Open Source Innovation at Mozilla Corporation

Transcription

ITSY/064
ICMR Center for Management Research
This case was written by V. Namratha Prasad, under the direction of Vivek Gupta, ICMR Center for Management Research
(ICMR). It was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion rather than to
illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation.
 2010, ICMR. All rights reserved.
To order copies, call +91-40-2343-0462/63 or write to ICMR, Plot # 49, Nagarjuna Hills, Hyderabad 500 082, India or email
[email protected].
www.icmrindia.org
ITSY/064
“…Firefox is only a part of what’s necessary for the Internet to remain open and participatory.
Firefox needs to remain strong enough and innovative enough that we’re able to continue to show
the industry that you can give people control or choice in an elegant manner and still be a
professional vendor and that there are revenue opportunities in this.”1
-
Mitchell Baker, Chairman and Chief Lizard Wrangler of Mozilla Corporation, in
January 2008.
“Baker and Mozilla are wrestling with new questions about the boundaries between communities
and the corporation. She’s creating a new management model based on engaging a business
ecosystem.”2
-
Siobhan O’ Mahony, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, in February
2007.
INTRODUCTION
On January 21, 2010, Mozilla Corporation (Mozilla) launched the latest version of its popular Web
browser – Firefox 3.6. According to the company, when compared to the previous versions, the
new version had several novel features and was faster and more responsive, apart from being retooled to work on small devices Over the years, Mozilla had won several awards for its
innovations including ‘Browser of the Year’ from the Linux community in 2009, American
Business Award’s ‘Most Innovative Company’ in 2008, and InfoWorld’s ‘Best of Open Source
Software’ Award in 2008.
Founded in 2005, the US-based Mozilla was the for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit organization
– Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla was considered to be a major force in the field of open source
innovation. The company provided the source code of its software and invited developer
communities consisting of both individuals and large companies to develop new functionalities
and software products. It also recruited the services of the developer community to test its
products, detect bugs, and offer areas of improvement.
Analysts credited Mitchell Baker (Baker), the Chairman of Mozilla, with laying the ground rules
for a complex organization like Mozilla, wherein most of the projects were extensively dependent
on the outsiders. Baker helped define a functional model that took into account the diverse ideas,
needs, and opinions of the community, before making strategic decisions and afterward in
executing projects. In addition, she designed process frameworks and maintained the financial
viability of the projects.
Over the years, Mozilla launched several software products. The Firefox browser, which was first
launched in late 2004, emerged as its most successful product. Through Firefox, the company
introduced several innovative features in browsing, like the ability to accept add-on
customizations, tabbed browsing, pop-up ad blocking, etc. Most analysts observed that when
1
2
Lenny T. Mendonca and Robert Sutton, “Succeeding at Open-Source Innovation: An Interview with
Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker,” www.ciozone.com, 2008.
David H. Freedman, “Mitchell Baker and the Firefox Paradox,” www.inc.com, February 01, 2007.
1
compared to the dominant Web browser – Microsoft Corporation’s (Microsoft)3 Internet Explorer
(IE) – Firefox offered higher security against spyware, malware, and hacking. David Michaux,
CEO of ScanIT4, said, “…around 98% of the Internet Explorer users were exposed to online
threats during 2004; 200 days out of the whole 2004 (54% of last year) was dominated by
activities specific to this worm or virus which exploited browser’s vulnerabilities. As a
comparison, Firefox was only left unprotected to known vulnerabilities for 56 days last year; the
open-source online browsing solution seems to rule.”5
Instead of traditional advertising, Mozilla used the community to promote and market the software
products it developed. Its marketing initiatives included asking community members to identify
blogs and websites that would be ready to carry the ‘Download Firefox’ button, inviting Firefox
users to submit videos that talked about the features of Firefox that Mozilla later used to promote
the browser, and using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. to create a buzz about
Firefox.
As of early 2010, Firefox usage was growing rapidly and it was the second most used browser in
the world. However, the company was expected to face major challenges in increasing its browser
usage because of the competition it faced from a slew of new browsers like Chrome from Google
Inc. (Google)6 and Safari from Apple Inc. (Apple)7. Mozilla was looking for opportunities to create
new revenue streams by including third-party plug-ins to the browser and by adapting Firefox for
mobile phones. Moreover, Mozilla planned to continue introducing other innovations using open
source software.
BACKGROUND NOTE
The Netscape Navigator Internet browser, introduced in 1994 by Netscape Communications
(Netscape)8, was the most widely used browser between 1995 and 1998. However, by the late
1990s, it lost its position to Microsoft’s IE. Analysts opined that the major reason for IE’s
popularity was that it came bundled with the Windows Operating System. This particular action of
Microsoft was later deemed by the US Justice Department as an illegal monopolistic business
practice.
In 1998, in a bid to salvage its falling market position and compete against Microsoft, Netscape
made the Communicator – a suite of e-mail and other programs that also contained an embedded
Navigator browser – an ‘open-source’ product, wherein the programming code was accessible to
3
4
5
6
7
8
Microsoft founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen is one of the largest multinational companies that
developed, manufactured, licensed and supported a wide range of software products for computing
devices. The IE was introduced by the company in 1995 and by 2010; it had launched eight versions of
the popular web browser.
ScanIT is a US-based IT consultancy company that offers specialized services in network security.
Through a range of penetration tests, vulnerability assessments and web application audits, it measures the
vulnerability of a company’s IT security systems.
“FireFox Better than IE?” http://news.softpedia.com, March 23, 2005.
