Where would you like to go?

Structure

The format of the weekend has not changed much since and is as William Quiviger wrote about in 2010. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The Aviary.pl Crew in action

In summary:

• Day 1 : Meet in the late afternoon / early evening and catch up, talk, hack together.
• Day 2 : Day of sessions, conversation, status updates, and more.
• Day 3 : Voting in the new board and goal setting for the next 6 months

It was just the right balance between getting work done and collaborating and learning from each other. On Saturday evening after dinner we settled into some game playing (board and video) that showed the great camaraderie that exists in the team.

Governance

Aviary.pl is a structured organisation with a board, a board audit committee, and members.

• 3-member Board (see the new board)
• A board audit committee
• Members

The board and audit committee are rotated every two years. Aviary.pl tried and failed to become a registered non-profit organisation in Poland once before and during the weekend documents were prepared to make a second application. The main reason for this is to accept money more easily. I know that other Mozilla communities are wondering whether to do this in their country. You should examine if you really need to do it, and if you do to expect a certain amount of administrative overhead.

Many Mozilla communities have problems attracting and keeping new members. What I liked about Aviary.pl in this context is that they have a set process for new recruits that includes mentoring for 6 months which in general seems to lead to a better retention rate.

Guests

One thing that worked really well was the presence of invited guests from outside the Mozilla project. Members of the Gnome, Opera and Kaszëbsczi language communities brought a fresh perspective to proceedings. Also present was Lukasz Kluj who works for Lewis PR that does PR work for Mozilla in Poland.

Kashubian (Kaszëbsczi) Language

Yurek Hinz, among other things, works promoting the Kashubian language. He talked to us about his experience on getting the language integrated into Firefox, both the challenges and opportunities for a small language. Some interesting random points:

• In the 2002 census, 53,000 people in Poland declared that they mainly use Kashubian at home.
• Currently 3 active members of the team working on the Firefox localisation
• After many false starts, it reached beta in 2011 and full version in 2012 listed at http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html
• Not getting ADU stats from Mozilla yet, we don’t know the number of users currently
• Supporting languages like this really differentiate Mozilla over other browser and software vendors where they only support languages based on market forces

In Summary

Aviary.pl is working well. It is made up of dedicated individuals. In numbers it is strong, yet as always new contributors are welcome. The community was established in 2004 making it one of the more mature communities. As with all established Mozilla communities, it faces challenges in adapting to new Mozilla projects and priorities while at the same time keeping on top of localisation work. I gave my thoughts on how Aviary.pl can rise to the challenge and they have already been moving in that direction with outreach and development efforts.

[More Pictures]

Related articles

• Learning from the Aviary.pl crew (somethin-else.org)
• Gdansk: 5 free things for visitors to do (cbsnews.com)

The Gist

Mozilla is working on tools to help get more contributors involved and better engaged. This includes a taskboard, events manager, and an improved phonebook. For reference, see:

Blog post: http://aakash.doesthings.com/2012/03/19/community-tools-platforms-roadmap-2012/
Slides: http://htmlpad.org/community-tools-roadmap-2012/
Video: http://vid.ly/0j3y7t

With this better infrastructure will come better rewards for contributors. This will includes Mozillian public profiles, badges, events, and where appropriate material items such as t-shirts.

However, your work in the Mozilla Community needs to be self-motivated. Much of the time there will not be any hand-holding. Take the initiative. If you are on board with Mozilla’s mission and the Open Web, use that as an inspiration to drive you. Like all fields in life, there is no substitute for hard work.

5 Areas

In the meantime, we need to work with what we have, and there is a lot out there if you know where to look. For convenience, let us identify 5 areas to start with where you can get involved. With each one are some links to get you started.

I. Boot To Gecko

This is Mozilla’s mobile Web platform.

https://mozilla.org/b2g/
https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla/Boot_to_Gecko

II. Add-ons

Learning add-on development is a great way to add to your skills, provide useful tools to people, and make an impact. Use the Add-ons SDK or Add-ons Builder to get started.

https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/builder

III. Localisation

Localisation is still crucial for any community who want to make an impact among all speakers of your native language(s). Break up your activities into 2 areas, product and web.

