On 04/12/2013 11:32 AM, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 6:55 AM, Rubén Martín
<[email protected]> wrote:
* Don't continue or don't start a development because "we don't
have
resources" and no volunteer was asked for help.
This particular point is a tricky one: "we don't have the resources
for this project" is often confused with "we don't think we should
focus the resources that we have on this project". But indeed there
is
an important distinction between those two reasons. Helping guide
where resources are used, and discouraging contributors (paid staff
or
otherwise) from pursuing low-value projects can be an important role
for Mozilla leaders. "The community" or "volunteers" are not an
infinite resource, and even if they were, there can be very real
coordination/communication costs to losing focus as a group.
I agree with Gavin about giving direction. I would also like to emphasize that
MoCo is a corporation and a large contributor to Mozilla but is not a dictator
in terms of Mozilla projects. If a non MoCo person or team wants to start
development of a project to which MoCo hasn't devoted resources, that does not
mean that the project will not be accepted into Mozilla. As a concrete example,
MoCo had decided to omit Linux from the initial launch of the Desktop WebRT
(Web runtime for apps). A volunteer decided that Linux should be included and
did the work, which was subsequently adopted and included in the initial
launch. WebVTT, which is being developed by Seneca students, also comes to mind
as a more recent example.
Lawrence
Similarly, much of the per-window private browsing work was done by
volunteers, with Firefox product drivers telling us that it would be
great to ship but no corporation resources would be devoted to it.
Cheers,
Josh
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