Google, founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, was the world’s largest Internet search company
as of 2010. It hosted and offered a number of Internet-based services and products.
Apple, founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, is a US-based multinational
company that designs and manufactures consumer electronics, computer software, and commercial
servers.
The flagship product of Netscape, founded in 1994 in the US, was the Navigator web browser that had a
usage share of 90% in the mid-1990s. The prominent technologies developed by the company were the
Secure Sockets Layer Protocol (SSL) for securing online communication and JavaScript, a language for
client-side scripting of web pages.
2
all. In February 1998, Netscape created the Mozilla9 Organization (Mozilla Org) – an independent
entity made up of a few Netscape employees – to control the open source code and ensure that the
products created were outside the control of the company. The entire interaction of Mozilla Org
with the developer community happened through the website, Mozilla.org.
Baker, a lawyer, who joined Netscape in 1994, was given the task of developing a software license
for Mozilla Org that would allow people to make changes to the source code, without giving them
the authority to claim it as a proprietary product. Over a period of time, Baker’s ability to handle
the highly complex open source community and skill at finding a common ideology among the
conflicting software development needs, earned her the position of head of Mozilla Org.
In 1999, Netscape was acquired by AOL Inc.10 (AOL) for US$ 4.2 billion. With the intention of
cutting down on the expenses in Mozilla Org, AOL laid off Baker. However, Baker, who had by
then become a well-known person in the open-source community, chose to remain as an unpaid
volunteer at Mozilla Org. After a year, a non-profit organization called Open Source Applications
Foundation11 – in a bid to support Baker’s contribution to Mozilla Org – restored a part of her
former salary.
In 2002, Mozilla Org released its first product called Mozilla 1.0 – a set of Internet applications
with programs for e-mail, online chat, bulletin boards, etc. and an embedded Web browser.
However, Mozilla 1.0 failed to make an impact and analysts observed that this was because it did
not offer any new functionality. They pointed out that users did not feel any need for Mozilla 1.0,
as IE was the dominant browser and there were several other simple programs for email, etc.
However, Mozilla Org soon realized that not everything was right with IE and users had several
issues with the browser’s security. It discovered that Microsoft’s desire to make the IE work with a
variety of Web applications had led to its providing the IE with ActiveX controls or VB script that
allowed certain software to be downloaded and installed onto a user’s system without their
knowledge. This meant that while using IE, a user’s software was vulnerable to attacks from
hackers, spammers, and others causing them to encounter viruses, continual pop-up windows,
malware, and spyware. Baker believed that by developing and offering a product that would
provide users with a safe browsing experience, Mozilla Org would be able to break IE’s
hegemony.
At that time, two software developers – Blake Ross and David Hyatt – had started work on
developing a stand-alone browser, independent of the Mozilla 1.0’s suite of applications.
Impressed with their work, Mozilla Org decided to concentrate its efforts on developing an
independent browser. In late 2002, it released a browser called Phoenix, which, it said, was simpler
and more secure than IE. Phoenix had a central program that only had a few basic features for
viewing a website. However, the programmers could write in “extensions” that extended the
functionality of the Web browser, while users had the option of choosing the features they desired
in the browser. By early 2003, Phoenix began to gain popularity among the tech community.
In May 2003, Mozilla Org faced a major setback when AOL signed a deal with Microsoft to make
IE its default browser for a period of seven years and then laid off all the Netscape programmers
working at Mozilla Org. Baker then began drawing the attention of the computer industry leaders
to the pitfalls associated with Microsoft’s domination of Web browsing technology. She pointed
9
10
11
The name Mozilla was derived from the term “Mosaic-killer”, wherein ‘Mosaic’ was the first popular web
browser that was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), US.
AOL, founded in 1983 as Quantum Computer Services, is a US-based Internet services and media
company. It merged with entertainment conglomerate Time Warner in 2001, but was later spun-off as a
separate company in 2009.
Open Source Applications Foundation, a non-profit organization, was founded in 2002 by Mitch Kapor,
founder of Lotus Software. The mission of the foundation included the creation and adoption of open
source software products.
3
out that if IE became the sole Internet browser, Microsoft would be able to determine the technical
standards for websites, thereby making the Internet inaccessible for users of Linux and other nonMicrosoft software.
Baker’s efforts paid off when Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Software12, provided US$ 300,000 to
Mozilla Org, while software companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc., and Red Hat Inc.
offered the services of their programmers. In July 2003, goaded by Baker, AOL decided to lessen
its involvement with Mozilla Org and consequently set up a non-profit organization called the
Mozilla Foundation (MF) that was open to donations from all, to aid the development of open
source software products. AOL itself contributed US$ two million to the Foundation, over a twoyear period and also provided it with hardware and other intellectual property.
In November 2004, the MF released Firefox 1.0, an advanced version of the Phoenix browser. Due
to trademark and copyright infringement issues13, the Phoenix was renamed as Firebird and then
later as Firefox (See Exhibit I for various logos used during the development of Firefox). Most
analysts opined that the Firefox offered quite a large number of add-ons14 and a lower number of
vulnerabilities, when compared to IE.
CHANGE IN FUNCTIONING
In 2005, the MF entered into a deal with Google, after which it installed a Google search box in
the Firefox browser. The search giant agreed to provide the MF with a portion of the ad revenue
obtained when a user clicked on a sponsored link that came up with the search results, when using
the Google search box. Later, the MF signed a similar deal with Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo)15.
