Mozilla community and Mozilla priorities&decisions

[David Bruant]

Hi,

At MozCampEU 2012, I think during Leadership Panel, Brian King
mentionned that Mozilla (I would guess MoFo&MoCo) and the community
sometimes have unaligned priorities. After being asked, he gave 2
examples; one being that the community still maintains SeaMonkey which
is not a priority for MoFo/MoCo and I have forgotten the second one
(please complete if anyone remembers), but I remember it was another
valid example.
He added that he is no one to tell anyone not to contribute to SeaMonkey
and I certainly agree, but wish to provide some in-depth thoughts on
this topic.

The common thing that MoCo/MoFo and volunteers have in common, what make
us "One Mozilla" is the Mozilla Manifesto. Ideally, every decision made
within Mozilla comes as a natural conclusion of the Manifesto read in
the context of the world at the time of the decision being made. As a
concrete example, prioritizing on mobile in the current context is a
natural consequence of defending the values described in the Manifesto.
If we all, volunteers and paid employees, have the same informations
about the world and agree on the Manifesto, I don't see a reason for
having our priorities not aligned. Please tell me if you see such a reason.

After some time spent at several Mozilla events, I have realized that
MoCo/MoFo seems to consider volunteer contributors as sensitive birds
that should be taken with care to not scare them away. Volunteer
contributors, since they are not tied by any contract of any form are
free to work on whatever they want, the quantity they want, change
anytime and are free to go away whenever they want.
A consequence of this volatile vision of volunteers at the
organisational level seems to be that volunteer contributors do not take
part of strategic discussions to decide Mozilla priorities including
suggesting new priorities at the organization level. In a way, it's only
fair, since volunteers do not have to follow any priority, why should
they take part of the discussions to decide them?
But the situation is a bit more complicated. "Volunteers" is very very
far from being a uniform group when it comes to level of involvement,
when it comes to interest in what's going on at the organization level.

I think there would be value in having dedicated volunteer contributors
taking part in organisation-wide strategic decisions. If we, volunteers
and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision process.
Now I understand that business requirements make that all informations
to make educated decisions about Mozilla at the organization level are
not available to the general public.

One idea would be to invite some volunteers to take part of these
decisions and having them sign an NDA.
All details of this idea aren't figured out (especially how to choose
who's invited to the discussions), but I'm starting this thread as an
attempt to propose a solution to the problem of unaligned priorities.

David

[Rubén Martín]

El 11/09/12 22:13, David Bruant escribió:

> At MozCampEU 2012, I think during Leadership Panel, Brian King
> mentionned that Mozilla (I would guess MoFo&MoCo) and the community
> sometimes have unaligned priorities. After being asked, he gave 2
> examples; one being that the community still maintains SeaMonkey which
> is not a priority for MoFo/MoCo and I have forgotten the second one
> (please complete if anyone remembers), but I remember it was another
> valid example.
> He added that he is no one to tell anyone not to contribute to SeaMonkey
> and I certainly agree, but wish to provide some in-depth thoughts on
> this topic.

I agree that we should align on goals and priorities, and most of the
times volunteers communities don't have enough human resources to work
on everything, and I see logical that we encourage them to focus on
defined priorities.

This doesn't mean that if a group have tons of contributors, they can do
more things which are not P1 for the rest.

> I think there would be value in having dedicated volunteer contributors
> taking part in organisation-wide strategic decisions. If we, volunteers
> and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
> will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision process.
> Now I understand that business requirements make that all informations
> to make educated decisions about Mozilla at the organization level are
> not available to the general public.
>
> One idea would be to invite some volunteers to take part of these
> decisions and having them sign an NDA.
> All details of this idea aren't figured out (especially how to choose
> who's invited to the discussions), but I'm starting this thread as an
> attempt to propose a solution to the problem of unaligned priorities.

Yes, that's one of the things that are expected and there are ongoing
discussions about how to integrate core contributors into
decision-making/governance groups in Mozilla, for example the Reps
Council. (Remember that reps have signed a NDA)

Regards.

--
Rubén Martín [Nukeador]
Mozilla Reps Council Member
http://www.mozilla-hispano.org
http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano
http://facebook.com/mozillahispano

[Justin Lebar]

> If we all, volunteers and paid employees, have the same informations
> about the world and agree on the Manifesto, I don't see a reason for
> having our priorities not aligned. Please tell me if you see such a reason.

There's another criterion missing here: If we all have the same
information about the world, agree on the Manifesto, and think exactly
the same way in all other respects, then yes, we'd reach the same
conclusions.

But obviously different people don't think the same way in all
respects, so we sometimes don't reach the same conclusions, even given
the same values and evidence.

If your argument were true, then either the volunteers working on
SeaMonkey (and, for that matter, Thunderbird) don't share MoCo's
values or they are lacking some key piece(s) of information that MoCo
has.

Do you think that's true? If so, what do you think the case is -- do
you think that SM/TB contributors by and large have different values
than MoCo, do you think that they're lacking some information that
MoCo has, or is it some combination of both?

I'd say neither is the case: You and I can share a common manifesto
and both have the same evidence about the world and yet we can have
different priorities.

Examples of this in the real world abound -- consider, for example,
the myriad organizations dedicated to feeding the world's poor. These
organizations don't always agree on what's the best way to accomplish
their shared goal, despite all having roughly the same information
about the state of the world.

> If we, volunteers
> and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
> will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision process.

Why should this be true? Suppose I took part in a decision-making
process which produced a result I didn't agree with. Why would my
priorities then be aligned with the result of the process?

I think the fact that Mozilla cultivates groups with heterogeneous
priorities is a great strength. For example, Firefox was created by
volunteers who didn't agree with MoCo's direction at the time.

-Justin

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 4:13 PM, David Bruant <brua...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,

>
> At MozCampEU 2012, I think during Leadership Panel, Brian King
> mentionned that Mozilla (I would guess MoFo&MoCo) and the community
> sometimes have unaligned priorities. After being asked, he gave 2
> examples; one being that the community still maintains SeaMonkey which
> is not a priority for MoFo/MoCo and I have forgotten the second one
> (please complete if anyone remembers), but I remember it was another
> valid example.
> He added that he is no one to tell anyone not to contribute to SeaMonkey
> and I certainly agree, but wish to provide some in-depth thoughts on
> this topic.
>

> The common thing that MoCo/MoFo and volunteers have in common, what make
> us "One Mozilla" is the Mozilla Manifesto. Ideally, every decision made
> within Mozilla comes as a natural conclusion of the Manifesto read in
> the context of the world at the time of the decision being made. As a
> concrete example, prioritizing on mobile in the current context is a
> natural consequence of defending the values described in the Manifesto.
> If we all, volunteers and paid employees, have the same informations
> about the world and agree on the Manifesto, I don't see a reason for
> having our priorities not aligned. Please tell me if you see such a reason.
>
> After some time spent at several Mozilla events, I have realized that
> MoCo/MoFo seems to consider volunteer contributors as sensitive birds
> that should be taken with care to not scare them away. Volunteer
> contributors, since they are not tied by any contract of any form are
> free to work on whatever they want, the quantity they want, change
> anytime and are free to go away whenever they want.
> A consequence of this volatile vision of volunteers at the
> organisational level seems to be that volunteer contributors do not take
> part of strategic discussions to decide Mozilla priorities including
> suggesting new priorities at the organization level. In a way, it's only
> fair, since volunteers do not have to follow any priority, why should
> they take part of the discussions to decide them?
> But the situation is a bit more complicated. "Volunteers" is very very
> far from being a uniform group when it comes to level of involvement,
> when it comes to interest in what's going on at the organization level.
>

> I think there would be value in having dedicated volunteer contributors
> taking part in organisation-wide strategic decisions. If we, volunteers
> and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
> will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision process.
> Now I understand that business requirements make that all informations
> to make educated decisions about Mozilla at the organization level are
> not available to the general public.
>
> One idea would be to invite some volunteers to take part of these
> decisions and having them sign an NDA.
> All details of this idea aren't figured out (especially how to choose
> who's invited to the discussions), but I'm starting this thread as an
> attempt to propose a solution to the problem of unaligned priorities.
>

> David
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance

[David Bruant]

Le 11/09/2012 22:31, Rubén Martín a écrit :
> El 11/09/12 22:13, David Bruant escribió:

>> At MozCampEU 2012, I think during Leadership Panel, Brian King
>> mentionned that Mozilla (I would guess MoFo&MoCo) and the community
>> sometimes have unaligned priorities. After being asked, he gave 2
>> examples; one being that the community still maintains SeaMonkey which
>> is not a priority for MoFo/MoCo and I have forgotten the second one
>> (please complete if anyone remembers), but I remember it was another
>> valid example.
>> He added that he is no one to tell anyone not to contribute to SeaMonkey
>> and I certainly agree, but wish to provide some in-depth thoughts on
>> this topic.

