Mozilla “Prototypes”
One of the issues I see regarding our products is the tension between being cautious about changing our products on the one hand and trying to innovate on the other. There are good reasons for this tension, since each perspectives represents part of our current reality.
There are a number of reasons to be cautious about changing the product. We have a great product that people love. We also have a userbase of many tens of millions of people; a good portion of whom prize familiarity. Many people struggle to understand the difference between browser windows, search engines, software, data and the Internet. Constantly changing software can be disconcerting. And all of us are determined to avoid
July 10th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
So how does this differ from what Mozdev should be? It seems like this is just Mozdev 2.0 (or whatever). Work should be done with them. Or do you see prototypes as pre- Mozdev / HEAD. Many extensions from Mozdev have made it into HEAD after their usefulness was seen. There are some that haven’t made it, however, but are stable releases hosted by Mozdev. Such products would be “graduates” of Mozilla Prototypes in the new world…
Just some random thoughts. I think it’d important to see how this fits along side Mozdev and all the resources it already offers as well as how to keep from alienating them.
July 11th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Robert:
Our hope is actually to try out things that may well be better in the core of Firefox than as an extension.
I see this as being complementary to mozdev. Some mozdev projects have migrated to the core of Firefox and I expect that to continue. I expect mozdev will be the home of things that none of us would have thought up, could have predicted, but someone just does. That’s a great part of our strength.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Glad to hear!
July 11th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I realise that, but some extensions could be made part of the core firefox if deemed important enough.
Which is why i think it would be better to put your efforts into a process that would move an extension into the firefox core.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:55 am
I think depending upon the prototype, it may be more suited to be an extension, but it may also be a special build of firefox (if required) or even a Flash demo/mockup. At the prototype phase, I think the goal should be to validate the design approach and get some feedback for further refinement.
I think we should differentiate that from how and when a validated concept makes it into Firefox core. That is the decision of the module owners/product team/etc…
I’ve written up some thoughts on Mozilla Prototypes at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla_Prototypes.
July 13th, 2006 at 2:27 am
Personally, I like the name “Mozilla Soup”