Mark Finkle: FUEL and Google SoC

Samer Ziadeh will be working on a Summer of Code project to enhance FUEL. He is looking at some feature requests found in bugzilla, bug 406974 and bug 409279 specifically. Samer has already done some work with FUEL. The past semester, he ported much of the code to work in Firefox 2. It wasn’t a perfect fit as Firefox 2 is missing some integral new functionality supported in Firefox 3. Without it, backporting to Firefox 2 became difficult.

Samer will be hanging out on IRC in #extdev, so be sure to give him some encouragement (and a feature request or two).

Mitchell Baker: 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.

David Humphrey: Building boats

Mark has a post up today that has me thinking. In it, he takes issue with a post from ReadWriteWeb on the new Google Maps Flash API. He’s frustrated, and I understand why: I share his passion for open source and Mozilla, and know that the things happening here are literally changing the web for the better. However, allow me to channel some of his anger into energy.

It’s this sentence that has raised his hackles:

A substantial portion of the web’s creativity can be found in the Flash developer community.

They even make it a paragraph unto itself so the effect doesn’t evaporate too quickly. I’m going to break ranks for a moment and agree with this statement. I think Flash developers are incredibly creative and do an amazing job managing with less, making do with what they have, and finding ways to solve their problems despite being forced into a box with finite dimension. No matter how good your tool or technology is, if you use it long enough you’re going to hit its limits and have to make a choice: either you make do, or you find something else.

Mark and I share a similar background, in that we both spent substantial time in our careers working inside various sorts of boxes. It’s nice inside the box. You don’t get rained on, there’s a little corner for you to put all your things, it’s OK for entertaining a few close friends.

But what happens is that after a time you get ideas, and your ideas need to fit into the box. What if you want to build a boat? Will the box fit it? What if you want to invite more than a few close friends over? It’s not even what if, it’s when, if you’re really pushing yourself.

One of the things about new ideas, as David Eaves reminded me at FSOSS last year, is that they usually won’t be accepted because they’ll seem hostile to the status quo and very much not-how-we-do-things. I think the same is true of technology. New ideas are often going to push at the boundaries of your current skill- and tool-set.

Now what if instead of the box you choose the web? What if you choose “the world’s largest open source project”? I won’t lie to you, there is a cost to this approach. You trade the clarity of how for the potential of what if.

A large part of what has Mark so upset is that this isn’t empty rhetoric. I’m not telling you things that Mark and I haven’t witnessed personally; you can see for yourself too. What’s got him going is that we need to tell this story to the tens of thousands of people who are letting their ideas stay small so they’ll fit in someone else’s box.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re crazy for wanting to build a boat; you’re crazy for building it in your basement. The open web is where your ideas belong.

Mark, let’s do it.

Just Browsing: Browser Trends: Business Models

Commercial web applications must overcome a vexing business dilemma: how to make money in the face of so much free competition. This is a symptom of the VC-fueled internet economy that has prevailed since the dot com days. Venture capital firms provide companies with money based on some woolly half-baked business model but with the tacit understanding that they will get acquired and folded into some larger firm’s portfolio if they attract enough “eyeballs”. Anyone with the temerity to charge money for access to their site enters the battle at a distinct disadvantage.

In the web browser space the situation is similar, but the main reason in this case is competition from operating system vendors. Apple and Microsoft provide a serviceable browser as part of OS X and Windows, respectively. Some percentage of the cost of buying an operating system (whether shrink-wrapped or OEM’ed with a new computer) could be considered payment for the bundled browser. This is makes it very difficult for an independent browser vendor to survive in this market, as Netscape learned in the late 90’s.

And yet there are a number of vendors attempting to do exactly this (and, to various degrees, succeeding). The most prominent example is Firefox, which has thrived through a combination of low costs (thanks to an open source development model that reaps free labor from a large fan community) and, famously, an agreement with Google to feature its search engine prominently in the browser’s user interface. Opera generates a similar level of revenue (about $50 million in 2006 versus Mozilla’s $66 million) through licensing to device manufactures, other software licensing, search partnerships and its free and paid Webmail service. Flock makes most of its money through a search deal with Yahoo.

Search partnerships form the bedrock of these companies’ income. Licensing looks to be an increasingly tough row to hoe, as there are two excellent open source browser engines (Gecko and WebKit) available for free, and both are aggressively targeting mobile and other devices. There are a number of other potential models that would help vendors grow their revenues, however. Assuming, of course, that they continue to innovate and attract users despite the fact that a built-in web browser is bundled with every major operating system.