> I agree that we should align on goals and priorities, and most of the
> times volunteers communities don't have enough human resources to work
> on everything, and I see logical that we encourage them to focus on
> defined priorities.
>
> This doesn't mean that if a group have tons of contributors, they can
> do more things which are not P1 for the rest.

I'm somewhat puzzled by your use of "we" and "them" like if there were
two groups to oppose. I wish we just all acted like one group. Within
MoCo/MoFo, I don't think there are different groups, some understanding
priorities and some would do not; no, there is just one group moving
toward the same direction. Why wouldn't the community just included in
that move? There are a lot of things to do, but everyone moves toward
the same set of goals.

>> I think there would be value in having dedicated volunteer contributors
>> taking part in organisation-wide strategic decisions. If we, volunteers
>> and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
>> will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision
>> process.
>> Now I understand that business requirements make that all informations
>> to make educated decisions about Mozilla at the organization level are
>> not available to the general public.
>>
>> One idea would be to invite some volunteers to take part of these
>> decisions and having them sign an NDA.
>> All details of this idea aren't figured out (especially how to choose
>> who's invited to the discussions), but I'm starting this thread as an
>> attempt to propose a solution to the problem of unaligned priorities.

> Yes, that's one of the things that are expected and there are ongoing
> discussions about how to integrate core contributors into
> decision-making/governance groups in Mozilla, for example the Reps
> Council. (Remember that reps have signed a NDA)

I'm glad to hear such discussions are ongoing and I didn't know reps had
signed an NDA, it's important to know indeed.
To a large extent, I doubt the Reps Concil is the right entity for that.
>From what can be read in the wiki [1]:
"The program, also known by its codename ReMo, aims to empower and
support volunteer Mozillians who want to become official representatives
of Mozilla in their region/locale and wherever they go."
Role of the council is described on the wiki [2] too:
"Comprised of 7 Mozilla Reps and 2 Mozilla paid-staff, the Mozilla Reps
"Jedi" council has the following duties and functions:
help provide governance and support structure to assist Mozilla Reps
worldwide
help oversee global activities
help oversee global budget management for events, swag
help nominate global membership administrator
help resolve disputes
help provide guidance and inspiration for Mozilla Reps "

Currently, at its core, ReMo is a program for volunteers to efficiently
represent Mozilla locally. It's an excellent mission but it has nothing
to do with deciding priorities about Mozilla at the organization level.
What I'm talking about is a level of participation from volunteers that
would lead to the creation of programs such as ReMo.

David

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/ReMo
[2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/ReMo/Structure_Governance

[David Bruant]

Le 11/09/2012 22:54, Justin Lebar a écrit :
>> If we all, volunteers and paid employees, have the same informations
>> about the world and agree on the Manifesto, I don't see a reason for
>> having our priorities not aligned. Please tell me if you see such a reason.
> There's another criterion missing here: If we all have the same
> information about the world, agree on the Manifesto, and think exactly
> the same way in all other respects, then yes, we'd reach the same
> conclusions.
>
> But obviously different people don't think the same way in all
> respects, so we sometimes don't reach the same conclusions, even given
> the same values and evidence.

That's why I talked about aligning priorities and not about reaching
conclusions.
Several people with the same informations will disagree on the
conclusions. It happens all the time in standard bodies, on Bugzilla. At
any level, for pretty much everything. But disagreeing while debating
doesn't prevent from agreeing on the same priorities. And as with
Bugzilla and standards, it doesn't prevent from moving forward.

> If your argument were true, then either the volunteers working on
> SeaMonkey (and, for that matter, Thunderbird) don't share MoCo's
> values or they are lacking some key piece(s) of information that MoCo
> has.
>
> Do you think that's true? If so, what do you think the case is -- do
> you think that SM/TB contributors by and large have different values
> than MoCo, do you think that they're lacking some information that
> MoCo has, or is it some combination of both?
>
> I'd say neither is the case: You and I can share a common manifesto
> and both have the same evidence about the world and yet we can have
> different priorities.
>
> Examples of this in the real world abound -- consider, for example,
> the myriad organizations dedicated to feeding the world's poor. These
> organizations don't always agree on what's the best way to accomplish
> their shared goal, despite all having roughly the same information
> about the state of the world.

There is a missing part in your reasoning. People may have their own
agenda. Some people may just think Thunderbird is a great piece a
software they wish to improve. If that's the case, then, their incentive
to work on Thunderbird falls outside of the Manifesto scope.
I realize that's an important part I missed in my original post:
volunteering to work on a Mozilla product doesn't imply working in the
direction of the Manifesto. It actually doesn't even imply agreeing with
the Manifesto.
But I am not talking about this part of the community. If some people
don't care or even disagree with the Manifesto, they clearly have no
interest in helping shaping Mozilla priorities.

>> If we, volunteers
>> and paid employees, all take part in deciding Mozilla priorities, we
>> will have our priorities aligned as a consequence of the decision process.

> Why should this be true? Suppose I took part in a decision-making
> process which produced a result I didn't agree with. Why would my
> priorities then be aligned with the result of the process?

Would you work on what has been agreed on?
If yes, then, your priorities de-facto align with the one of the group
regardless of your disagreement. Agreeing on priorities as a group
doesn't necessarily mean that every single individual agrees with every
single decision made by the group.
If no, if your disagreement is profound enough to stop contributing in
the same direction than others, then there is a disagreement in the
values and it's worth investigating further. Maybe some others agree
with you and it's time to create an alternative group to Mozilla with
your reading of the values. If you're alone, it may be time for you to
move on. Just to be clear, I'm not saying who would be right or wrong in
the reading of the values, but just that disagreement in values is a big
enough reason to justify a split.

> I think the fact that Mozilla cultivates groups with heterogeneous
> priorities is a great strength. For example, Firefox was created by
> volunteers who didn't agree with MoCo's direction at the time.

I'm missing that part of history. Can you expand on that? At the time,
were both volunteers and MoCo sharing the same values? Communicating
enough about making decisions?
Can you describe how priorities were different at the time?

David

[Rubén Martín]

El 11/09/12 22:55, David Bruant escribió:

> I'm somewhat puzzled by your use of "we" and "them" like if there were
> two groups to oppose. I wish we just all acted like one group. Within
> MoCo/MoFo, I don't think there are different groups, some understanding
> priorities and some would do not; no, there is just one group moving
> toward the same direction. Why wouldn't the community just included in
> that move? There are a lot of things to do, but everyone moves toward
> the same set of goals.

We as "the whole Mozilla community which includes volunteers and
employees" (all of us) and them as "volunteers' communities".

Reps are by definition leaders inside Mozilla, they know really well
about the values and mission and want to take a step forward.

The Reps Council is their governance group which is formed by extremely
committed reps with great abilities such as leading discussions, align
the project with global goals, deciding priorities inside the program...
This could be easily exported to mozilla governance globally. Keep in
mind I'm not suggesting that Reps Council should be the only group of
volunteers involved.

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 00:02, Rub�n Mart�n a �crit :
> El 11/09/12 22:55, David Bruant escribi�:

>> I'm somewhat puzzled by your use of "we" and "them" like if there were
>> two groups to oppose. I wish we just all acted like one group. Within
>> MoCo/MoFo, I don't think there are different groups, some understanding
>> priorities and some would do not; no, there is just one group moving
>> toward the same direction. Why wouldn't the community just included in
>> that move? There are a lot of things to do, but everyone moves toward
>> the same set of goals.
> We as "the whole Mozilla community which includes volunteers and
> employees" (all of us) and them as "volunteers' communities".

I understand but disagree, why are these 2 different groups?

I quoted 2 pages of the wiki and what you're saying is not part of any
of these pages. From the wiki, Reps represent Mozilla in the world.
Either the wiki is outdated or it isn't part of the Reps program.
It seems that what I'm describing is somewhat a group of people who
represent volunteers instead of the current Reps which role is to
represent Mozilla in the world. Maybe both group can be the same people.
Maybe it's worth having them separate. I need to think about it more but
for now, I tend to think having them separated is more relevant since
the role of each group is decently different.

> The Reps Council is their governance group which is formed by
> extremely committed reps with great abilities such as leading
> discussions, align the project with global goals, deciding priorities
> inside the program... This could be easily exported to mozilla
> governance globally. Keep in mind I'm not suggesting that Reps Council
> should be the only group of volunteers involved.