Product includes Firefox (desktop and mobile) and Thunderbird.

Web properties include SUMO, Mozilla Add-ons, and much much more.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n
https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Overview
https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Resources

IV. Evangelism

Talk about HTML5 and the Open Web! Make a Web App. Help write documentation.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Evangelism
https://developer.mozilla.org/Project:en/How_to_Help

V. Web Makers

Mozilla wants everyone in society to be a Web Maker.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webmakers

And More…

Other projects to get involved with are Hackasaurus, core hacking, QA, SUMO (support). There are more, find the one that suits you. See:

http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/areas.html

Getting Help

If you need guidance when getting started, there are people who can help. Apart from posting on Mozilla mailing lists or asking on IRC, there are folks known as Stewards designated to particular areas:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute#Stewards

Building a community is different in every country and region. One size does not fit all. But remember to collaborate with and learn from others. Read this great post from Nukeador of Mozilla Hispano on how to organise a Mozilla community:

http://www.nukeador.com/09/12/2011/organizing-a-mozilla-community/

So as you can see there is plenty to do, and Mozilla needs you to help out. I am looking forward to seeing the work you do moving forward.

Related articles

• What Mozilla is about..(garykwong.wordpress.com)

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Briks Is 6

I meant to call out the 5 year anniversary last year but it slipped by as I was too busy. Six is better, it rhymes! I set up Briks Software this month 6 years ago. Briks is a Web Consultancy that specialises in all things Mozilla and sometimes beyond. We do Add-ons, XULRunner apps, bug fixes, mobile work, and more. We’ve worked on projects large and small, with big companies and startups. Briks is not a 1-person show, I like to call it a Mozilla Development Collective. I’ve had various folks come on board per-project over the 6 years and quite frankly Briks would not have been so successful without them. There are 2 people that I would like to give a special shout-out to. Chris Neale is the glue that keeps everything together, from the web site to design to graphics to listening to me ramble on Skype all day. David McNamara is a coder who can whip something up before you can say ‘digital drifter’. See his recent profile on Bonjour Mozilla!.

The Briks experience so far has been wonderful. Anyone who has ever done consulting will understand what I mean when I say that it has it’s ups and downs. I’ve been fortunate to have more ups. Some projects succeed, some don’t. Some clients come to you with a clear vision, others let you shape it. You meet many different people who become at best friends or at worst good contacts. Almost every day there is a new challenge, and each now project is a puzzle to solve. Hopefully I will get time to write more about this, it deserves a separate post.

However lately I’ve been thinking that I have got to the point where I am looking for a different challenge in my career. The obvious choice would be moving into management in a tech company. Another option would be to do a startup. Or another would be to move to a tropical island and set up a tourist resort. All of these sound great, everything is open. If you have any opportunities you think would suit me, let me know.

Mozilla in Slovenia

Mozilla Slovenija is trying to keep the momentum going for promoting Firefox and Mozilla this year. Our primary tool for doing this has always been localisation, and the team are doing a great job in keeping up with product and web. As far as events go, so far we had a Firefox 10 event and Dan Odporte Kode (Open Source Day), both organised by Reps. And I can’t finish this section without mentioning Matjaž Horvat’s heroic efforts in the ACTA debate here.

ReMo

The Mozilla Reps program is going great and my work on the council has been taking up a lot of my time. It has been a victim of it’s own success in the respect that we are still going through some growing pains and smoothing out many of the processes that will solidify the program going forward. We met in Athens to work through many of the issues and come up with a plan for the project for the next year. Shortly after the new Mozilla Reps website launched. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out, it is a hub with profiles of all reps and will be a wonderful tool for reps and for the those looking for reps.

In general I have learned a ton over the last year while helping out with ReMo in the areas of mentorship and community building. It has been a privilege to help get the program started and to work with community members who feel so passionate about Mozilla.

FOSDEM 2012

For the first time in about 5 years I was not putting together the schedule for and running the Mozilla devroom at FOSDEM. And while I missed the hustle and bustle, let me tell you it was great. I could wander around other rooms, head over to the stands (in a new building this year), and listen to other talks. The show this year was run my local Mozilla Reps and the Belgian community. William Quiviger wrote more about this aspect in his recap. You can catch all the blog posts, slides, and picture on the Mozilla wiki.