Advertising

Search partnerships rely indirectly on advertising, but vendors could potentially make more money by hosting ads directly in the browser. The biggest obstacle is user acceptance of these ads; Opera gave up on in-browser ads in 2005 due to resistance from users. It’s a pretty safe bet that no one is going to be plastering banners willy nilly across their product’s UI. On the other hand, browser developers have a big efficiency advantage over web-based ad platforms because they have access to so much information about users’ surfing patterns. If this data can be used to provide highly targeted ads, the value to advertisers would be enormous, and if the ads are relevant enough users might even seek them out willingly.

Web services

In their role as the gateway to the web, browser vendors are in a perfect position to offer paid web services. Opera’s Webmail service is one example. Paid storage is another; it would be easy and convenient for users to buy online storage (for backup, media sharing, etc.) directly in their browser rather than seeking out a commercial service online. While Mozilla has given no indication that it intends to charge for web services in the future, its Weave project (which aims to explore “the blending of the desktop and the Web through deeper integration of the browser with online services”) would serve as a perfect platform should it choose to do so.

Freemium

Charging for a more advanced version of a free product (”freemium“, if you will) works well for many software products. Why not for browsers? As with advertising, Opera employed this model for years but eventually gave up under pressure from Firefox and less unusable versions of Internet Explorer. To attract a significant number of paying users, a browser would have to offer truly compelling advantages. And if I knew what these might be I’d be busy working on my own browser product instead of writing this.

Servers/Corporate

Netscape attempted to employ this model: provide the browser for free (once they gave up on charging for it) but license their server products to companies for a fee. The strategy failed because web servers became commoditized almost as fast as browsers had, subjecting Netscape to the deadly combination of competition from both Microsoft (with its Internet Information Server) and open source (most notably Apache). But there are plenty of server products that companies do pay for (messaging, content management, ERP, CRM, etc.). A tightly integrated browser/server combination could provide a vastly superior user experience and thus a profitable product in the enterprise market. Microsoft is very active in this space, but there is plenty of room for others to carve out a niche.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Gijs Kruitbosch: SightCity Frankfurt, ChatZilla release, Privacy, Venkman issues, misc.

It’s been way too long since I posted anything here, for which I apologize. There are a couple of things that deserve mention here at the present time.

SightCity

I recently got back from visiting SightCity in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The conference experience was excellent, and I had a great time with Steve, Ben and Marco, all of whom have written more pleasantly and/or extravagantly about our experiences there than I ever could. So this is all you’re getting from me, here.

ChatZilla Releases

ChatZilla 0.9.82 was released, quickly followed by ChatZilla 0.9.82.1 after a couple of nasty regressions. Almost all of the releases’ features and fixes fall squarely into the “polish” bin (eg. dragging tabs for channels named only “#” now works, and doubleclicking a user in the userlist opens a query tab, some minor accessibility and localizability fixes, etc.), except for one: CEIP, short for Customer Experience Improvement Program. Customer not being very apt, I suppose, but it’s a standard name for what is essentially a data collecting tool.

Data collecting?! Yes, data collecting. I wrote a Privacy Policy about what we do. Please read it first, before flaming me/us. Really, read it - it’s quite short! As you will have read by now, I hope, we ask first if it would be OK to collect anonymous statistics. Without consent, ChatZilla doesn’t save anything you do, nor (consequently) does anything get sent. We never collect anything personal, and both in the policy and in the UI, which is accessible from the Help menu in ChatZilla, we indicate a bunch of things we specifically won’t collect. So what can we collect, then, and how is it useful? Well, examples include the length of sessions (do people run ChatZilla for days at a time without interruption, or only five minutes?) and how tabs are handled. We can already, after just a few days, see that many people seem to be closing lots of network tabs, which may lead us to prioritize bug 249188, for instance.

So I hope that this post helps clarify that we’re not turning evil. If you disagree, and had already turned it on, you’re free to turn it off again, at your leasure. Do let us know what you think we’re doing wrong, though.

Venkman trunk issue

If you’re using Venkman with a Gecko trunk product (eg. Firefox 3 RC1, Thunderbird Shredder 3.0a1, …) you may have found that viewing source code stopped working a while ago. This happened because of a change in the way unprivileged content, like the source view itself (which is plain old HTML) is allowed to access chrome content (like the stylesheet for the source view, unfortunately). Fixing it properly is not trivial. Right now, I have suggested a more or less wallpaper fix, because I am too busy to do something nicer, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else is willing to go and fix it instead. This basically allows unprivileged content to access the chrome content again. A better solution would be to channel the stylesheet through the jsd protocol. If anyone wants to step up to the plate and fix that, that’d be awesome. In the meantime, the wallpaper patch is waiting for review. If you’re in need of a working Venkman, I uploaded an XPI to bug 428848.