Noted ;-)

David

[Rubén Martín]

El 12/09/12 00:09, David Bruant escribió:

>> We as "the whole Mozilla community which includes volunteers and
>> >employees" (all of us) and them as "volunteers' communities".
> I understand but disagree, why are these 2 different groups?

The whole Mozilla community includes volunteers and employees.
Volunteers communities are part of this global group. I don't see the
problem here, we are all in the same boat which is what you said before.

>> >Reps are by definition leaders inside Mozilla, they know really well
>> >about the values and mission and want to take a step forward.
> I quoted 2 pages of the wiki and what you're saying is not part of any
> of these pages. From the wiki, Reps represent Mozilla in the world.
> Either the wiki is outdated or it isn't part of the Reps program.
> It seems that what I'm describing is somewhat a group of people who
> represent volunteers instead of the current Reps which role is to
> represent Mozilla in the world. Maybe both group can be the same people.
> Maybe it's worth having them separate. I need to think about it more but
> for now, I tend to think having them separated is more relevant since
> the role of each group is decently different.
>

Check https://reps.mozilla.org/about/

[Majken Connor]

I think Ruben's suggestion is that since the reps program helps support and
organize contributors globally the reps program could present the framework
for getting feedback from the community at large. The wiki is a bit
outdated, but it still didn't mention the recruitment factor in the
program. When you represent Mozilla the end goal of course is to recruit
new contributors and community members. Not just go out and speak or set up
booths. So the reps program is really a network of community leaders,
though you don't have to be a rep to be a community leader.

I believe the context of the general discussion is the identified
priorities for the year. Of course we can't just have all the volunteers
drop everything and only contribute to those priorities or there will be
nothing innovative waiting in the wings. We also need to remember that
skills and interest come into play. You can't necessarily take a volunteer
off of one project and put them on another. Someone who enjoys doing QA may
not enjoy doing support, even though they can be quite similar.

I think the real answer is figuring out how to have MoCo goals and
priorities coexist with supporting an autonomous volunteer community. In
fact I think that is the role MoCo fills that justifies itself. It fills
gaps that a volunteer based community can create. I think we need to make
sure the existence of employees is enhancing, not excluding volunteer
contributions. The manifesto is the ultimate priority. Every piece of the
Mozilla community has their own priorities for how they will achieve the
goals laid out by the manifesto. MoCo should be seen as a piece of the
community along-side of, not on top of the other pieces.

As for the rest of your point, how to get volunteers in on the discussions,
I think that is about openness. If the teams are open with each other, and
listen to their volunteer teammates as well as their paid teammates then
the points of view will naturally be taken into consideration. It sounds
like you're saying Mozilla either doesn't take volunteer opinions as
seriously because they're "sensitive" or they are not included in hard
discussions to avoid upsetting them (I have seen both happen)? Not being
part of the mozcamp session I may be misinterpreting a bit of the original
post so please correct me if I have.

-Majken Connor

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Rubén Martín
<nuke...@mozilla-hispano.org>wrote:

> El 12/09/12 00:09, David Bruant escribió:
>
> We as "the whole Mozilla community which includes volunteers and
>>> >employees" (all of us) and them as "volunteers' communities".
>>>
>> I understand but disagree, why are these 2 different groups?
>>
> The whole Mozilla community includes volunteers and employees. Volunteers
> communities are part of this global group. I don't see the problem here, we
> are all in the same boat which is what you said before.
>
> >Reps are by definition leaders inside Mozilla, they know really well
>>> >about the values and mission and want to take a step forward.
>>>
>> I quoted 2 pages of the wiki and what you're saying is not part of any
>> of these pages. From the wiki, Reps represent Mozilla in the world.
>> Either the wiki is outdated or it isn't part of the Reps program.
>> It seems that what I'm describing is somewhat a group of people who
>> represent volunteers instead of the current Reps which role is to
>> represent Mozilla in the world. Maybe both group can be the same people.
>> Maybe it's worth having them separate. I need to think about it more but
>> for now, I tend to think having them separated is more relevant since
>> the role of each group is decently different.
>>

>> Check https://reps.mozilla.org/**about/<https://reps.mozilla.org/about/>

>
>
> Regards.
>
> --
> Rubén Martín [Nukeador]
> Mozilla Reps Council Member
> http://www.mozilla-hispano.org

> http://twitter.com/mozilla_**hispano <http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano>
> http://facebook.com/**mozillahispano <http://facebook.com/mozillahispano>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 01:22, Rubén Martín a écrit :
> El 12/09/12 00:09, David Bruant escribió:

>>> >Reps are by definition leaders inside Mozilla, they know really well
>>> >about the values and mission and want to take a step forward.
>> I quoted 2 pages of the wiki and what you're saying is not part of any
>> of these pages. From the wiki, Reps represent Mozilla in the world.
>> Either the wiki is outdated or it isn't part of the Reps program.
>> It seems that what I'm describing is somewhat a group of people who
>> represent volunteers instead of the current Reps which role is to
>> represent Mozilla in the world. Maybe both group can be the same people.
>> Maybe it's worth having them separate. I need to think about it more but
>> for now, I tend to think having them separated is more relevant since
>> the role of each group is decently different.
>>

> Check https://reps.mozilla.org/about/
This has the exact same content than what I quoted previously from the
wiki and doesn't grant authority to Reps to participate in discussion at
the organizational level of Mozilla.
To give a concrete example, nothing in the page you link to suggests
that any member of the volunteer community can be part (even partially
or indirectly) in business model-related discussions which lead to
organisation-wide decisions.
Majken Connor suggests in her message that the wiki and website
description of the Reps program is outdated, so i'll take that for
granted for now. Assuming it's the case, it's time to update this
description to reframe the program.

David

[Nukeador]

2012/9/12 David Bruant <brua...@gmail.com>

> Le 12/09/2012 01:22, Rubén Martín a écrit :
>
>> Check https://reps.mozilla.org/about/
>>
> This has the exact same content than what I quoted previously from the
> wiki and doesn't grant authority to Reps to participate in discussion at
> the organizational level of Mozilla.
> To give a concrete example, nothing in the page you link to suggests that
> any member of the volunteer community can be part (even partially or
> indirectly) in business model-related discussions which lead to
> organisation-wide decisions.
>

Sorry if I explained me wrong, this page can't say that because it's just
an on-going discussion. We are not there yet ;)

Majken Connor suggests in her message that the wiki and website description
> of the Reps program is outdated, so i'll take that for granted for now.
> Assuming it's the case, it's time to update this description to reframe the
> program.

Yes, wiki pages should be updated to link to the reps portal which will
always have the most updated info.

Regards.
--
Rubén Martín (Nukeador)
Mozilla Reps Council member
http://mozilla-hispano.org
http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano
http://facebook.com/mozillahispano

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 06:04, Majken Connor a écrit :
> I think Ruben's suggestion is that since the reps program helps
> support and organize contributors globally the reps program could
> present the framework for getting feedback from the community at large.

The words you choose to describe what the reps program could be suggests
an unbalanced relationship: MoCo/MoFo would generate ideas and the
community would provide "feedback". The Reps program would just be a way
to structure the Community-->MoCo/MoFo channel efficiently. But the idea
of the community deciding the next strategic steps doesn't seem part of
it. As a concrete example, the decision to invest in B2G has been made
by employees. Is it possible that Mozilla next big project will come out
of the community? With my current knowledge of Mozilla decision-making
process is that no, it isn't. My initial post is an attempt to explain
why and an attempt to find a solution for that.

I have spoken to many people who had high hopes about the Reps program
and were disappointed. They described it as a way for Mozilla to "pet
the community". I do not necessarily share this point of view, but it's
an interesting indicator of how the program is being received by some.

> The wiki is a bit outdated, but it still didn't mention the
> recruitment factor in the program.

I'm not sure I see how this point relates to the point in my original
message.

> When you represent Mozilla the end goal of course is to recruit new
> contributors and community members.

I disagree. When you represent Mozilla, the end-goal is to work toward
moving the shared values forward. Recruiting new people is a mean, not
an end. The vast majority of people in the globe will never become
Mozilla contributors and that's the majority of people who I talk to,
but it shouldn't stop us from educating them about the open web.

> Not just go out and speak or set up booths.

I disagree with this too. I've been to several events, some
barcamp-style where I've held sessions about Mozilla. I've not recruited
anyone, but I feel I've made a valuable contributions by sharing and
answering questions on the mission and Mozilla actions (and there is a
huge amount of work to be done in this area!). Educating people to what
the open web is and why it's important without the goal of recruiting
them advances the mission. Maybe the Reps program measures its success
through a "conversion rate" or "number of new contributors" and maybe
that's a good thing, but for sure that's not the only valuable way to
contribute to Mozilla while representing it in the outside world.