While the MF made US$ six million in 2004, the revenue in 2005 was US$ 53 million. It further
increased to US$ 70 million in fiscal 2006, which was three times more than the expenses it
incurred. The payments from Google accounted for about 85% of the organization’s revenue in
fiscal 2006. However, some analysts questioned the influence that money would have on the nonprofit objective of the MF.
The profit-earning potential of the software products also raised several legal and tax related issues
for the organization. Several analysts observed that negotiating large deals with multinational
corporations meant that a particular entity had to have a certain authority and maintain discretion,
which was not possible for a non-profit organization. Moreover, in order to gain a favorable tax
status, non-profits had high public disclosure requirements and limitations on indulging in moneymaking activities and that placed restrictions on the way organizations like the MF conducted
business.
Therefore, in a bid to conserve the business interests, the MF established a for-profit subsidiary
called Mozilla Corporation in August 2005. This was expected to make it easier for the new firm,
which was a taxable entity, to enter into transactions and maintain secrecy. Consequently, it would
12
13
14
15
Lotus was founded in 1982 by Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs. Its most popular product was the Lotus
1-2-3 spreadsheet application. It was purchased by IBM in 1995 for US$ 3.5 billion.
The name Phoenix was changed to Firebird because of copyright issues that arose with another computer
software company, Phoenix Technologies Limited. Later, the name Firebird faced a controversy, when it
came to light that Firebird was the name of an open source relational database management system that
ran on GNU/Linux, Windows, and a variety of UNIX platforms.
As of March 10, 2010, according to softpedia.com, there were 11,637 Firefox add-ons that included
extensions, themes, language packs, and plug-ins. Mozilla claimed that it had the most number of add-ons
among all browsers. Some of the extensions of the Firefox were ChatZilla (for chatting), SimilarWeb
(offered similar sites), and FoxyTunes (controlled external media players).
Yahoo, founded in 1995 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, provided a range of Internet services that included
search engine, mail, and web portal.
4
be in a better position to handle project and policy issues. Baker and her management team were
made a part of Mozilla’s Board of Directors that was responsible to the MF’s Board of Directors.
They were asked to manage the development, distribution, sponsorship, and marketing of Mozilla
Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, while the MF continued to manage some projects such as
Camino and SeaMonkey. The MF’s role included the supervision of projects, distributing source
code, and forging of relationships between the contributors. While three employees remained with
the MF, the rest of the employees, numbering about 40, were transferred to Mozilla.
According to industry experts, the establishment of a subsidiary was expected to further the MF’s
objective of maintaining choice and innovation on the Internet. According to the website,
Mozillazine.com, which reported on Mozilla, “Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will
be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be
issued, and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock
market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The
Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property
and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the
source code repository and control who is allowed to check in.”16
However, the establishment of a private company by the MF caused some discomfort among a part
of the community, who felt the organization was “selling out” to the needs of the mainstream and
business users and that it went against the community principles on which Mozilla was built.
Speaking on this issue, Tristan Nitot, a Spokesman for Mozilla in Europe, said, “It’s not the case
that someone is taking Firefox and making a lot of money. The revenue we have made is almost
accidental, it was not initially expected but it happened, so we needed to evolve the legal structure
and fiscal structure to reflect this.”17 Mozilla assured volunteers and the community that they
would not be able to discern any change in the development process at Mozilla.
Over a period of time, Mozilla continued to release new versions of the Firefox (See Table I for
versions and release dates of Firefox). The major innovations in browsing introduced through the
Firefox included an embedded pop-up ad blocker, the tabbed browsing option using which users
could open more than one window at a time, an integrated spell-checker, a word finder with no
separate dialog box, and a search function that offered to find a word as it was typed.
Table I
Versions and Release Dates of Firefox
VERSION
RELEASE DATE
Firefox 1.5
November 29, 2005
Firefox 2.0
October 24, 2006
Firefox 3.0
June 17, 2008
Firefox 3.5
June 30, 2009
Firefox 3.6
January 21, 2010
Compiled from various sources.
16
17
“Mozilla Foundation Announces Creation of Mozilla Corporation,” http://web.archive.org, August 03,
2005.
James Niccolai, “Mozilla Goes Corporate,” www.pcworld.com, August 03, 2005.
5
OPEN SOURCE INNOVATION
Analysts opined that one of the major reasons for constant innovation at Mozilla was that it used
open source software and invited community co-operation in developing new products. They
added that as Mozilla developed consumer-oriented products targeted at the mass market – unlike
other entities that worked with open source software – it had to be more market-oriented and bring
products to the market faster.
Mozilla was a complex organization that included paid and volunteer staff members, people from
other companies who were paid to work on the company’s products, and thousands of volunteers.
As of 2009, it had about 250 employees who were geographically dispersed over the world in
places like Toronto, Tokyo, and Paris. However, the major portion of the software product
development at Mozilla was done by over 200,000 (as of 2007) volunteer community members.
Baker said, “I’d say we need both to be successful. If you took away our employees, we’d be a
good open-source project but nothing like a force on the Internet. If you took away the volunteers
and everyone else, we would die.”18
According to Baker, there were certain people with the requisite expertise and specialization,
whom Mozilla was not in a position to hire but they contributed to the software development
process at the company, as it had open source projects. Through the website Mozilla.org, the
company invited volunteers to work on its various projects and it mentioned the capacity in which
they could contribute the requisite expertise and the time required to be devoted (See Exhibit II to
know more about the way volunteers can participate at Mozilla).
