Recently I’ve been writing a series of blog posts about what I think Mozilla needs to do to remain relevant as Internet life changes. Testing the ideas in these posts through a community – wide discussion is critical. This is because Mozilla doesn’t succeed based on the ideas of any one person. We succeed when an idea gains traction among a critical mass of Mozilla leaders. We succeed when those leaders take an idea and make things happen; when Mozilla contributors become a powerful force for bringing the Mozilla mission to life in new ways.
My post on Mozilla’s future are intended to start a discussion and chart a path for Mozilla. Over the next few months, with Mary Colvig’s help I plan to encourage this discussion by doing the following:
- Start with a series of online conversations with groups of key Mozilla contributors. The current plan is to start with groups based on time-zone, then move to more diverse groups.
- Ask those contributors to take the ideas to their communities, giving more people the background to participate in subsequent discussions
- Continue the discussion at Mozilla meetups
- Have public online discussions
- Come to a shared understanding of where we agree and disagree
- Come to a shared understanding of Mozilla’s direction and goals for this era.
If you’ve got thoughts, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to leave comments here or drop into #mozillians.
We won’t reach perfect agreement. There will always be cases where some of us will disagree with some of the activities we undertake. Requiring perfect agreement will lead to paralysis. We need excitement, creativity, mutual respect, and shared goals for the nature of the Internet we’re building.
My hope is that we develop a path that is wildly energizing for the vast majority of us. This will be a path that builds the Internet we want to live in, and brings the Mozilla mission to life.