WebFWD

I previously wrote about my motivation for getting involved in the WebFWD program. As a scout I’ve been seeing an explosion of startup activity recently in Central and Eastern Europe. While I have not (to my knowledge) directly influenced any projects to apply yet, I have certainly tried to raise awareness of the program. Much of the startup reading I have come across has been shared in the Scout Sightings blog posts compiled by Havi Hoffman. I’ve given an intro talk twice, first at FOSDEM and then at the Firefox event in Kiberpipa. The slides are on Slideshare.

Mozilla Croatia

I was in Zagreb in January for a meeting of the Mozilla Croatia Community. Also present apart from local community members were Ioana Chiorean from Romania, Oskar Ivanic from Serbia, and Matjaž from Slovenia. Up to about 9 months ago, the community was very much dormant with the exception of good work by Edo Huric and also the Firefox localisation team. Then a new force of nature entered in the form of Nikola Matosovic and he has already put together a team of about 40 volunteer members (yes, 40) to help with Mozilla Croatia.

Clockwise from top left: Ivona Haban, Niko Visnjic, Vedran Kovacevic, Satine Anais, Mislav Zorko, Denis Oswald, and Nikola Nikola Matosovic (middle)

The goal of the meeting was to get everyone up to speed with the latest projects and issues in Mozilla, and provide insights into Community building. Having already achieved much in outreach in 2011, the challenge in 2012 is to gain momentum and carry out the ambitious set of goals they have given themselves for 2012.

What Next?

In no particular order here are some things I want to achieve in the short-term:

• Get some crucial releases out the door for Briks clients
• Finish the ReMo add-on, currently a work-in-progress
• Help the Mozilla Ireland community to the next level. We now have hosting for mozillaireland.org and we have to put the site up and plan some events to get new community members up to speed and for Mozilla to get more coverage in Ireland
• Help out more in Mozilla Balkans, and hopefully attend the next meetup which is planned for Zagreb this time around
• Forge deeper links with the startup community and perhaps attend a couple of related events in my region
• Continue to dip my toes in the Dev Engagement project. I’ve been following the mailing list, and curating posts for the MDN Google+ page.
• Put some real thought into my next career steps and act on them

And so it continues.

I woke up to this view this morning. All those hours digging snow are worth it for this

Compatible By Default does not enable all extensions. The types not enabled include the following:

1. Add-ons marked to work with a Firefox version less than 4.0
2. Add-ons with binary components
3. Add-ons explicitly marked by the author as incompatible, i.e. opt-out of Compatible By Default
4. Add-ons tested and determined to not be compatible with a given version of Firefox, and marked as incompatible by Mozilla
5. Themes

UPDATE (See Blair’s comments below): Add-ons installed by 3rd party software are enabled if you opt-in, which is a feature introduced in Firefox 8.

The original aim of ACR, hence ‘Reporter’ in the name, was for users to inform authors if their add-on did or did not work. I would still encourage you to install it and if an add-on degrades Firefox in any way then please use the reporting mechanism (Compatibility button on the add-on listing) to let Mozilla and the author know.

Note that ACR also works with Thunderbird and Seamonkey.

Related articles

• Firefox 10 Is Here. Is it Worth Your Time? (mashable.com)
• Thunderbird 10 Fixes Add-On Compatibility, Adds Right-Click-to-Search and More Keyboard Shortcuts (lifehacker.com)

Wordpress Browser Update

Well, it is not a surprise really, as WordPress has been doing great things for the Web to move it forward since it’s inception. They are Open Source. The platform gets better and better with each release. They have a viable business via Automattic. WordPress and Firefox have always played nice together. There are plenty of add-ons available to enhance your WordPress experience. I could go on…

I don’t know what they are doing with old versions of other browsers, but am sure it is something similar and equally sensible.

I have quite a number of reps whom I mentor, and I’d like to talk about all of them at some stage in the context of the work they do in the community. In the meantime, here are my reps who were present in Berlin.