Baker said that about 40% of the Firefox code had been developed by the volunteers, apart from
the thousands of add-ons that were regularly submitted for approval to Mozilla. There were also
other applications including MathML, the IRC client ‘Chatzilla,’ the XML parser, the Active X
component, Linux plug-in support, plain-text processing, Java integration, bi-directional language
support, and XML-RPC, wherein the volunteers had developed and contributed new features.
Mozilla also had a community of “bug reporters” – volunteers who tested the software products by
downloading the latest prototype, identifying bugs, and giving suggestions on certain aspects that
needed improvement. Mozilla volunteers even offered customer support to the users by writing
support articles for Firefox and by providing support through Web, telephone, IM, and e-mail.
In addition, Mozilla had several spin-off projects and allowed some companies to use Mozilla
technology to develop new software products. Sherman Dickman, Product Management Director
of Mozilla, provided an idea about these interactions that created Mozilla’s value network through
a diagram (See Figure I for more information about Mozilla’s value network).
18
6
Figure I
Information about Mozilla’s Value Network
Web
Services/
licenses to
supports
Extension
Developers
Distribution
Partners
Mozilla
Corporation
extends
distributes
t
contributes to
Mozilla
Foundation
supports
Firefox
Project
Fire
fox
builds
promotes
Firefox
Users
deploys to
contributes to
promotes
Friends,
Family,
Coworkers
etc.
support
IT
Administrators
Open Source
Community
Web Content
Authors
Application
Developers
Source: “Firefox Open Innovation Model,” http://quilombo.wordpress.com, March 20, 2008.
Analysts opined that community-driven organizations like Mozilla needed a superior kind of
leadership to provide guidance and motivation to the diverse band of volunteers, to make them
work as a team. They believed that volunteers were not like employees and would not tolerate
incompetent and unjust managers and would instead choose to walk away from the project. They
also pointed out that the lack of rules and regulations meant that it was difficult to direct the work
of the volunteers. Hence, leaders in such organizations needed to adopt a combination of
persuasion and inspiration to get the work done by the volunteers.
Analysts pointed out that Baker, despite not having any programming experience, had skill and
expertise at managing large communities to work cohesively and had proved to be a capable leader
who had achieved results and maintained financial viability. Commending the way Baker had
managed the disparate group of volunteers, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor, Business
Administration Program, University of Washington, said, “Just because it’s open source doesn't
mean it’s open door. To get anywhere, you have to win the respect of an elite group of people who
develop code.”19
19
“A Look at Would-Be Microsoft Killer,” www.rediff.com, March 5, 2007.
7
Baker believed that the community deserved to be associated with everything that Mozilla did, as
they did a better job in developing strategy than a group of managers. All the weekly meetings at
Mozilla were open to all, with the date, time, agenda and chat co-ordinates published online. For
the most part, the community decided the direction of a particular project and also determined who
would be given a particular assignment. Mozilla claimed to follow meritocracy, wherein a person
who proved his/her talent and diligence was given the crucial job and was gradually elevated to
leadership position in a project (See Exhibit III to know more about the roles and leadership at
Mozilla).
THE CHALLENGES FACED
However, the participatory model of functioning raised several tricky management issues, like a
long winded decision-making process and a lack of secrecy. Baker pointed out to two major
problems with developing open source software – “stop energy” and “loners”. Stop energy was a
condition in group decision making wherein good ideas failed to materialize, thereby bringing to a
halt the innovation process. On the other hand, loners were a part of the developer community,
who forged ahead with their ideas without concern for others, thereby delaying progress and
creating antipathy and divisiveness in the developer community.
In order to overcome these problems, Baker adopted an approach called “layers of the onion.” In
this process, small and specialized groups containing highly motivated members of the developer
community screened ideas and gathered information about promising ones. Afterward, the best
ideas from these groups were refined by comparatively larger groups. Finally, the most promising
ideas were introduced for discussion to the entire community. This approach resulted in a hybrid
organization at Mozilla, where the decision making process was dispersed and transparent. In
addition, it provided a certain level of secrecy and also an opportunity to make quick decisions in
certain scenarios.
Similarly, frameworks were formulated so that people could work on software development
projects in a decentralized manner. For developing the source code of Firefox, an intensely
disciplined development process was designed. A more relaxed process was designed for
experimentation and for developing an extension, localizing the product, or building a new product
(See Exhibit IV to know more about the project development process of a Mozilla Project –
SeaMonkey).
Baker facilitated the continuity of the innovation process by taking measures to minimize
troublesome behavior in the community, giving freedom to programmers to undertake certain
activities, and providing encouragement, whenever needed. She thought that people who were
comfortable with living “life in the fishbowl” and were open to constructive criticism would suit
Mozilla’s particular organizational model. Speaking about the ideal person to work for Mozilla,
she said, “Typically, people whose motivations line up very strongly with either our mission or our
technical vision. Also, people who can handle large amounts of their work being public. People
here are following the bugs; they’re watching each other, watching their progress. They know how
quickly you’re working, and they know if you’re stuck on something. So you have to be able to
live not just your social life in public but your work life as well.”20
20
8
THE MARKETING STRATEGIES
While the management of open source innovation was a crucial issue for Mozilla, marketing the
products developed also proved to be a significant challenge. The entire marketing effort of
Mozilla focused on using the sense of ownership, inherent in the Firefox developer community to
make them undertake measures to promote Firefox.
