Archive for March, 2012

Mozilla is on the cusp of changing our policy about our use of video codecs and making use of a format  known as “H.264.” We have tried to avoid this for a number of years, as H.264 is encumbered by patents.  The state of video on the Web today and in mobile devices in particular is pushing us to change our policy.  Brendan has written a post detailing why many of us have come to support this position.  I’d like to emphasize one point that’s implicit in Brendan’s post and which I think would be useful to call out more specifically.

One key value at Mozilla is giving our users a great experience.  We want to build products that people love and that build openness and user sovereignty into the Web.  “Products that people love”  is a key part of this sentence.  It’s not a throw away phrase.  It has meaning.  It is a demanding goal and it must drive us — just as the latter part about openness and user sovereignty drive us.

For the past few years we have focused our codec efforts on the latter part of this sentence.  We’ve declined to adopt a technology that improves user experience in the hopes this will bring greater user sovereignty.  Not many would try this strategy, but we did.  Brendan’s piece details why our current approach of not supporting encumbered codec formats hasn’t worked, and why today’s approach regarding existing encumbered formats is even less likely to work in the future.

Given this, it’s time to shift our weighting.  It’s time to focus on shipping products people can love now, and to work on developing a new tactic for bringing unencumbered technology to the world of audio and video codecs.  It always feels better when we can build exactly the product we want and people love it.  It’s possible to fall into the view that the only way to live up to Mozilla values is to ship the product we think people should want.  This aspect is one element, but it’s not the only one.  Another critical element is shipping products that work for people now so they can love them.  This makes our values something people can want, not medicine that one takes because one should.  This element is a key part of Mozilla’s mission.

Our first approach at bringing open codecs to the Web has ended up at an impasse on mobile, but we’re not done yet.  We shouldn’t beat ourselves up for somehow failing to live up to Mozilla’s values.  We’ll find a way around this impasse.  We have some of the world’s most creative and dedicated people working on open video and video technologies.  We’ll rebuild the maze if we have to.  We’ll  keep working hard to bring unencumbered codecs to the Web.  We’ll be more effective at building products people can love as we do this.  We should do so proudly.

Monday night I attended an event celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts in the US. A couple of unexpected things happened. First, I received a lesson in how role models and believing in people and providing roles models makes a difference.

Here are some statistics I found stunning:

 . . . 80% of women business owners were Girl Scouts, 69% of female U.S. Senators were Girl Scouts, 67% of female members of the House of Representatives were Girl Scouts, and virtually every female astronaut who has flown in space was a Girl Scout.  (Marina Park, CEO of Girl Scouts of Northern Californa)

The Girl Scout organization attributes this to girls growing up with women leaders, in an organization that believe in girls and women and works to build “courage, confidence and character to make the world a better place.”

The second unexpected thing was how emotional the evening was for me. I attended because I was honored as one of the 100 women of Northern California selected to receive the “Greening the Future” award and to represent what’s possible. I went knowing that I had been a Girl Scout, but not thinking much about it. The statistics above struck me personally. Anytime I find a demographic that I fit into I’m interested, since I’m so often the only one of my kind in a room (e.g., the only woman, or the only person who studied China rather than technology, or the only person who can be equally happy watching either football or classical ballet, or the only person who . . . . . .)

I was also struck — viscerally — by the memories. The evening’s talks started off with a discussion of Girl Scout camping. I realized I had related my strongest memory of Girl Scout camping to my son literally 2 days before. That was a shock that suggested Girl Scouts may have had more impact on my life than I have thought.

A few women wore their sashes with achievement badges. Af first I thought this was fun and interesting — mine was lost unknown years and moves ago. Then during the award ceremony I stood next to a woman wearing hers. It made me gasp. I recognized the general pattern, the wings, the troop badge and some of the actual badges. “I had that badge, and that one , and that one too!” I haven’t thought of these in some times. Yet they instantly reminded me of hours spend figuring out what I wanted to learn about, and what I was going to do to learn and demonstrate my accomplishment.

I guess maybe being a Girl Scout taught me more than I knew at the time.