> So the reps program is really a network of community leaders, though
> you don't have to be a rep to be a community leader.

But being a community leader doesn't mean being part of strategic
decisions. It seems that a lot of the frustration some have toward the
Reps program is exactly this confusion.
Being a "community leader" doesn't give you the authority to decide that
next year the focus will be to create a generation of open web
advocates. It gives a local authority, not organisation-wide authority.

> I believe the context of the general discussion is the identified
> priorities for the year. Of course we can't just have all the
> volunteers drop everything and only contribute to those priorities or
> there will be nothing innovative waiting in the wings. We also need to
> remember that skills and interest come into play. You can't
> necessarily take a volunteer off of one project and put them on
> another. Someone who enjoys doing QA may not enjoy doing support, even
> though they can be quite similar.

I agree with you, priorities doesn't mean everyone drops everything they
do. Mozilla has shifted priorities to mobile and still a lot of people
do not work on mobile directly for very good reasons and there is no
reason for this to change. I'm aware of what a "priority" is, what it
implies and what it doesn't imply. But it doesn't change my point.

> I think the real answer is figuring out how to have MoCo goals and
> priorities coexist with supporting an autonomous volunteer community.

Once again, the words you're choosing reveal a lot of your mental
representation of how Mozilla works. You're verbalizing them here, but I
think it's representative of the mental representation a lot of people
have. "MoCo goals and priorities". Does MoCo has a specific agenda that
different from the overall Mozilla project agenda?
Otherwise, I agree with your intent and my answer is not to have 2
groups co-existing, but just one group deciding as one entity.

> In fact I think that is the role MoCo fills that justifies itself. It
> fills gaps that a volunteer based community can create.

Interesting. Can you provide specific examples of what you mean here?

> I think we need to make sure the existence of employees is enhancing,
> not excluding volunteer contributions. The manifesto is the ultimate
> priority. Every piece of the Mozilla community has their own
> priorities for how they will achieve the goals laid out by the
> manifesto. MoCo should be seen as a piece of the community along-side
> of, not on top of the other pieces.

I have read enough from Mozilla involved people to know that what you
describe is a shared sentiment. And that's a very nice theorical
description.
Now, how do we move from the current top-down situation to a situation
where every relevant people is part of the strategic decisions
regardless of their employment situation with Mozilla?

To give another example, at MozCampEU [1] were 6 tracks: Grow Mozilla
1/2, Desktop and Mobile 1/2 and Apps and B2G 1/2. This seems to closely
relate to MoCo/MoFo expressed priorities. Apparently, some people in the
community would think Thunderbird or SeaMonkey are priorities (that's
not my case, just to clarify). If that's the case, why isn't there a
Thunderbird/SeaMonkey track?

> As for the rest of your point, how to get volunteers in on the
> discussions, I think that is about openness. If the teams are open
> with each other, and listen to their volunteer teammates as well as
> their paid teammates then the points of view will naturally be taken
> into consideration.

It seems the discussion has shifted. What teams are you talking about?
I'm talking about structural decisions, not team-wise decisions.

> It sounds like you're saying Mozilla either doesn't take volunteer
> opinions as seriously because they're "sensitive" or they are not
> included in hard discussions to avoid upsetting them (I have seen both
> happen)?

In the words "take volunteer opinions" is induced the idea that
volunteer has no power to make large-scale decisions. Someone makes
decision and chooses to listen to some groups, one of them being
volunteer. He/she can also decide at any point to not listen anyone.
This model works currently, but it won't scale in my opinion.

David

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/schedule

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 14:13, Boris Zbarsky a �crit :

> On 9/11/12 10:32 PM, David Bruant wrote:
>> Would you work on what has been agreed on?
>

> Maybe.
>
> Would I spend every possible moment working on what has been agreed
> on, if I disagree with it? Perhaps not.
>
> Mozilla does not own its contributors, nor should it. Thought it
> sounds to me like you think it should, and that someone who is not
> committed to spending all their free time on whatever the current best
> guess is for advancing the mission should not be welcomed. I,
> personally, think that's a terrible idea.
I agree with you here. I didn't mean what you're describing. I'm
actually puzzled you're coming to such an interpretation just based on
what I wrote.
Being myself just a volunteer, I wouldn't even follow myself what you
describe, I think.

> Now maybe that's not what you meant. But that's what it came across
> as, at least to me. Sounds like to Justin too.
I didn't mean to describe something such a black and white situation.
We've traveled very far from my initial post it seems.

>> Agreeing on priorities as a group doesn't necessarily mean that every
>> single individual agrees with every single decision made by the group.
>

> Agreeing on priorities, in the abstract, doesn't mean that people
> should drop everything else.
I didn't say it did.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you wrote above about "owning
contributors" is something Mozilla is (understandably) frightened to be
accused of. A natural conclusion for Mozilla is to have this attitude of
considering
volunteers as "fragile birds" as I described in my initial message;
Mozilla (whoever that is exactly) would make decisions and the
volunteers can do whatever they want because they are not owned.
But what about volunteers who want to get involved more deeply? Are they
doomed to stay outside of the room of people who make strategic
decisions? Do they have to be hired to be part of strategic discussions?
Talking with other contributors, it is my understanding that a lot of
people are frustrated to not be included in any important decision
discussion. Not that they want to necessarily make the decisions, but
they just feel that's they're being imposed something. It does create
some tensions. I know some people left from the French community as a
consequence of that (that's an understanding I'm making only now).

Also, every single contributor was holding his/her breath during the
last MozCampEU last November in Berlin, not knowing what would happen to
Mozilla financially at the end of the partnership with Google. A month
later in December, everyone was happy that it got renewed, but I can't
help wondering what will happen when the current partnership will end.
There are business model discussions for which it could be valuable to
have volunteer input. A lot of Mozilla volunteers spend time in the
startup ecosystem of their city/region, are freelance or run their own
company. We do not have the answer to all questions or a definite
business model for Mozilla, but being part of the discussion couldn't be
harmful in my opinion. But money really is a sensitive topic and to my
knowledge, currently, volunteers are all excluded from any discussion
that would relate to money. Once again, why? If some volunteers are
interested in these topics and think they can make valuable
contributions in this area, it wouldn't hurt to have them sign an NDA
and let them contribute in these topics under the condition of not
revealing any confidential information.

> Note that I don't think you need this "everyone must agree on
> priorities" strawman to support your main point which is that
> priority-setting is very opaque right now.
Maybe. I admit that what is needed is not very clear to me right. I feel
I have the finger on the right problem, but I'm still unsure what's the
exact scope and source of it and less of any exact solution.
I don't think that everyone must agree on priorities, but I'm confident
involving as many people as possible early in the decision-making
process will end up in a better alignment in priorities

David

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 9/12/12 2:07 PM, David Bruant wrote:
> I agree with you here. I didn't mean what you're describing. I'm
> actually puzzled you're coming to such an interpretation just based on
> what I wrote.
> Being myself just a volunteer, I wouldn't even follow myself what you
> describe, I think.

I really hoped I was misunderstanding you, yes.

> Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you wrote above about "owning
> contributors" is something Mozilla is (understandably) frightened to be
> accused of.

I don't think it's even fear of accusations. I think it's just basic
human interaction. I don't want to be in a position where I feel my
work is unwelcome (been there, done that), and I don't want to put
someone else in that position either.

> But what about volunteers who want to get involved more deeply?

They should. Easier said then done, I know. But the hard parts are not
entirely volunteer-specific.

> Are they doomed to stay outside of the room of people who make strategic
> decisions?

I think there's a basic assumption here: that there is such a room. I'm
not sure there is. I think that the major strategic shifts I've seen in
this project in the last 11 years have all started with a random small
group with a vision that then goes around convincing others piecemeal.

Maybe there should be more formal strategic planning, of course!

> Do they have to be hired to be part of strategic discussions?

Just fyi, I've been both a volunteer and an employee, and I don't think
there was any change in my ability to contribute to strategic discussion
when I was hired. In some aspects of strategy, it's really easy to get
involved as a volunteer or employee. In some aspects of strategy it's
hard to be involved as a volunteer or employee.

> Talking with other contributors, it is my understanding that a lot of
> people are frustrated to not be included in any important decision
> discussion.

This is not limited to volunteer contributors, I should not. I'm
assuming you implied that by your use of unqualified "contributor",
which I applaud.

> Not that they want to necessarily make the decisions, but
> they just feel that's they're being imposed something.