In late 2004, Asa Dotzler (Dotzler) who served as a liaison between the “bug reporters” and the
programmers at Mozilla, came up with the idea of using the non-technical community to promote
Firefox 1.0. He helped create a website called Spreadfirefox.com that invited membership from
people who were keen to promote Firefox 1.0. Dotzler gave the Spread Firefox members the task
of generating a million Firefox 1.0 downloads within 10 days of its launch. To do this, they were
asked to spot blogs and websites that might be eager to encourage the adoption of Firefox 1.0.
That the initiative had succeeded was evident from the fact that within a short period of time,
thousands of sites and blogs began carrying the “Download Firefox” button. Firefox 1.0 attained
one million downloads in four days and 10 million downloads within a month. In December 2004,
a group of 10,000 Mozilla marketing volunteers, each contributing US$ 30, took out a two-page ad
in the New York Times21 for Firefox that also listed the names of the contributors. Mozilla said that
within a year, the number of marketer volunteers for Mozilla touched 100,000, while Firefox was
downloaded, on an average, 250,000 times each day.
Over a period of time, the Spread Firefox website emerged as the epicenter of all Firefox related
marketing activities and a meeting place for the Firefox development community. The three main
aspects of the Spread Firefox community were that Firefox users could join the community to
contribute to the ongoing development projects; interact with other users through message boards;
and contribute to the “spread” of Firefox by posting buttons and getting others to join the Firefox
affiliate program. In 2006, Mozilla asked users to submit 30-second videos that depicted the
various features of the browser to Firefoxflicks.com. The company used these videos to attract
users and get them to download Firefox.
Mozilla also took steps to encourage user participation in the Firefox community, beyond the usual
coding and distribution. It formed a website called Mozillalabs.com, wherein users were provided
with the opportunity to view and provide feedback on new features being introduced in the
browser. The company also set up another website called communitystore.mozilla.org, where users
could create and sell the t-shirts designed by them, apart from buying t-shirts of their choice from
the 124 designs on offer. Mozilla also created a “Campus Reps” program to reach out and attract
college students to Firefox, thereby encouraging word-of-mouth marketing. In July 2008, Mozilla
set a new Guinness World Record with its Firefox 3 browser, when it attained the largest number
of software downloads — about 8,002,530 in 24 hours.
In 2009, in order to promote Firefox 3.5, Mozilla again solicited user-made videos at
FastestFirefox.com. Mozilla also used social networks to advertise Firefox, invited user
participation in guerilla marketing efforts, and provided tools and materials for users to host their
own events that promoted the browser. Most analysts were of the opinion that Mozilla’s marketing
initiatives had set new standards for software marketing and exhibited the finest example of
grassroots marketing.
21
New York Times, founded in 1851, is published in New York. As of 2010, it was the third largest
circulated daily in the US.
9
THE ROAD AHEAD
As of early 2010, Mozilla continued to draw an increasing number of volunteers both for its
development, as well as marketing initiatives. Apart from Mozilla.org that continued to serve as
the epicenter of all Mozilla related developer activity, several different sites, forums, blogs, and
newsgroups in different places came up and began to track different parts of a particular Mozilla
project (See Exhibit V to know more about some of the projects of Mozilla). Mozilla
maintained that it had no intention of changing its method of functioning and would not go in for
an initial public offering (IPO) anytime soon in the future.
According to web analytics firm, Net Applications22 , as of February 2010, Firefox had a 24.23%
market share in global usage, while IE had a share of 61.58% (See Exhibit VI to know more
about the global usage share of various browsers). Even though IE remained the most dominant
Web browser, Firefox continued to grow rapidly, thereby proving to be a tough competitor. The
higher rate of adoption meant that most website developers, including Microsoft, ensured that their
Web pages worked with the browser. Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s Vice President of Engineering, said,
“When we got to Firefox, in some ways it was overnight success. Our initial growth was more than
we’d ever hoped for. From where we started this undertaking – the strategic context within
Netscape – to being the single biggest force behind the rebirth of the browser as an interesting
software category...It’s a pretty amazing end point.”23
According to industry experts, Mozilla opined that its future growth depended on making the
Firefox appealing to the mainstream users and maintaining the loyalty of the tech savvy early
adopters. John Lilly (Lilly), CEO of Mozilla, said, “We have to do both. We have to be a better
browser for your standard everyday user of the Web who uses IE now, but I think we have to
redouble our efforts to be good for Web developers.”24
Some analysts expected Mozilla to face tough challenges in the future as it was competing against
software giants Microsoft, Google, and Apple (its Web browser Safari was the fourth most used
browser as of 2010). Speaking about the competition, Lilly said, “That’s not the business model
you are going to pick. It is a daunting space to compete with the three giants of the era.”25
Earlier, in September 2008, Google had launched its Web browser, the Google Chrome. This made
analysts question the future of Mozilla’s arrangement with Google, the termination of which was
expected to adversely affect Mozilla’s future revenues. Ray Valdes, Research Director at
Technology Research firm, Gartner, Inc., said, “Firefox needs Google more than Google needs
Firefox, and that situation will only become more pronounced as Chrome gains new users.”26
Baker herself expressed doubts on Google renewing its contract with the company in 2011. She
said that Mozilla was considering other alternatives to generate revenue and was on the lookout for
new partners. In early 2010, Mozilla came out with a version of the Firefox for mobile phones
called Fennec using the same engine as the desktop Firefox 3.6 and with similar features. As of
2010, Fennec was available on certain Nokia phones and analysts expected it to become a
significant source of revenue in the future.
22
23
24
25
26
Net Applications, founded in 1999, is a US-based company that provides usage share statistics for web
browsers and operating systems. The statistics are provided on a month to month basis for free and on an
hourly basis as a paid service.
