Posts Tagged with “discussion”

I almost called this “Rich Internet Discussions” or RID to match the craze for Rich Internet Applications. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, and that’s probably better

I mentioned in my last post a few of the things I want to concentrate on in the near future: the standards, hybrid organizations, the relationship of people to the content we create online. Each of these requires a discussion, or many discussions. I’m looking for a format for encouraging such discussions. I don’t think blog posts are the right format; I’m wondering what other things people are using that are effective.

Blogs are great for getting a sense of the web. But a discussion among many people that extends over time and over many blogs is really hard to follow or even to find if one isn’t in the middle of it. I’d also like to use a format that is less identified with any one person that a blog, and is easier to find, follow and mutually develop ideas. Newsgroups are a traditional method. But I’d like to use a system that assumes only a Web browser. Today we often use forums, as Mozilla Labs is doing.

Do you think forums are a good approach? Do you have other ideas? Do you know of sites that you think promote good, thoughtful discussions? If so, I’d love to know.

There is a lot of content in the comments to my Thunderbird and email post. I’m going to try to respond to general themes, although not every post specifically. I’m going to start by addressing the themes in separate messages; I think that will make it easier to get to clarity.

The themes I see so far are:

1. Google is involved somehow.
2. Thunderbird and the Mozilla mission.
3. Feature thoughts about Thunderbird.
4. Why can’t Thunderbird and Firefox both prosper inside the Mozilla Corporation?
5. Is Mozilla exclusively focused on Firefox?
6. Revenue is the determining factor.

There may be other themes that appear or that I’ve missed with this first pass. Or two may show up as part of the same message, I’m not sure yet since I haven’t written them. But these are the topics I know now that I want to address.

Do you think email is important part of Internet life? Are you interested in seeing something interesting and exciting happen in the mail space? Believe that Thunderbird provides a much-needed option for open source email alternatives and want to see it get more attention on its own? Long to see something more innovative than Thunderbird in the mail space happen?

So does Mozilla.

Are you someone who could contribute to such an effort? Do you have expertise and a desire to be involved in an innovative mail effort and/or a focused Thunderbird effort? If so, Mozilla would like to hear from you.

Thunderbird

Mozilla has been supporting Thunderbird as a product since the beginning of the Foundation. The result is a good, solid product that provides an open alternative for desktop mail. However, the Thunderbird effort is dwarfed by the enormous energy and community focused on the web, Firefox and the ecosystem around it. As a result, Mozilla doesn’t support Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don’t expect this to change in the foreseeable future. We are convinced that our current focus -– delivering the web, mostly through browsing and related services -– is the correct priority. At the same time, the Thunderbird team is extremely dedicated and competent, and we all want to see them do as much as possible with Thunderbird.

We have concluded that we should find a new organizational approach for Thunderbird; one that allows the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny.

Mozilla is exploring the options for an organization specifically focused on serving Thunderbird users. A separate organization focused on Thunderbird will both be able to move independently and will need to do so to deepen community and user involvement. We’re not yet sure what this organization will look like. We’ve thought about a new Mozilla Foundation subsidiary. We’ve thought about a setting where Thunderbird is released as a community project much like SeaMonkey, and a small services and consulting company is formed by the Thunderbird developers to continue development and care for Thunderbird users. Many open source projects use this model, it could be simpler and more effective than a Mozilla Foundation subsidiary.

We don’t know the best answer yet. And we don’t expect to without a broad public discussion, which we hope this message will trigger. Some suggestions for making sure Mozilla is aware of your comments are at the end of this post.

Broader Mail Initiative

We would also like to find contributors committed to creating and implementing a new vision of mail. We would like to have a roadmap that brings wild innovation, increasing richness and fundamental improvements to the mail. And equally importantly, we would like to find people with relevant expertise who would join with Mozilla to make something happen.

If we can see a path to an innovative mail initiative in addition to supporting existing Thunderbird users, then we are interested in doing so. If we find the best way to improve mail is incremental development of Thunderbird as already planned, then we’ve learned something extremely valuable as well.

Mozilla has a range of resources -– funds, code, etc. — that can be applied to this problem. We’re looking for people with expertise, vision and leadership capabilities. If you are such a person, or know of such people, please let us know.

Discussion

If you’re interested in these topics, let us know. The web is great at distributed discussions, let’s see what we think about mail. Post trackbacks to your blog posts here; I’ll moderate them in quickly. If you want to make absolutely sure that Mozilla can find your stuff easily, feel free to head to the wiki and list yourself and the location of your comments. Or leave your comments on the wiki.

It’s time to create the full search committee for the Foundation Executive Director position. I previously posted key requirements. I’ve included them again below, along with some criteria our executive recruiter has found to be important in the past.

If you are interested in being part of the search committee and believe you meet (at least most of) the criteria, please contact me. If you know of someone you would like to see be part of the search committee other than yourself, please let me know. In other words, nominations and self-nominations are welcome.

I thought about creating a clear process for nomination and selection, but decided we can (hopefully) start informally and create process as we go. The one process point that I will start with is that if you contact me privately, or nominate someone else privately, I won’t make those names public until the named person is OK with this. If you have strong thoughts regarding the process, you can post them here as comments or in the governance newsgroup (available via newsreader or mailing list, or via the browser).

So please don’t self censor based on shyness, or on your employer.

Everyone should have:

• Deep understanding of the project and our culture.
• Ability to communicate the needs of the organization.
• History of “doing” things within Mozilla.
• Broad respect from chunks of the Mozilla community.
• Ability to internalize different perspectives.
• Ability to work collaboratively, incorporating other perspectives.
• High discretion, including perhaps willingness to agree to confidentiality obligations (we need to figure out how to treat candidates properly). However this is handled, we need a complete commitment to confidentiality.
• Commitment to speaking with one voice as a committee.
• Ability to be a liaison between the search committee and the Mozilla community.
• High degree of flexibility.
• Commitment of 15-20 hours for meetings and interviews.
• Good people assessment skills.
• Comfortable / excited about the focus of the job.

The group as a whole should have:

• At least one very good scribe.
• People with different background and focus areas for the project, (not everyone can be a Firefox only person; there should be one or more people who can articulate what it’s like to be on a non-Fx project) and views about staying broad.

Here is the last part of Mike Shaver’s summary of the Categories: Mozilla | Tags: All Hands, communication, discussion, openness | No comments yet