Alex Lakatos

Mozillians Profile

Alex Lakatos at MozCamp (photo by mozillaeu on Flickr)

Not only does Alex do QA maestro work for Mozilla during the day, but in his free time he does web development and is involved in other ways in the project. He is a member of one of the most vibrant communities in Europe, in Romania.

Valentin Gosu

Mozilians Profile

Valentin Gosu at MozCamp (photo by nitot on Flickr)

Also from Romania, Valentin has been helping students for a while especially in his area of interest which is add-ons development. Recently, he ran a successful add-ons competition in Bucharest. Valentin was impressed by the Mobile and B2G projects at MozCamp and is looking into opportunities to help out with those projects.

Laurian Gridinoc

Mozillians Profile

Laurian Gridinoc at the Mozilla Festival (photo by mozillaeu on Flickr)

My next rep, also from Romania (spot a pattern), is based in the UK. I worked with Laurian previously in the Jetpack for Learning contest where he was among the winners. He is a man of many talents, but his current focus in Mozilla is with the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership. Recently Laurian was chosen as a Knight Mozilla fellow, and he will soon begin a work placement at the BBC. Good luck!

Aleksandar Savić

Mozillians Profile

Aleksandar Savić at MozCamp (photo by nitot on Flickr)

Aleksandar is one of the most active members of the Mozilla Bosnia community, and a key driver in the wider Mozilla Balkans group. One of Aleksandar’s big initiatives currently is an Internet Security and Firefox event that is upcoming in his home country. If it is successful, the concept can spread and used elsewhere in the community.

Nino Vranešič

Mozillians Profile

Nino Vranešič at the Mozilla Balkans Meetup in Sofia (photo by William Quiviger on Flickr)

It would be easy to call Nino the new kid on the block in the Slovenian community, but he has been working hard for a few years spreading the word first as a student rep and now a Mozilla rep. Recently Nino wrote a paper entitled ‘Business models based on open source software: case of Mozilla‘ (pdf), which he presented at a conference in Slovenia.

Kálmán Szalai

Kami at MozCamp (photo by nitot on Flickr)

Last but not least, no post about Mozilla Reps would be complete without talking about Kami. It seems Kami gets to do the fun stuff like wear the fox hat and attend rock festivasls, all on the name of FOSS. Yet we must not forget the other work that he does in the robust Hungarian community, including translations, web work, blog posts, and more.

• It smells of a gold-rush, a way to make a quick buck. I was brought up with an ethic to go and do your day’s work, work hard, get paid, and play your part.
• This is inter-twined with rush to commercialise the Internet. This is not new, but it is eroding into the idealism of the early days of the Web when it was supposed to be the great equaliser in society, the open information platform.
• To scale, you really need to get investment, which means compromising and handing over rights to your business and ideas.
• I’m a software engineer, and solve problems presented by others. I don’t see myself as an ideas person, or at least don’t have the urge to act on ones I do have.

To make an analogy, startups to me are like young footballers who dream of playing for Manchester United or AC Milan or Real Madrid. Or indeed, even to play professional football at any level. How many make it? I don’t know, but I’d say less than 1%. I suspect the number of startups who are successful comes in at around the same percentage.

But in the last couple of years my thinking has changed. To counter the points above:

• Startups are hard work, well if you are doing it right they should be.
• If we strive to keep the Web open, then making money is fine. We all need to, right?
• If you are smart, you can negotiate a good investment deal. The sheer number of investors out there means choice. Or, bootstrap and scale at your own pace.
• Sometimes engineers come up with the best ideas, because they understand some of the real-world problems that need solving and find opportunity in that.

Image by King Molan via Flickr

I could name other reasons, with their counter arguments, but you get the picture. A couple of weeks ago I attended the Dublin Web Summit, very much a startup event. After not living in Ireland for over 10 years and being completely out of touch with the tech scene, I was greatly encouraged by what I saw. The tech sector is one of the things keeping the Irish economy afloat. But it’s foundation is foreign investment by large companies, usually American. Companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Intel have had a presense there for a number of years. Newer comapnies like Facebook and Twitter have setup their European headquarters there. They do so because of a young, skilled workforce and incentives provided by the Irish government including a low corporate tax rate.