Stephen Shankland, “After 5 Years, Firefox Faces New Challenges,” http://news.cnet.com, November 09,
2009.
“Firefox’s Crossroads: Cutting-Edge or Mainstream?” www.global-creations.com, November 07, 2009.
Ina Fried, “Mozilla Executives Address Firefox’s Challenges,” www.zdnetasia.com, May 29, 2009.
Douglas MacMillan, “Mozilla Contemplates a Future without Google,” www.businessweek.com, March
12, 2009.
10
Some analysts thought that Mozilla would tie up with other companies to provide some of their
services through plug-ins with the browser, thereby earning additional revenues. Baker said, “It’s
not hard to monetize the browser. There have been more opportunities for money than people
think. There are probably other search engines that would pay us more money.”27 However, she
felt that Google would also lose significantly if it cut off ties with Mozilla, as the search giant
would be letting go off the most worthy contender to IE.
Some analysts opined that the absence of the Google search box and the provision of another
search box in its place could turn some users off the browser. John Battelle, an Internet
entrepreneur and author, said, “It’s possible that Firefox’s adoption rate could decline if Firefox
users felt they were getting Microsoft or Yahoo shoved down their throat.”28 Mozilla dismissed
such misgivings and said that it had always provided users with the option of changing their search
engine and would continue to do so.
Mozilla said that the launch of Google’s Chrome provided it with the necessary impetus to
improve Firefox’s performance and clarified a few of its priorities. It said that it was moving
toward a faster release cycle, improving user-perceptible performance metrics (time to start-up,
time to open a new tab, etc), enhancing responsiveness, and striving to increase the space for Web
content in its browser.
As of March 2010, Mozilla had plans to continue with its innovations using its open source
software. In addition, it planned to support new Web standards and endeavored to improve
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), thereby making it more capable for programming and
display. Lilly said, “There are still a lot people who think the Web is done – there’s this big
mission accomplished banner. It’s not true. There are many proprietary technologies, many walled
gardens with respect to video and offline technology. There is still is a lot of the Open Web fight to
fight.”29
27
George Norman, “No Google Love or Firefox 3.5 Final on the Horizon,” www.findmysoft.com, March 17,
2009.
28
Douglas MacMillan, “Mozilla Contemplates a Future without Google,” www.businessweek.com, March
12, 2009.
29
“Firefox’s Crossroads: Cutting-Edge or Mainstream?” www.global-creations.com, November 07, 2009.
11
Exhibit I
Various Logos Used During the Development of Firefox
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mozilla_Firefox_logo_history.png
Exhibit II
Methods of Participation at Mozilla
AREA OF
INTEREST
Web Browser
Choice
Mozilla asked users about the importance of having a choice
of browser and asked them to help spread the word about the
options provided by Mozilla.
User Support
It offered them a chance to provide support for Firefox,
Thunderbird, and other Mozilla projects.
Localization
It invited users to make Mozilla projects like Firefox,
Thunderbird, etc. available in the language of the user. It
also asked them to translate content on its websites.
Testing and
Quality
Assurance
The company said that it was the easiest way for a person to
get involved with Mozilla projects. It invited users to help it
hunt down bugs in Firefox, Thunderbird, and other projects
or to test Mozilla websites to make sure that they were
providing the best possible experience for people online.
Marketing and
Evangelism
It provided opportunities to promote Mozilla to users,
developers, and students.
Add-ons
It invited users to learn how to build an add-on which
involved making small tweaks or major additions. For
experienced developers, it offered the opportunity to become
an AMO editor.
Coding
It invited users to hack its websites and offered them access
to code repositories, processes, and tools, in an endeavor to
improve the product.
Visual Design
It invited artists to come up with designs inspired by Mozilla
to be used in t-shirts and other creative ventures.
Interface
Design and
It invited participation in a Test Pilot to try out the newest
and coolest user-interface ideas and in a Design Challenge to
inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla
12
TIME
AVAILABLE
Usability
project, and the Web as a whole. It also invited discussion
on usability issues.
Developer
Documentation
It invited users to make its documentation better by writing
new content, correcting existing material, or translating
content into new languages.
A Few Minutes
It invited users to participate in Firefox support forums by
answering queries, spreading the word about Firefox,
Thunderbird, and Mozilla by adding a button to their blog,
Facebook page, or website, help to make its projects better
by submitting a crash report if an application unexpectedly
quit and make a donation to the Mozilla Foundation.
A Few Hours
It invited users to read through its localization pages to find
out how to start a new localization or join an existing team,
perform an Internet Health Check for friends and families to
make sure they enjoyed a safe experience on the Web, stop
by on a test day to find, reproduce, and resolve bugs, and
pick a topic from the documentation wish list and make the
Mozilla Developer Center even better.
A Few Weeks
Or More
It invited users to spend a semester learning about open
source collaboration and contributing to the community as
part of Mozilla Education, create an add-on to add a cool
new feature to Firefox, Thunderbird, or other Mozilla
application, take part in a Mozilla Labs Design Challenge,
and inspire future directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project,
and the Web as a whole and to get access to its code
repositories by contributing patches and becoming familiar
with its review process.
Source: http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/#
Exhibit III
Roles and Leadership at Mozilla
ROLE
PARTICULARS
Module
Owners
and Peers
Module owners were in charge of managing the development of a module of code
or a community activity. This role involved the execution of tasks like approving
patches to be checked into the module or diffusing clashes among community
members.