Misc

I’m nearing the end of my BSc degree. I’m working on my thesis at the moment, and finishing off the two courses that remain. Perhaps I’ll write more about the thesis once I have something I can demo or screenshot in-action. For now, I’d just like to happily announce that I was conditionally accepted into the 1 year MSc Advanced Computing course at Imperial College, London. So, if you know of a good place for a grad student to live in central London (South Kensington), let me know!

Mitchell Baker: “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 us. 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.

Rumbling Edge - Thunderbird: Bug Day on Thursday 15 May 2008

The Thunderbird folks are organizing a bug day this Thursday, 15 May 2008. The schedule is located here. Generally, feel free to pop by outside of the sessions as well, some experienced folks should be around to help you.

The focus of this bug day is found here.

How?

Triaging is easy! You don't have to be able to understand computer languages in order to triage most bugs.

You just have to try and reproduce the bug by following the steps written in the report. Add a comment stating whether the bug still applies in the latest supported version of Thunderbird 2 (2.0.0.14), or in the trunk nightlies (3.0a1pre) for the more adventurous.

Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 builds:

Official Windows installer

Official Linux (i686)

Official Mac (Universal binary)

Please drop by #bugday and help us get our bug numbers down; we need your help! First timers and experienced triagers welcome.

Due to timing restrictions, we only have one official session, from 12pm to 2pm PDT, to assist anyone who wants to contribute. (My nick is "nth10sd") Several experienced folks will be there to assist as well.

The results of the bug day will be posted to Mozilla Wiki.

David Ascher: New folks!

Two new additions to the Mozilla Messaging crew, which I’m quite pleased to talk about.

I’d like to welcome Philippe Chiasson, who will be taking on everything “IT” for MoMo, in close collaboration with MoCo IT. Think of him as “root@mozillamessaging.com”. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Gozer (as he is known) for several years, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with our idle hardware and mounting buglist. Gozer has a lot of experience with open source, and is eager to build as open and participatory IT systems as possible, so I think he’ll fit right in. In addition to configuring our existing hardware, expect Gozer to work with Rick and others to setup build and test servers, and start to plan out our overall IT roadmap, so that we can act with as much agility as possible.

In addition, I’m pleased to welcome back David Bienvenu, one of the original Thunderbird developers! Since we spun up MoMo, David has been helpful answering questions about the code base, reviewing patches, and the like. I’m very happy that he’ll be able to do even more of that and more, starting now. David brings a huge wealth of knowledge about the codebase, and equally important, the rationales for the decisions reflected in the current product. As we review things, it’s nice to be able to leverage the past work, rather than ignore it.

Welcome to both Gozer and David!

Jesse Ruderman: Chandra and VLA spot Firefox logo

The Firefox logo has been spotted in space again. This time, it was found hiding in the center of our galaxy.

Mark Finkle: Do You Smell Something?

Oh yeah, it’s this crappy post from ReadWriteWeb on the new Google Maps Flash API. I have no problem with a Flash API for Google Maps. Power to the people! But I did have a massive gag reaction to the following fairy tale:

A substantial portion of the web’s creativity can be found in the Flash developer community. Adobe’s AIR platform is one of the hottest development environments in the consumer market today and is being deployed with increasing frequency in the enterprise as well. Live Google Maps in Flash are likely to be used in even more creative ways than the existing javascript API has been. Javascript can be used in AIR but it’s rarely used as attractively as Flash often is.

It doesn’t end there, although my ability to keep food down did:

Throw some Flash Google Maps into the mix and things are liable to really get interesting.

• Are you kidding me? Hey, I’m glad Flash is open, but I have no love for an alternate Web.
• More creative ways than the JS APIs? Haven’t seen any creative uses of JS have you?
• One of the hottest development environments? For making Twitter clones?

The rest of the post is great!