That's the key issue, yes. This is the part I was having problems with
in your older posts in this thread, actually. Imposition of goals or
values is just as bad as imposition of strategic direction....

> Also, every single contributor was holding his/her breath during the
> last MozCampEU last November in Berlin, not knowing what would happen to
> Mozilla financially at the end of the partnership with Google.

Again, applies to "contributors" in general, as you say.

> But money really is a sensitive topic and to my
> knowledge, currently, volunteers are all excluded from any discussion
> that would relate to money.

I don't think they're any more excluded than employees, just FYI. I
know if I were interested in discussing the topic I'd start by mailing
people (which ones, I'm not quite certain yet, because I haven't put
thought into it!) and offering my thoughts. Perhaps non-employees feel
like this is not an option open for them? If so, that's definitely
something we should fix. I certainly didn't have that feeling when I
wasn't an employee...

> I don't think that everyone must agree on priorities, but I'm confident
> involving as many people as possible early in the decision-making
> process will end up in a better alignment in priorities

That's possible, yes. Again, I think strategic decisions seem to arise
out of discussions that are only viewed as strategic after the fact.

-Boris

[Majken Connor]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 10:38 AM, Boris Zbarsky <bzba...@mit.edu> wrote:

> On 9/12/12 2:07 PM, David Bruant wrote:
>

>> I agree with you here. I didn't mean what you're describing. I'm
>> actually puzzled you're coming to such an interpretation just based on
>> what I wrote.
>> Being myself just a volunteer, I wouldn't even follow myself what you
>> describe, I think.
>>
>

> I really hoped I was misunderstanding you, yes.
>
>

> Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you wrote above about "owning
>> contributors" is something Mozilla is (understandably) frightened to be
>> accused of.
>>
>

> I don't think it's even fear of accusations. I think it's just basic
> human interaction. I don't want to be in a position where I feel my work
> is unwelcome (been there, done that), and I don't want to put someone else
> in that position either.
>
>

> But what about volunteers who want to get involved more deeply?
>>
>

> They should. Easier said then done, I know. But the hard parts are not
> entirely volunteer-specific.
>
>

> Are they doomed to stay outside of the room of people who make strategic
>> decisions?
>>
>

> I think there's a basic assumption here: that there is such a room. I'm
> not sure there is. I think that the major strategic shifts I've seen in
> this project in the last 11 years have all started with a random small
> group with a vision that then goes around convincing others piecemeal.
>
> Maybe there should be more formal strategic planning, of course!
>
>

> Do they have to be hired to be part of strategic discussions?
>>
>

> Just fyi, I've been both a volunteer and an employee, and I don't think
> there was any change in my ability to contribute to strategic discussion
> when I was hired. In some aspects of strategy, it's really easy to get
> involved as a volunteer or employee. In some aspects of strategy it's hard
> to be involved as a volunteer or employee.
>
>

> Talking with other contributors, it is my understanding that a lot of
>> people are frustrated to not be included in any important decision
>> discussion.
>>
>

> This is not limited to volunteer contributors, I should not. I'm assuming
> you implied that by your use of unqualified "contributor", which I applaud.
>
>

> Not that they want to necessarily make the decisions, but
>> they just feel that's they're being imposed something.
>>
>

> That's the key issue, yes. This is the part I was having problems with in
> your older posts in this thread, actually. Imposition of goals or values
> is just as bad as imposition of strategic direction....
>
>

> Also, every single contributor was holding his/her breath during the
>> last MozCampEU last November in Berlin, not knowing what would happen to
>> Mozilla financially at the end of the partnership with Google.
>>
>

> Again, applies to "contributors" in general, as you say.
>
>

> But money really is a sensitive topic and to my
>> knowledge, currently, volunteers are all excluded from any discussion
>> that would relate to money.
>>
>

> I don't think they're any more excluded than employees, just FYI. I know
> if I were interested in discussing the topic I'd start by mailing people
> (which ones, I'm not quite certain yet, because I haven't put thought into
> it!) and offering my thoughts. Perhaps non-employees feel like this is not
> an option open for them? If so, that's definitely something we should fix.
> I certainly didn't have that feeling when I wasn't an employee...
>
>

> I don't think that everyone must agree on priorities, but I'm confident
>> involving as many people as possible early in the decision-making
>> process will end up in a better alignment in priorities
>>
>

> That's possible, yes. Again, I think strategic decisions seem to arise
> out of discussions that are only viewed as strategic after the fact.
>
>
> -Boris

> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

There's a lot to reply to, but I think that's derailing the conversation.
David, let me try and sum up what you're saying in a very blunt way, let me
know if I've got it:

MoCo has the money. MoCo decides where the money goes. Currently that
process is opaque and non-inclusive. That process should be more open and
include the whole community.

Is that the core of it?

[L. David Baron]

So I think one of the assumptions you're making is that it's good to
agree on priorities.

I think I disagree with that assumption. I think we do need to have
agreement on the high-level goals of the project, but I think it's
actually good to disagree over which aspects of it are higher
priority. That people within an open-source project disagree over
priorities is one of the things that lets open-source software have
higher overall quality than closed-source software.

This is because there are tons of different things that affect the
quality of software, and different users care about different ones.
We need to worry about getting behavior correct, having clear user
interface, being fast, not using too much memory, not crashing, etc.

In a tightly-managed project where the priorities are clearly
defined by someone in charge (whether that's an individual, a small
group of leaders, or a more democratic model like you seem to be
proposing), you're still going to end up with a set of official
priorities. Such priorities end up as official sanction to ignore
some aspects of quality in favor of others, for example, being
willing to sacrifice any amount of memory use in order to get a
speed improvement.

Now, we absolutely need to be willing to make tradeoffs; we should
absolutely not assume that the status quo speed vs. memory tradeoff
is the correct one, nor should we assume that all of the projects we
currently work on are worth our time.

But I think making tradeoffs in the presence of clearly-defined
priorities stating that one side of the tradeoff is more important
tends to produce bad decisions. If we all agree as a community that
speed is really important, it becomes really hard (and maybe
completely socially unacceptable) to make an argument that a
particular speed for memory tradeoff is the wrong one to be making.

On the flip side, though, there are decisions that have to be based
on priorities, such as which things ship as supported products. We
also can't be afraid to make these decisions because they look like
dictating priorities. But I think in many cases they come somewhat
naturally (though not without controversy) from what people are
focusing on.

-David

--
𝄞 L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
𝄢 Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 16:38, Boris Zbarsky a �crit :

> On 9/12/12 2:07 PM, David Bruant wrote:

>> Are they doomed to stay outside of the room of people who make strategic
>> decisions?
>

> I think there's a basic assumption here: that there is such a room.

> I'm not sure there is.I think that the major strategic shifts I've

> seen in this project in the last 11 years have all started with a
> random small group with a vision that then goes around convincing
> others piecemeal.

That's an interesting piece of information that may be worth being
explained. Now that I'm reading it, I realize I have seen this pattern
emerge. It seems to be part of the Mozilla culture, but it's pretty hard
to grasp.

> Maybe there should be more formal strategic planning, of course!

Indeed. The danger of going too far down that road is to think that
decisions are only taken once a year, but there is probably a
middle-ground to be found.

>> Do they have to be hired to be part of strategic discussions?
>

> Just fyi, I've been both a volunteer and an employee, and I don't
> think there was any change in my ability to contribute to strategic
> discussion when I was hired. In some aspects of strategy, it's really
> easy to get involved as a volunteer or employee. In some aspects of
> strategy it's hard to be involved as a volunteer or employee.

I asked as an example and my guess was your answer, that being hired is
hardly more helpful.

>
>> Talking with other contributors, it is my understanding that a lot of
>> people are frustrated to not be included in any important decision
>> discussion.
>

> This is not limited to volunteer contributors, I should not. I'm
> assuming you implied that by your use of unqualified "contributor",
> which I applaud.

Indeed. I'm careful to be precise between "volunteer", "paid employee"
and "contributor" (which can be both). Every once in a while, I may make
a mistake, but I'm trying hard not to.

>> Not that they want to necessarily make the decisions, but
>> they just feel that's they're being imposed something.
>

> That's the key issue, yes. This is the part I was having problems
> with in your older posts in this thread, actually. Imposition of
> goals or values is just as bad as imposition of strategic direction....

Oh ok. I really didn't meant to impose strategic decisions. I wish that
the situation with strategic decisions to be the same with values. No
one is being imposed to agree with the Manifesto, but we all share its
values. It could be the same with priorities, but it seems it is not.

One difference between values and strategic decisions is that to a large
extent, agreeing with the Manifesto is a personal endeavour while
agreeing on priorities is a collective effort.