SuperReviewers
Super-reviewers were a select group of powerful hackers who reviewed code, so
as to determine its effects on the development process and also ensured its
adherence to Mozilla coding guidelines. The super-review process followed the
code review by the module owner. In order to check in code, the approval of a
super-reviewer was required.
Release
Drivers
Release drivers provided project management for milestone releases. They gave
guidance to developers about the bugs to be fixed to achieve a particular release
and also made quiet a few management decisions.
Bugzilla
Bugzilla component owners were the default recipient of bugs filed against a
Component particular component. Component owners were expected to review bug reports
frequently, relocate bugs to correct owners, guarantee that test cases existed, track
13
Owners
the progress toward resolving important fixes, and otherwise manage the bugs in
the component. Sometimes the Bugzilla component owner and the related module
owner were the same person.
Benevolent
Dictators
Benevolent dictators were trusted members of the community who had the final
say in the case of disputes. Unlike other open source projects that had only one
person in this role, Mozilla had two people. While Brendan Eich had the final say
in technical disputes, Baker had the final say in non-technical disputes.
Source: http://www.mozilla.org/about/roles.html.
Exhibit IV
Project Development Process of the Seamonkey
The SeaMonkey project was undertaken to develop an “all-in-one internet application suite”,
based on the code of the previous Mozilla 1.0 Application Suite. While SeaMonkey 1.0 was
released in January 2006, SeaMonkey 1.1 was released in January 2007, and then SeaMonkey
2.0 was released in October 2009.
A group of active SeaMonkey developers constituted the ‘SeaMonkey Council’ that could be
contacted via the email address [email protected], which was responsible for
project and release management. It decided when to cut releases, what code to include in a
release (the release engineer of the Council was responsible for actually doing the release) and
was also the final authority for taking decisions about features when developers disagreed. It
also decided on legal issues concerning the SeaMonkey project in conjunction with MF.
Its most important responsibility was the management of the various project areas in which the
larger developer community contributed on a regular basis. Each of these areas had one owner
and several peers – people who knew the code well enough to review it. Only the owner of an
area had the authority to change code for that area.
Area Name
Description
BugZilla
Component
Owner
Peer
Neil
User Interface
(“UI tsar”)
UI
design
review
and Achieving
consistency
throughout
product
internally
externally
Themes
UI design
Neil
jag, timeless
MReimer
Neil, KaiRo
the
both
and
Classic,
Modern, Themes
general theme issues
Suite Applications
Browser
Navigator UI and parts of the suite that are
mainly used by the browser (some may be
shared with Mail or Composer to a certain
extent though)
14
Browsing tools
[UI for] Tools that
help with browser
functionality
(Bookmarks,
History,
location
bar, page info, view
source,
autocomplete etc.)
Browsing
tools:
Bookmarks
db48x
(Page Info)
Browsing
tools:
Page
Info
db48x
(Bookmarks,
ViewSource,
Autocomplete)
Browsing
tools:
ViewSource
Browsing
tools:
Autocomplete
Download & File Download Manager, Download & biesi
Handling
helper
apps, File Handling
open/save files
IanN
Privacy, Passwords UI for Passwords, Privacy,
Passwords &
& Permissions
PopUp/Image
blocking, Cookies; Permissions
Wallet
(Backend
code for most of
those is shared)
Sidebar & Search
Sidebar (including Sidebar
internal panels), web Search
search features
& Mnyromyr
MailNews
Address Book
Contacts
Standard8
& Address
book, MailNews:
VCard
support, Address Book
Address
book & Contacts
sidebar etc.
Account
Management
Configuration
Account
& Manager/Wizard,
Preferences panels,
etc.
MailNews:
Account
Management
&
Configuration
Composition
Compose
etc.
window, MailNews:
Composition
Backend
Watch
backend MailNews:
closely, make us Backend
work with it, help
improving
it;
includes:
Transmission
(receiving, sending,
receipts),
offline,
(junk) filters, storage
bugs, etc.
15
IanN
IanN
Bienvenu
Dveditz
Main
window; MailNews:
display of mails, Message
news, maybe RSS; Display
search; notifications;
drag'n'drop; etc.
Message Display
IanN
Composer
Composer
Timeless, Neil
Integration
external apps
of
of Integration
chatzilla, inspector,
venkman, calendar,
etc
Project
Organization
not real suite code,
but all the stuff
around it
SeaMonkey
Council
Project Management someone needs to
drive those things
and feel responsible
for
getting
SeaMonkey Council
decisions
SeaMonkey
Council;
KaiRo
Release
Management
get releases out the
door,
write
up
release notes
KaiRo
MoFo liaison
keep an open line
with MoFo folks and
take care of stuff we
need of them or they
need of us
KaiRo
Quality
(QA)
Assurance Testing,
bug General (for Ajschult
triaging, smoketests, things
that
bug
triaging, need triaging)
testing...
Community, User
Relations, Support
Self
Marketing/Press/PR,
web
pages,
spokesman
KaiRo
Source: http://www.seamonkey-project.org/dev/project-areas.
16
Sgautherie
Exhibit V
Some Featured Projects of Mozilla
PROJECT
APPLICATION
PARTICULARS
Mozilla
Applications
Bugzilla
It is a bug tracking system to help teams manage software
development. Organizations use this tool to get organized
and communicate effectively.
Camino
It is a Web browser optimized for Mac OS X with a Cocoa
user interface, and powerful Gecko layout engine.
Fennec
It is the code name for the project to build a browser for
mobile phones and smaller non-PC devices. It provides the
full Web experience of Firefox on the desktop on smaller
devices.