Yet now, there is a realisation that this is not a solid foundation for the future. Large companies can move out at any time, pulling the rug from under you. People are starting to do things for themselves, setting up their own companies more and more. Irish people have always been resourceful but there is nothing less than a culture shift happening. There is a real energy. Even the government, who have shown before to be notoriously short-termist, have many initiatives to help small and medium-sized businesses. Yet more work needs to be done. For example, the bankruptcy laws need a major overhaul to shield entrepeneurs more from risk. I definitely like the direction things appear to be going in however.

In this spirit, I applied to be a WebFWD scout and have been accepted. The application form posed the question “Why do you think you would make an awesome WebFWD Scout?“. Here is what I wrote:

I have been an Open Source enthusiast and supporter all my career. I speak at Open Source conferences. In Slovenia, we have a thriving Web and Startup scene, and I attend events and keep up to date. I have mentored at Seedcamp events. Moving further east, I am a member of a group called New Europe Startups that covers Central and Eastern Europe. There is a real hunger here, something that has been observed less in Western Europe. This is something that can be tapped into for the advantage of the Open Web. I’m a firm believer that our future economic health will be based on entrepreneurial talent that challenges and ultimately usurps incumbents who have a stranglehold on many industries. Last but not least, I have faith in people which drives everything I do, and have a knack for connecting people to do interesting and I hope great things.

So I urge you all, if you have a passion and think you have something that will make people’s lives better, go out and start something, work hard, and keep dreaming.

Related articles

• Eastern Europe’s Startups After the Seedcamp: Zemanta, Brainient, Codility and UberVU Revisited (goaleurope.wordpress.com)
• Y Combinator Challenged By Growing Seedcamp (forbes.com)

I’d like to invite you along to a Mozilla Meetup in Dublin, Ireland on November 2. Mozilla products have been translated into Irish for many years (thanks to the great work of Kevin Scannell and others). Unfortunately as Irish is spoken only be a small minority, this does not provide broad coverage country-wide. The majority would use English versions, and while there is a strong user base, the last time I checked the Firefox market share was much less than countries and regions in mainland Europe.

We want to move things to the next level, getting more active contributors on board in other areas of Mozilla and setting up a permanent community (aka Mozilla Ireland). See how you can get involved[1].

EVENT DETAILS

When: Wednesday, November 2 · 6:00pm – 10:00pm

Where: The Odeon, on Harcourt Street.

Description: Do you want to know more about Mozilla, the organisation behind the groundbreaking Firefox browser? Do you want to become involved in the global Mozilla movement? No coding skills required, though folks with them are of course welcome. Come along and find out more.

Format: It will be an evening of presentations and discussions, with drinks and snacks provided.

Sign up on the Facebook event page[2], or if you are not on Facebook just get in touch with me or drop a comment here. We need to get a feel for numbers attending. Note also the wiki page[3]. We’ll be updating these pages with more information in the coming days.

SPEAKING

The schedule is still open, so if you would like to speak about a Mozilla contribution you made or a project you worked on, let me know. If you are attending the Mozilla Festival in London, this is a great opportunity to hop across the pond beforehand.

DUBLIN WEB SUMMIT

I’ll be at the Dublin Web Summit the week before the meetup. If you want to meet me for more details, get in touch. Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe will be making a keynote speech on Thursday 27th.

GOAL

Plant the seeds for a permanent active community in Ireland.

See you there!

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/

[2] http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=249984621718594

[3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla_Meetup_Dublin_2011

Image by jmtosses via Flickr

Last week saw Firefox updated to version 7. I’m not sure if other communities party any more with the rapid release cycle, but we used it as an excuse not only to party but to talk about the latest happenings with Mozilla. Web Hour (Spletne urice in Slovene), our beloved technology meetup that happens every Wednesday, was hijacked for this purpose. We moved location for once to try something different, and were graciously welcomed by our hosts Zemanta in their fancy new offices in the middle of Ljubljana. Big shout out to Rok and Gasper for going the extra mile in organisation.