>> Also, every single contributor was holding his/her breath during the
>> last MozCampEU last November in Berlin, not knowing what would happen to
>> Mozilla financially at the end of the partnership with Google.
>

> Again, applies to "contributors" in general, as you say.
>

>> But money really is a sensitive topic and to my
>> knowledge, currently, volunteers are all excluded from any discussion
>> that would relate to money.
>

> I don't think they're any more excluded than employees, just FYI.

That's what I thought. To a large extent, I'm not that concerned about
differences between employees and volunteers. Much less that others can
be. I've had discussions with some employees at many occasions and I
know some of the things I'm saying are shared by some employees too. I
have been very careful to not describe the divide as "volunteers VS
employees", because I don't think it's the problem.

> I know if I were interested in discussing the topic I'd start by
> mailing people (which ones, I'm not quite certain yet, because I
> haven't put thought into it!) and offering my thoughts. Perhaps
> non-employees feel like this is not an option open for them?

It might be it. The path to contributing code is very hard, but tools
(Bugzilla, IRC, Mercurial...) to get to it are known and open (there is
even some doc :-p). The path to start a discussion on business model
with the relevant people (including those who can turn ideas into
actions) is unknown. To some extent, it's reassuring to learn that this
path is unobvious to long-term contributors like you are.
Besides that, it has never seemed to be a topic where the community was
welcome to contribute on. What I'm saying here is a feeling and not
based on facts. But for instance, if I wanted to hold a session on this
topic at a later event, I would start by "so, the current business model
is based on partnership with search engines, Google made the biggest
part of it in the past, it seems it's still true... but we don't know
the exact terms. So what alternative sources of revenue?". Is it even
worth investigating what new sources?
One sure thing, I'm not a business expert, but holding your breath every
3 years is not a sustainable situation.

I'm focusing on business model, but we could be talking about Mozilla
Spaces or other topics.

> If so, that's definitely something we should fix.

I need to think about the "how".

> I certainly didn't have that feeling when I wasn't an employee...
>

>> I don't think that everyone must agree on priorities, but I'm confident
>> involving as many people as possible early in the decision-making
>> process will end up in a better alignment in priorities
>

> That's possible, yes. Again, I think strategic decisions seem to
> arise out of discussions that are only viewed as strategic after the fact.

Good to know.

Thanks for your detailed and insightful answer,

David

[William Quiviger]

On Sep 12, 2012, at 11:49 AM, David Bruant wrote:

>> So the reps program is really a network of community leaders, though you don't have to be a rep to be a community leader.
> But being a community leader doesn't mean being part of strategic decisions. It seems that a lot of the frustration some have toward the Reps program is exactly this confusion.
> Being a "community leader" doesn't give you the authority to decide that next year the focus will be to create a generation of open web advocates. It gives a local authority, not organisation-wide authority.

To reiterate what Majken and Ruben have written, the growth path of Mozilla Reps and their role at the highest levels of decision-making at Mozilla is a recurrent topic of discussion at Mozilla Reps council meetings and leadership summits. Mozilla Reps council members are by definition extremely experienced and accomplished Mozilla volunteers who have a deep commitment to the project and as such, we believe they should logically participate in strategic decision-making at the organizational level.

Mozilla Reps is still a relatively new program so our focus has until recently been to define the best growth path for Reps within the program (ie. Rep --> Reps Mentor --> Reps Council Member). But now that the program is reaching maturity, we have been spending more time exploring a growth path for Reps beyond the program and into higher circles of leadership. And to be sure, we will update the wiki and the Mozilla Reps portal to reflect that.

Now, to be VERY clear, in NO way do we think that volunteers participating in strategic decisions should exclusively be Mozilla Reps. Obviously, you don't need to be a Mozilla Rep to be experienced and committed to Mozilla. But because a Mozilla Rep is by definition a leader dedicated to growing their community, and that community building is central to the continued success of Mozilla, we believe that Mozilla Reps who have excelled in the program and who have reached the highest levels of authority in the program, have an exceptional understanding of the Mozilla community, its mission and its products and therefore should be part of a hybrid governing body (paid and non-paid staff) making strategic decisions for the organization and deciding on priorities for the project.


---
William Quiviger
Mozilla Reps Council Member
https://reps.mozilla.org/u/wquiviger/

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 18:48, Majken Connor a �crit :

> There's a lot to reply to, but I think that's derailing the conversation.

What gave you this feeling toward Boris' response? It sounded on track
to me. "Perhaps non-employees feel like this is not an option open for
them?" was a great eye opener to me.

> David, let me try and sum up what you're saying in a very blunt way, let me
> know if I've got it:
>
> MoCo has the money. MoCo decides where the money goes. Currently that
> process is opaque and non-inclusive. That process should be more open and
> include the whole community.
>
> Is that the core of it?

No. For sure, money is not the heart of the problem for me. For
instance, the Webmaker program does not seem to cost that much against
the impact it's starting to have world-wide (at least from my point of
view that's how it looks like). However, one can wonder how Mozilla came
to decide to invest effort and communication on WebMaker. I'm not saying
the decision is bad, but I'm questioning whether next year, "any"
mozillian can "mobilize" the community to work on a new project "that
easily".

David

[David Bruant]

Thanks William for your answer.
It seems that the Reps program has indeed changed a lot from the
definition on the wiki and I agree the wiki should be updated
accordingly :-)
Alongside with it, it may be worth doing some communication to explain
that the scope of the program changed.

I think it's time I get interested if not involved in the Reps program
if the scope has changed this way.

Thanks,

David

[David Bruant]

Le 12/09/2012 19:24, L. David Baron a écrit :
> So I think one of the assumptions you're making is that it's good to
> agree on priorities.

Yes. I don't remember the full context, but it seemed like Brian King's
assumption too.

> I think I disagree with that assumption. I think we do need to have
> agreement on the high-level goals of the project, but I think it's
> actually good to disagree over which aspects of it are higher
> priority. That people within an open-source project disagree over
> priorities is one of the things that lets open-source software have
> higher overall quality than closed-source software.
>
> This is because there are tons of different things that affect the
> quality of software, and different users care about different ones.
> We need to worry about getting behavior correct, having clear user
> interface, being fast, not using too much memory, not crashing, etc.
>
> In a tightly-managed project where the priorities are clearly
> defined by someone in charge (whether that's an individual, a small
> group of leaders, or a more democratic model like you seem to be
> proposing), you're still going to end up with a set of official
> priorities. Such priorities end up as official sanction to ignore
> some aspects of quality in favor of others, for example, being
> willing to sacrifice any amount of memory use in order to get a
> speed improvement.

I agree with you. Reading back what I've written on this thread, I
realize that I've mostly talked about how to start a new Mozilla
initiative (B2G, WebMaker, actions to follow a new business model...) or
how to decide to "stop" one (SeaMonkey, Thunderbird...).
Figuring out priorities within or between existing products/programs
seems to be a slightly different topic for which I agree with everything
you're saying. As an example, memory was always one "priority", but
there was no one to embody it; it was an excellent decision to create
MemShrink to fix this.

David

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 9/13/12 3:16 PM, David Bruant wrote:

> Le 12/09/2012 16:38, Boris Zbarsky a écrit :
>> I think there's a basic assumption here: that there is such a room.
>> I'm not sure there is.I think that the major strategic shifts I've
>> seen in this project in the last 11 years have all started with a
>> random small group with a vision that then goes around convincing
>> others piecemeal.
> That's an interesting piece of information that may be worth being
> explained. Now that I'm reading it, I realize I have seen this pattern
> emerge. It seems to be part of the Mozilla culture, but it's pretty
> hard to grasp.

I think it's a basic consequence of there not being a real framework for
strategic planning that I can see... The result is that the only way
things happen is if someone specific sits down and makes them happen.

> Besides that, it has never seemed to be a topic where the community
> was welcome to contribute on. What I'm saying here is a feeling and
> not based on facts.

Which doesn't make it any less real, I agree.

-Boris

[Alina Mierlus]

Hi David and all,

I just want to make a few points here:

* Mozilla Webmaker was built over the years. There have been volunteers
contributing into decision-making process during the open calls/events
(some projects that are now the core of webmaker were proposed/shaped by
volunteers at that time).

* I assume that the Fdn board helped w/ vision and prioritization (I
think that this is something that happens in any mature organization);

I'm not sure what to say about decision-making. I think that any
Mozillian can contribute to decision-making processes if:

* goes beyond an idea and builds something;
* finds people in the community (or outside) who share the same vision;
* the idea/product gets traction among users;
* eventually receives support from Mozilla as an organization (I also
agree that Mozilla should do better on supporting Mozillian's
initiatives and building confidence).