Firefox
It is an award-winning Web browser.
MozillaBased
Applications
Mozilla Labs
Experiments
Mozilla
Technologies
Lightning and
Sunbird
Lightning is a popular calendaring, scheduling, and task
management extension. Sunbird is a cross-platform
application that brings Mozilla-style ease-of-use to the
calendar.
SeaMonkey
It is the all-in-one application formerly known as the
“Mozilla Application Suite”, containing a Web browser, a
mail and newsgroups client, an HTML editor, Web
development tools, and an IRC chat client.
Thunderbird
It is Mozilla’s next generation e-mail client.
Eudora
It is a new, open source email client that joins the Eudora
user experience with Thunderbird’s powerful and flexible
framework.
GlobalMojo
It is a new Web browser that helps generate money for the
user’s favorite causes, simply by browsing the Internet.
Jetpack
It is a newly formed experiment in using open Web
technologies to enhance the browser, with the goal of
allowing anyone who can build a website to participate in
making the Web a better place to work, communicate, and
play.
Raindrop
Its mission: To make it enjoyable to participate in
conversations from people you care about, whether the
conversations are in email, on Twitter, a friend’s blog, or
as part of a social networking site.
Gecko
Gecko is the layout engine that reads Web content, such as
HTML, CSS, XUL, and JavaScript and renders it on a
user’s screen. In XUL-based applications Gecko is used to
render the application’s user interface as well.
XULRunner
XULRunner provides an environment for developers to
build XUL-based applications such as Firefox and
Thunderbird. It provides mechanisms for installing,
upgrading, and uninstalling applications.
17
Mozilla
Specifications
XUL
The XML User Interface Language (XUL) is used to build
feature-rich cross platform applications and add-ons that
extend the functionality of existing Mozilla-based
programs. Web developers will learn XUL quickly and can
start building applications right away.
Add-ons
Add-ons Site
It helps find the latest and greatest extensions, themes, and
plug-ins for Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and
Sunbird.
Source: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/
Exhibit VI
The Global Usage Share of Various Browsers
Source: http://marketshare.hitslink.com.
18
References and Suggested Readings:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Paul Festa, “Phoenix Rises from Mozilla’s Ashes,” http://news.cnet.com, April 02, 2003.
Josh McHugh, “The Firefox Explosion,” www.wired.com, February 2005.
Jena Wuu, “The Open-Source Business?” www.inc.com, August 10, 2005.
“Firefox Crosses 100 Million Download Milestone,” www.itnewsonline.com, October 21,
2005.
Ingrid Marson, “Firefox Plans Mass Marketing Drive,” http://news.cnet.com, November
26, 2005.
Richard MacManus, “How Firefox 2.0 Will Be Marketed,” www.readwriteweb.com,
October 19, 2006.
“The Inside Track on Firefox Development,” http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben, 20032007.
Nancy Gohring, “Safari for Windows: All about the Money?” http://abcnews.go.com,
June 15, 2007.
Deepti Dhaval, “Mozilla Offers New Version of Firefox to Developers,”
http://news.ebrandz.com, November 26, 2007.
Henry Blodget, “The Mozilla-Firefox IPO Debate, Part 2: Mozilla Responds,”
www.businessinsider.com, January 3, 2008.
Henry Blodget, “The Mozilla / Firefox IPO*” www.businessinsider.com, January 3, 2008.
“The Mozilla Model of Participatory Innovation,” www.euractiv.com, February 7, 2008.
John Markoff, “When High-Tech Meets Social Mission,” http://articles.sfgate.com, April
20, 2008.
John Letzing, “Firefox Heats up New Browser War against Microsoft,”
www.popmatters.com, June 26, 2008.
Jennifer Leggio, “Firefox 3 and Community -- How Mozilla Used Social Networking to
Set a World Record,” http://blogs.zdnet.com, July 8, 2008.
Gregg Keizer, “Mozilla Pushes Firefox 3.0 Auto-Update,” www.pcworld.com, August 20,
2008.
Jason Kincaid, “Mozilla Extends Lucrative Deal with Google for 3 Years,”
http://techcrunch.com, August 28, 2008.
Ina Fried, “Mozilla Executives Address Firefox’s Challenges,” http://news.cnet.com, May
28, 2009.
Nitasha Tiku, “Battle of the Browsers; Stick a Fork in Joost,” www.inc.com, July 01,
2009.
Om Malik, “On Mobile Phones, Firefox’s Big Bet Is Nokia & Android,”
http://gigaom.com, October 19, 2009.
Stephen Shankland, “Firefox’s Crossroads: Cutting-edge or Mainstream?”
http://news.cnet.com, October 21, 2009.
Stephen Shankland, “Mozilla Reveals 2008 Revenue: $79 Million,” http://news.cnet.com,
November 19, 2009.
“Why is Mozilla Firefox So Popular?” http://hubpages.com, accessed on March 5, 2010.
www.mozilla.com.
www.mozilla.org.
https://mozillalabs.com.
www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/
19

Open Source Innovation at Mozilla Corporation

Transcription

Similar documents

Teacher Pages

New Parent access HO - Delaware City Schools

here - LetsMT!

ekool esitlus 06_01_10.key

Together Middlesbrough March 2015 Newsletter

workshop 1 introduction to microsoft windows and geckomail

313 – Web-based Application Attacks

The laghu kaumudi

Safe Usa Online Casinos - NC Trapshooting Association