Tristan Nitot: Mozilla joins the Linux Mobile (LiMo) Foundation

Nokia N800, a Linux-based device, running a Mozilla Gecko-based browser

As Jay Sullivan puts it,

This is a great step for Mozilla. Our engineering team has worked very hard over the last couple of years to prepare for mobile. Our platform is now faster and leaner in the more constrained hardware and network environment of mobile phones. We’ve worked well with Nokia on shipping a Mozilla-based browser on the N810, which is a Linux-based device. We’re working on Firefox for Windows Mobile. Adding LiMo to our set of target platforms will further broaden our impact in the mobile environment.

Here is the LiMo Foundation press release.

Partial coverage:

• Verizon, Mozilla to join LiMo Foundation ;
• On Wednesday LiMo announced a raft of new members, the most significant being the Mozilla Foundation ;
• Verizon, Mozilla Join Mobile Linux Group ;
• Limo adds Mozilla, Verizon to its bandwagon ;
• LiMo fights back on Linux for phones as Mozilla signs up ;
• Verizon, Mozilla, SK Telecom And Others Join Mobile Linux Efforts ;
• Verizon, Mozilla take seat in LiMo ;
• Mozilla, Verizon Join LiMo Foundation ;
• Linux Mobile Development Gets a Boost ;

Robert Kaiser: 1000 Bugs Killed In 8 Weeks! As reported here before, I asked for help help with triaging SeaMonkey bugs. Back then we had over a thousand unconfirmed non-enhancement bugs in the "Mozilla Application Suite" product that had no activity for more than 6 months. When I looked at the query today, I was quite surprised when it only showed 15 bugs!

Looking at the open bug graph for our Bugzilla product I could confirm what the query had suggested:
The people helping us here have killed about a thousand bugs in 8 weeks!
This is absolutely awesome, thanks and congratulations to everyone helping with this effort!

It would be really cool if we can prolong this Bugzilla cleanup effort and try to reduce unconfirmed and old bugs even more, so the real bugs are easier to find and deal with. In my newsgroup posting from today (web version), I have a few suggestions on what to attack next - I'd welcome your input! [Source: Planet Mozilla]

Laura Thomson: Why Open Source rocks

The interview I did with Bruce Byfield at OpenWeb Vancouver has been posted on linux.com.  In it, I talk about why Free and Open Source Software makes for better programmers, how to make developers happy, and explain why all the passionate people at Mozilla make it a cool place to live.

Tristan Nitot: Fake Steve Jobs loves Firefox 3

Following a very nice meeting with Rory Cellan-Jones, a video demo of Firefox 3 was published by the BBC (Jane already blogged about it). I happened to use my own history data during the demo, and used Fake Steve Jobs as an example, because I love this blog. It looks like Fake Steve has heard about it and blogged: President of Mozilla Europe gives a shout-out to Fake Steve.

Tristan Nitot demonstrates some of the new features of the Firefox browser, including an "awesome bar" which provides the ability to find Fake Steve Jobs more easily. Much love, Tristan. It pains me to say this, but your browser truly rocks.

I happen to use a Mac and an iPhone, so I know what you mean ;-). Namasté, Fake Steve! Oh, as a gift, here is a picture that you could use for meditation purposes It was of course edited in iPhoto!

Sky in Normandy

Bryan Clark: Signatures in Email

Last week I was blitzed by being cc’d on a lot of email signature related bugs. :-)  To remain calm and keep delusions of control active I started on a wiki page for Message Signatures in Thunderbird.  Right now the page contains lots of links to relevant areas and ascii art mockups for choosing a default signature for accounts; it’s meant to collect thoughts, research, and define direction.

Managing Signatures

I think a general improvement plan will involve simplifying the signature selection and creation process.  Here are a number of points that I think can improve the current aspects of signature management.

• Each account is created a default signature (from the person’s name and organization)
• Every signature can be edited with a built-in signature editor (created from the compose window)
• Signatures can be imported from files, but are saved in the Thunderbird profile or preferences (see bug 324495)
• A separate dialog is used for managing all signatures, with import, add, edit, remove actions as well as a link to see the signature extensions available from AMO.

Concept Mockup of Signature Chooser in Account Settings

Using Signatures

In the relevant extensions section of the wiki page I tried to list most of the extensions that are dealing with how to use signatures in the compose window.  There are a number of ways of solving this problem and lots of issues surrounding posting style that I am hesitant to battle with.

Several bugs (see bug 219197, bug 73567, and bug 37644) have suggestions that attack the problem from different angles.  New comments and suggestions are welcome!

ASCII Art Side Note

I think I’ve started to use Johan’s ASCII Art Mockup post as a reference for my own ascii art; it’s good to see some style written down somewhere.

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