The thing is, Mozilla is a meritocracy (or at least is trying to be as
much as possible). That means that who does the work, has the vision and
makes things happen is a decision-maker (and yes, it is hard - but good
if you want to be successful, especially outside Mozilla Project).

My 2 cents,
Alina

PS: I read in some emails about "leader by definition". Thoughtfully!

> No. For sure, money is not the heart of the problem for me. For
> instance, the Webmaker program does not seem to cost that much against
> the impact it's starting to have world-wide (at least from my point of
> view that's how it looks like). However, one can wonder how Mozilla came
> to decide to invest effort and communication on WebMaker. I'm not saying
> the decision is bad, but I'm questioning whether next year, "any"
> mozillian can "mobilize" the community to work on a new project "that
> easily".
>
> David

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>


--
Alina Mierlus
@alina_mierlus

[Kyle Huey]

And MemShrink was, for the most part, one of those small groups with a
vision that bz mentioned. Nick realized that our memory usage regressed
significantly in Firefox 4, convinced some other engineers that this was a
big problem, and he got his manager and another manager to let their
employees spend some time fixing it. That's the severely abridged version
of course. But there was never a strong top down push to address memory
usage from
people like Mitchell or Gary or Damon or Asa. At least not one that I
remember ;-). And the only reason we needed permission from management to
do this is that the relevant people are all employees.

Pardon the brevity etc etc. I'm typing this on my phone when I should be
vacationing :-P.

[Mitchell Baker]

Here's where I think we are.

We have a community that's growing quickly. The volunteers are growing
and the employees are growing. As a project we've grown so much that
the old way of "everybody scratches their own itch" and we do some
coordination is not enough. Also, we're in a very complex and
fast-paced competitive space.

My sense is that *all* our decision-making processes are under stress.
The module ownership system answers some questions about decisions re
particular pieces of code, and some other activities. It doesn't yet
answer questions of whole product decisions, of priorities, etc.

We are developing some news ways to integrate the work, and eventually
decision-making, of volunteers and employees. (and btw, it's not the
case that every employee participates in any given strategy decision.
There's too much going on each day for that.) ReMo is one example.
Nukeador has made a number of suggestions on this list, and we worked on
some at MozCamp.

At MozCamp I also mentioned my goal that some part of the ReMo Council
begin providing input to the Boards and management. That's means
working with me to figure out what input is the most important,
preparing a presentation and supporting materials, and being comfortable
to answer questions and have a discussion.

These are all starting points. I don't know what the next "stable
state" (meaning a system that needs only tune-up but no major changes)
will look like. I don't think there's anything that exists today; we
will make something new.

Mitchell

[David Bruant]

Hi Alina,

Le 14/09/2012 02:09, Alina Mierlus a écrit :
> The thing is, Mozilla is a meritocracy (or at least is trying to be
> as much as possible)

I'm slightly changing of topic, just to share a comment I think is
relevant on that particular point.
I've had discussions with several employees who shared with me that they
felt somewhat guilty to be there, because they hadn't been a volunteer
contributor before being an employee. They felt that in a way, they
didn't deserve to be there, or at least deserved less than other people
to be there.
I don't feel I know enough about Mozilla to judge whether that guilt is
justified or not (but for sure, the people who were sharing that were
clearly competent and had no reason to feel that).

Being an employee, by the fact that it allocates so much time to work on
Mozilla projects de-facto provides some authority over the direction of
the project(s) being worked on. The hiring process, for various reasons
cannot be considered as a meritocracy, so Mozilla is not really a
meritocracy.

I would like to note that although on paper a meritocracy sounds like a
goal to achieve, it may not be so. From what I have seen, meritocracies
tend to attract like-minded people and consequently drive themselves
against diversity.

David

[John Jensen]

Hi David,

> The hiring process, for various reasons
> cannot be considered as a meritocracy

Could you expand on that a bit?

John

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>

--

John Jensen jje...@mozilla.com
Product Strategist, Mozilla Corporation
mobile: +1 604 218 0400

[Blake Kaplan]

David Bruant <brua...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've had discussions with several employees who shared with me that they
> felt somewhat guilty to be there, because they hadn't been a volunteer
> contributor before being an employee. They felt that in a way, they
> didn't deserve to be there, or at least deserved less than other people
> to be there.

I am curious about this. Do you mean that they felt that there were other,
more qualified, people in the community that were looking for a job? Or, do
you mean that they simply felt odd that they were being paid to work on
Mozilla even though they hadn't ever contributed to it as a volunteer?

> Being an employee, by the fact that it allocates so much time to work on
> Mozilla projects de-facto provides some authority over the direction of
> the project(s) being worked on. The hiring process, for various reasons
> cannot be considered as a meritocracy, so Mozilla is not really a
> meritocracy.

I agree with this in that the hiring process is based on resumes and
interviews, both of which try (and probably mostly fail) to establish the
merit of incoming candidates. It's also true that hiring decisions are made by
people and there are social considerations taken into account when we decide
whether or not to hire someone. So, it's always going to be possible that we
don't hire someone who is well-qualified and do hire someone who is going to
crash and burn. The best we can really hope for is to minimize this as much as
possible. Hiring out of the community definitely helps in that we have a much
better idea of what someone is capable of, given that we've already seen their
work.

> I would like to note that although on paper a meritocracy sounds like a
> goal to achieve, it may not be so. From what I have seen, meritocracies
> tend to attract like-minded people and consequently drive themselves
> against diversity.

Why is this specific to meritocracies? It seems like this is a pretty natural
problem for any community.
--
Blake Kaplan

[Daniel Glazman]

On 19/09/12 01:25, Blake Kaplan wrote:

>> I would like to note that although on paper a meritocracy sounds like a
>> goal to achieve, it may not be so. From what I have seen, meritocracies
>> tend to attract like-minded people and consequently drive themselves
>> against diversity.
>
> Why is this specific to meritocracies? It seems like this is a pretty natural
> problem for any community.

Absolutely. We hit the same issue in our social circles, our studies,
everywhere. We always tend to meet people from our own larger circles
and there are some communities you almost never meet.
Diversity? A community like Mozilla is interested in people
interested in software, web, innovation, coolness. It's a big filter
already, a very big one.

The only difference is that Mozilla seems to be a better
meritocracy: your diplomas are not the most important thing.
Seen from the Old World, that's a bit of something I must say: in
France, people with a 20 years career still put their diplomas on
the first line of the resume, in Germany the title (Dr, Eng, etc.)
is present on business cards, in the UK you can almost detect in
which university someone studied based on his/her accent, etc.

Pavlov? Joined Netscape at 16. Peterv? Graphic designer. We have tons
of examples like that and That Is Good. You tainted your hair in mat
blue? Who cares if you bring a lot of value to the organization...

"Never ask truly innovative people to be normal people" - one of my
univ teachers twenty-something years ago

So yes, it's a meritocracy because it's certainly the best system we
can get. Like democracy that is bad system but waaaay better than the
others.

</Daniel>
--
PS: if you're in the US, you can't imagine how subversive I am for
France writing the above...

[Henri Sivonen]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 5:07 PM, David Bruant <brua...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The hiring process, for various reasons cannot
> be considered as a meritocracy, so Mozilla is not really a meritocracy.

The hiring process could be construed to be a merit portability
mechanism where the candidate demonstrates merit elsewhere and then
Mozilla-the-HR-entity ports that merit to the Mozilla community by
hiring the person into a decision-making role. I think that's
stretching the meaning of meritocracy, though. If you tell people that
a project is a meritocracy, they will rightly assume that it means
that the people who decide are people who have demonstrated merit *in
the context of* the project.

I think Mozilla would give a more truthful picture of its decision
making if it didn't describe itself as a meritocracy.

(I think stopping porting merit by the means of hiring would not be a
reasonable way to resolve the conflict between the actual practice and
the "meritocracy" description. To be clear: I don't have problems with
decisions made by people who were hired from outside the community
directly into decision-making roles and who hadn't had time to have
gained Mozilla-contextual merit by the time of the decision.)

--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

[David Bruant]

Le 19/09/2012 01:25, Blake Kaplan a écrit :

> David Bruant <brua...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've had discussions with several employees who shared with me that they
>> felt somewhat guilty to be there, because they hadn't been a volunteer
>> contributor before being an employee. They felt that in a way, they
>> didn't deserve to be there, or at least deserved less than other people
>> to be there.

> I am curious about this. Do you mean that they felt that there were other,
> more qualified, people in the community that were looking for a job? Or, do
> you mean that they simply felt odd that they were being paid to work on
> Mozilla even though they hadn't ever contributed to it as a volunteer?