For the schedule, we wanted to cover the latest important happenings and projects in Mozilla. Even though it was Firefox release day, the general theme was that the Web is evolving fast, and so is Mozilla to meet the challenges. While 5 years ago focus in Mozilla shifted almost wholly to Firefox, the wheel has turned again and Firefox is just one tool of many (though still the most important) to keep the Web open and fight for users.

SCHEDULE

Nino and I split the speaking duties. Nino, the youngest Mozilla Slovenia member showed off why he makes a fine Mozilla Rep.

• Firefox Release Channels
• New Developer Tools
• B2G
• WebFWD
• ReMo

SUMMARY

In short form, it went like this…

• Good turnout, standing room only for the presentations
• The topics we chose were spot on, lots of interest and questions
• Dev tools demos wowed. Thanks Matjaz for helping me get them set up
• Nice conversations after
• We didn’t recruit anyone new for mozilla.si or ReMo, but maybe a seed was planted that will grow later

RANDOM COVERAGE

If I missed anything here, let me know. I’ll update this post once I dig up some pictures. The video of the talks will pop up on Kiberpipa Video soon.

Tweets

• We tried with “first 5 RTs get a T-shirt at the event”
• This tweet alone generated 19 RTs: https://twitter.com/#!/mathjazz/status/118320392275374080
• https://twitter.com/#!/alesrosina/status/119101494711697410
• https://twitter.com/#!/wwwh/status/119103552344961024
• https://twitter.com/#!/skrat/status/119097755984601088
• https://twitter.com/#!/friedcell/status/119097123055747072
• https://twitter.com/#!/wwwh/status/119101800371585026
• https://twitter.com/#!/connectslo/status/118771581983014912
• https://twitter.com/#!/alesrosina/status/119104063274094592
• https://twitter.com/#!/wwwh/status/119110863176212481
• https://twitter.com/#!/brianking/status/119786869159510021
• https://twitter.com/#!/brianking/status/119170118180806656

Blog Posts

• http://mozilla.si/2011/09/21/ze-spet-novi-firefox/
• http://www.zemanta.com/blog/firefox-party/
• http://wwwh.si/spletne-urice-180-firefox-7-release-party-at-zemanta/
• http://www.kiberpipa.org/sl/event/180-firefox-7-release-party-zemanta-1429/

Related articles

• Mozilla Firefox 7 Comes with Memory Handling Improvements (news.dice.com)

Picture by Peter ?uhalev

There are other reasons why I talk at and attend events:

In the spirit of making something a little more permanent from all this, I’ve made an Events and Speaking page to catalog what I hope will not only act as a memory for me, but that others can stumble upon to find something useful. I’ve linked slides, videos, pictures, and other relevant materials.

Mostly I talk about Mozilla, and I am very grateful that Mozilla has sponsored me so many times. You can get involved too. If you want to become a more active Mozillian, or just solidify your role in the community, please consider joining the Mozilla Reps program. There has never been a better or more interesting time than now in the evolution of the Web to get involved, as outlined in recent posts by Tristan Nitot and Gervase Markham. Game on indeed!

One of the short brainstorming sessions was for the ReMo add-on that I will be starting shortly. Let me know if you want to get involved. There are plans for a Mobile version and perhaps a native Mobile app, but here I will talk only about the desktop Firefox add-on. The basic idea is to use Jetpack technology and split development into 2 phases. The add-on is primarily aimed at Mozilla Reps but I can see it being useful to anyone who is interested in the program.

Add-on Whiteboarding

Version 1

Version 2+

Pretty Install

USAGE:

• It only works for remote installs. For local installs, the current dialog shows.
• Clicking anywhere outside the doorhanger dismisses it and cancels the install.
• Switching to a new tab or window when the doorhanger is open cancels the install.

If you feel like it is an experiment worth pursuing further, the source is available on github.

Huge thanks to Sylvain Pasche for his work on the original patch and help in turning it into an add-on.

If you don’t know what Mozilla and Firefox are all about, watch this video.

Watch with subtitles in some languages here.

Can’t see the video? Get Firefox! Alternatively, watch here.

Collections in Firefox 4

Can’t see the image? Click here.