users, the development process needs to be opened to developers outside of the existing core team.

Here's an example: a group of developers have long worked on a tab extension project called MultiZilla. This project has been hosted at MozDev, and has been made available as an add-on. But the actual implementation of tabs is different in Firebird - and does not use any of that code. What I am saying here is that there are talented developers here who are intimately familiar with Mozilla's technologies, and are developing applications for Mozilla. But the problem is that there is a duplication of efforts because the existing developmental process does not make it easy (or actively encourage) promising side projects to be merged into Firebird.

I know that every programmer thinks that his way of doing something is the best, but to ensure Firebird's long term success and continued development widening the developer pool is the only way to go. And obtaining developer resources is not a problem: there are so many developers working on so many projects at MozDev.org for free! If even one or two of these talented people volunteered to work on my open source project (Rilke CMS), I would be ecstatic!

To recap, I think that:
The Firebird team needs to be more inclusive
- Actively accept and ecourage code from good Mozdev projects
- Be less critical of third party developers

Better, more interactive documentation:

One issue raised at the project owners list at MozDev was that there needs to be a clearly organized set of developer documentation which allows instantaneous user feedback through comments. Many people mentioned the PHP documentation system which does just this.

As a developer who would like to create a Mozilla add-on, I should be able to easily find:
- a categorized set of documentation
- examples as needed
- a place to ask questions and read others' replies

This brings us to the next issue: the need to relaunch the mozilla.org site as an interactive site which meets the needs of both users and developers.

Bring a new interactive www.mozilla.org website online in gradual steps, with two bifurcated and clearly delineated sections:
-end user
-developer

Any usable open source content management system that allows articles (posts) and comments can be used. Take your pick: PHPNuke, Movable Type, Drupal, WikkiTikiTavi, Rilke CMS.

The main page (index.php / index.html) should be targetted towards the end user, as it is now, with a clear link on the top to a developers' section. This section will be an easy-to-understand sitemap of:
- overview of Mozilla for web page developers
- overview of Mozilla for Mozilla add-on developers
- overview of Mozilla for people who want to work on Mozilla
- links to existing documentation
- links to feedback mechanism for existing documentation

Encourage knowledgable developers to contribute documentation about APIs, making addons (examples) and Mozilla internals.

A website team should be formed, and something should be
put online immediately. Instead of waiting forever for the perfect CMS to be developed, start with something basic that supports articles and comments, and go from there.

Establish a clear course of action, and back it up with clear leadership:

There needs to be a clear course of action, backed by a set of leaders:
- One main business leader (aka "CEO")
- One main technical leader (aka "CIO")
- One main marketing / business development person (aka "COO")
- One main release manager / quality assurance / assistant CIO person
- A team of other "product managers" / team leaders for products such as Firebird/Thunderbird/ Suite


As far as I know, Bart Decrem is acting as the marketing lead, and Asa Dotzler is doing a lot of technical leadership in addition to his release and quality assurance responsibilities, but I don't know if the other roles have been filled yet.

A strategy document has to be produced by this group of leaders which explains the following clearly:

What is Mozilla:
- A developers' platform?
- An end-user stand alone browser ?
- A stand alone email program ?
- A browser / mail suite?
- How are these different audiences' needs being met?

Avoid forking the Mozilla effort

The last thing that is desirable is the forking of the project. The Mozilla project will only stand to lose if it loses widespread developer support. Lots of indepent efforts to create different Mozilla based browsers would divert critical developer resources and make it harder to ensure the quality and visibility of Firebird and Thunderbird.

Having a thousand browsers bloom may sound like a good idea, but in this case having all these talented developers working on one good Mozilla browser (under the direction of strong leadership) would be better, in my opinion.

Gain corporate sponsorship from Red Hat, IBM, Ximian (Novell), Sun, Real and other Unix / Open Source heavyweights

With the recent launch of Sun's Java Desktop Environment (aka "Mad Hatter"), it is clear that many technology heavyweights are betting their futures on Linux / open source based solutions. Currently Mozilla is the main and best browser for Linux and so the Mozilla Foundation should partner actively with these organizations so that it gets financial, developer and distribution assistance from them.


Increase distribution through unconventional means:

It's time to think outside the box when it comes widening the Firebird / Thunderbird userbase.

One could consider:
- a one-click install for Internet Explorer users using an ActiveX installer
- bundling Firebird with a file sharing app that is downloaded millions of times each month
- bundling Firebird with Winamp
- bundling Firebird with other popular shareware: Smartdraw, etc

Conclusion:
I wrote this post because I am concerned about Mozilla's future success. My intention is not to insult anyone. My only hope is that this will lead more productive discussions and co-operation between members of the Mozilla community.

Category: Mozilla

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