Only the latter. Maybe the word "guilty" was a bit strong when I
described the situation; "odd" is probably more accurate.

>> I would like to note that although on paper a meritocracy sounds like a
>> goal to achieve, it may not be so. From what I have seen, meritocracies
>> tend to attract like-minded people and consequently drive themselves
>> against diversity.

> Why is this specific to meritocracies?

I didn't say it was ;-)

> It seems like this is a pretty natural
> problem for any community.

To some extent, hiring outside of the people who naturally came to
gaining "merit" is a way to bring people who are less like-minded.

David

[David Bruant]

Le 18/09/2012 19:00, John Jensen a écrit :
> Hi David,

>
>> The hiring process, for various reasons

>> cannot be considered as a meritocracy
> Could you expand on that a bit?

In answers by other people, it's been answered, but here are some elements:
First, Mozilla can only hire in places where it has a legal structure.
Then, if people were being hired only based on merit, only people from
the community would be hired, by definition.
Just to clarify, as I said in my previous message, there are other
advantages at Mozilla not being a meritocracy (like bringing people from
other horizons), so I'm not saying that not being a meritocracy is a bad
thing.

David

[Gijs Kruitbosch]

On 19/09/2012 09:31 AM, David Bruant wrote:
> Le 18/09/2012 19:00, John Jensen a écrit :
>> Hi David,
>>
>>> The hiring process, for various reasons
>>> cannot be considered as a meritocracy
>> Could you expand on that a bit?
> In answers by other people, it's been answered, but here are some elements:
> First, Mozilla can only hire in places where it has a legal structure.

This is a discussion which was had before in the more general sense that
('even') the community is overrepresented in some places / social strata /
genders / ... and underrepresented in others. I would say that just because we
are practically speaking unable to completely 'level the playing field' (the
gaps are too many and too wide for Mozilla alone to fix the world, though we
should do our best to help!) before we 'measure' merit doesn't mean that we
can't consider Mozilla a meritocracy. I don't think it's useful to say we're not
a meritocracy pending such leveling of the playing field for everyone; from that
perspective, no meritocracy can exist in the current state of the world.
Parallels exist with other -cracies like democracy, which is used as a label
even though often certain subsets of 'the people' have no right to vote (minors,
criminals, non-citizen residents, etc.).

> Then, if people were being hired only based on merit, only people from
> the community would be hired, by definition.

That seems to imply you cannot have merit outside of the community, which seems
wrong (perhaps I'm misreading?). When people working on other open source
projects, or on open data, or on privacy protection, or on net neutrality, or on
web education, ..., apply to Mozilla, I would certainly hope such work would be
taken into account, because all of those, at least to me, would constitute
'merit' in one sense or another.

~ Gijs

[David Bruant]

Le 19/09/2012 11:43, Gijs Kruitbosch a écrit :
> On 19/09/2012 09:31 AM, David Bruant wrote:

>> Le 18/09/2012 19:00, John Jensen a écrit :
>>> Hi David,
>>>
>>>> The hiring process, for various reasons
>>>> cannot be considered as a meritocracy
>>> Could you expand on that a bit?
>> In answers by other people, it's been answered, but here are some
>> elements:
>> First, Mozilla can only hire in places where it has a legal structure.

> This is a discussion which was had before in the more general sense
> that ('even') the community is overrepresented in some places / social
> strata / genders / ... and underrepresented in others.

I was not talking about how Mozilla is representative of the world.
Representativeness is an issue some care about a lot, but I don't at
all; that was not my point.

> I would say that just because we are practically speaking unable to
> completely 'level the playing field' (the gaps are too many and too
> wide for Mozilla alone to fix the world, though we should do our best
> to help!) before we 'measure' merit doesn't mean that we can't
> consider Mozilla a meritocracy. I don't think it's useful to say we're
> not a meritocracy pending such leveling of the playing field for
> everyone; from that perspective, no meritocracy can exist in the
> current state of the world. Parallels exist with other -cracies like
> democracy, which is used as a label even though often certain subsets
> of 'the people' have no right to vote (minors, criminals, non-citizen
> residents, etc.).

It seems we agree in saying that Mozilla is not a meritocracy. There are
points on which Mozilla can improve itself and as you wrote, some other
points where it's not possible. No big deal.
Not being a meritocracy because we acknowledge the issues and
limitations of being one is already an excellent place to be in by my
standards.
But as said Henri Sivonen: "I think Mozilla would give a more truthful

picture of its decision making if it didn't describe itself as a
meritocracy."

Maybe that instead of "meritocracy" we need to find (or create?) a
better wording that takes meritocracy into account, but is descriptive
of how we make our community stronger and more diverse (being
representative of the world not necessarily being a end-goal) by making
some choice through other criterion than (internal) merit.

>> Then, if people were being hired only based on merit, only people from
>> the community would be hired, by definition.
>

> That seems to imply you cannot have merit outside of the community,
> which seems wrong (perhaps I'm misreading?). When people working on
> other open source projects, or on open data, or on privacy protection,
> or on net neutrality, or on web education, ..., apply to Mozilla, I
> would certainly hope such work would be taken into account, because
> all of those, at least to me, would constitute 'merit' in one sense or
> another.

I have nothing better to say than what Henri Sivonen wrote already in a
previous response:

"If you tell people that a project is a meritocracy, they will rightly
assume that it means that the people who decide are people who have
demonstrated merit *in the context of* the project."

David

[Sheeri Cabral]

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Bruant" <brua...@gmail.com>

But as said Henri Sivonen: "I think Mozilla would give a more truthful
picture of its decision making if it didn't describe itself as a
meritocracy."

Maybe that instead of "meritocracy" we need to find (or create?) a
better wording that takes meritocracy into account, but is descriptive
of how we make our community stronger and more diverse (being
representative of the world not necessarily being a end-goal) by making
some choice through other criterion than (internal) merit.

---------

I think that we're talking about "Mozilla is a meritocracy" but we're taking the phrase out of context. When I did a web search for "Mozilla meritocracy" this was the first page I got - http://www.mozilla.org/about/roles.html:

"The Mozilla project is governed by a virtual management team made up of experts from various parts of the community. Some people with leadership roles are employed to work on Mozilla and others are not. Leadership roles are granted based on how active an individual is within the community as well as the quality and nature of his or her contributions. This meritocracy is a resilient and effective way to guide our global community."

The point of "meritocracy" is as opposed to "only employers can be leaders". This context does not make the claim that Mozilla is 100% based on merit, and I think the discussion we've been having indicates that's not what we'd want, anyway. The point of Mozilla being a meritocracy is in the context of "who are our leaders?" and those are based on activity, quality and nature of contributions, whether those contributions are code or more "soft" skills like leadership.

-Sheeri

[Majken Connor]

Yes, I think that is where Mozilla as Meritocracy can break down. I don't
think it's the same if someone is hired into a leadership role from
outside. You might have lots of skills, but you still won't know why some
things work for Mozilla and why we don't do other things. I think the
skills you bring in will give you an advantage in terms of reaching that
respected leadership position quickly.

Schrep is a really great example. He didn't just jump in with his own
skills and his own way of doing things. He did a really great job of
trusting the people already in place and seeing where his skills could best
be put to use. Not only was he hired into a leadership position, he still
took some time to earn respect and show his merit as a leader. This is
slightly different than if we simply accept people's merit as transferable
and follow "their way" right away. Which really isn't meritocracy at all,
but a normal hierarchy if we're hiring people into leadership roles. From
what I've seen it always works out better to have that initial period
before the new leader starts making changes. Not only to make sure they
don't throw out the good with the bad, but to also have real trust that the
new way is better.

I think another flaw currently is that employees de facto become leaders.
Do we have any examples where there are paid team members but the leader is
a volunteer? I'm curious about other stats where the leaders came up
through the community vs outside hires. How many outside hires are leading
community members that pre-existed them? We can't just hire in skills that
the community isn't developing. We need to figure out how to share those
skills the same way we share dev skills.

[Jens Müller]

Am 11.09.2012 22:54, schrieb Justin Lebar:
>> If we all, volunteers and paid employees, have the same informations
>> >about the world and agree on the Manifesto, I don't see a reason for
>> >having our priorities not aligned. Please tell me if you see such a reason.

[...]

> If your argument were true, then either the volunteers working on
> SeaMonkey (and, for that matter, Thunderbird) don't share MoCo's
> values or they are lacking some key piece(s) of information that MoCo
> has.

Non sequitur. It might also be the case that MoCo is lacking some key
piece(s) of information that those volunteers have :-)

Jens