Firefox OS Public Information repository

[Gervase Markham]

Hi everyone,

I often find myself wondering what I can and can't say about Firefox OS,
and what has been announced publicly. I'm sure others are in the same
position. So I thought it would be great if there was a page which
summarised the public info on key topics such as announced partners,
release dates, release geographies and so on.

Then I thought: it would be difficult for someone inside MoCo to
maintain this page, and risky for them if they messed it up. However, it
would be much easier for someone outside MoCo to do, because by
definition they would only be able to rely on public sources for the
info. So there's no possibility of an information leak. Taking a leaf
from the security coders, call it a "least privilege" implementation :-)

Is there anyone who is following the development of Firefox OS and who
is not employed by MoCo who would be interested in performing this
service for everyone?

Gerv

[Tim Chien]

IMO the prefect page already exists, written by our lovely Wikipedia
contributors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS

Trying the compile the public info anywhere else would be (kind of)
duplicate work, and risk of blending rumors into real fact.
(on the opposite, Wikipedia is *usually* fact-checked.)

Pray the Open Web!

> _______________________________________________
> dev-b2g mailing list
> dev...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-b2g
>



--
Tim Guan-tin Chien, Senior Front-end Dev., Mozilla Corp. (Taiwan)

[Rubén Martín]

And keep in mind that some Reps also have access to non-public-yet
information and they are in the same situation.

With the yammer group opening to all mozillians, we have also other group
with access to more information.

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

[Parul Mathur]

Gervase,

What did you have in mind? A page on the Mozilla wiki?

I would like to contribute. I'm a community member and I've been helping
out with testing Firefox OS builds.

Regards,
Parul
--
Parul Mathur
Mozilla Community Contributor
IRC: pragmatic
IRC Channel: #qa on irc.mozilla.org

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/03/13 16:39, Parul Mathur wrote:
> What did you have in mind? A page on the Mozilla wiki?
>
> I would like to contribute. I'm a community member and I've been helping
> out with testing Firefox OS builds.

I was thinking of a wiki page, yes. However, Tim's point is a good one.
Perhaps we should just refer to Wikipedia when we want to know what we
can say! :-)

Gerv

[Lawrence Mandel]

----- Original Message -----
> Hi everyone,
>
> I often find myself wondering what I can and can't say about Firefox
> OS,
> and what has been announced publicly. I'm sure others are in the same
> position. So I thought it would be great if there was a page which
> summarised the public info on key topics such as announced partners,
> release dates, release geographies and so on.
>
> Then I thought: it would be difficult for someone inside MoCo to
> maintain this page, and risky for them if they messed it up. However,
> it
> would be much easier for someone outside MoCo to do, because by
> definition they would only be able to rely on public sources for the
> info. So there's no possibility of an information leak. Taking a leaf
> from the security coders, call it a "least privilege" implementation
> :-)
>
> Is there anyone who is following the development of Firefox OS and
> who
> is not employed by MoCo who would be interested in performing this
> service for everyone?

I think this type of information gathering is tricky at best. It's possible that a news article or other non Mozilla source may contain information that is speculative. This information, whether correct or not, may not be appropriate for Mozilla to list or disclose. Elsewhere in this thread someone suggested using wikipedia, which I think is a better idea than hosting this information on wikimo or another official Mozilla source.

Lawrence

[Parul Mathur]

On 04-03-13 08:46, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
> I think this type of information gathering is tricky at best. It's
> possible that a news article or other non Mozilla source may contain
> information that is speculative. This information, whether correct or
> not, may not be appropriate for Mozilla to list or disclose. Elsewhere
> in this thread someone suggested using wikipedia, which I think is a
> better idea than hosting this information on wikimo or another
> official Mozilla source.

Lawrence,

Wikipedia needs a citation for every fact stated. In the absence of an
official Mozilla press release, the only other citations are news articles.
Information gathered on a Mozilla wiki page can be scrutinized by a
number of people within Mozilla to ensure that it only contains
information appropriate for Mozilla to disclose.

[Stormy Peters]

On 04-03-13 08:46, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
>
>> I think this type of information gathering is tricky at best. It's
>> possible that a news article or other non Mozilla source may contain
>> information that is speculative. This information, whether correct or not,
>> may not be appropriate for Mozilla to list or disclose. Elsewhere in this
>> thread someone suggested using wikipedia, which I think is a better idea
>> than hosting this information on wikimo or another official Mozilla source.
>>
>

I would vote for it to be on the Mozilla wiki so that Mozillians who blog
about it can link back to an official source.

Stormy

[Parul Mathur]

On 04-03-13 09:33, Stormy Peters wrote:
> I would vote for it to be on the Mozilla wiki so that Mozillians who blog
> about it can link back to an official source.
>
> Stormy

If the information were to be published on the Mozilla wiki, what would
be an appropriate place?
Somewhere under https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G like
https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Overview ?

[Lawrence Mandel]

----- Original Message -----

> > On 04-03-13 08:46, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
>

> > > I think this type of information gathering is tricky at best.
> > > It's
> > > possible that a news article or other non Mozilla source may
> > > contain
> > > information that is speculative. This information, whether
> > > correct
> > > or not, may not be appropriate for Mozilla to list or disclose.
> > > Elsewhere in this thread someone suggested using wikipedia, which
> > > I
> > > think is a better idea than hosting this information on wikimo or
> > > another official Mozilla source.
> >
>

> I would vote for it to be on the Mozilla wiki so that Mozillians who
> blog about it can link back to an official source.

The scenario that I'd like us to avoid is that someone adds a partner/date/launch market/etc. to the wiki citing an article (or without a citation). This information is then picked up and blogged by someone else in the Mozilla community adding weight to something that was speculative to start. I agree that it's preferable to have this information on our wiki from a sourcing perspective and because this is where we all keep our information. If the general thought is that the risk is low, let's do that.

Lawrence

[Lawrence Mandel]

----- Original Message -----
> On 04-03-13 08:46, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
> > I think this type of information gathering is tricky at best. It's
> > possible that a news article or other non Mozilla source may
> > contain
> > information that is speculative. This information, whether correct
> > or
> > not, may not be appropriate for Mozilla to list or disclose.
> > Elsewhere
> > in this thread someone suggested using wikipedia, which I think is
> > a
> > better idea than hosting this information on wikimo or another
> > official Mozilla source.

> Lawrence,
>
> Wikipedia needs a citation for every fact stated.

Well, ideally. I've read many Wikipedia articles that lack citations.

> In the absence of
> an
> official Mozilla press release, the only other citations are news
> articles.
> Information gathered on a Mozilla wiki page can be scrutinized by a
> number of people within Mozilla to ensure that it only contains
> information appropriate for Mozilla to disclose.
>

I'm suggesting that we shouldn't promote any partner related information that has not publicly been disclosed from a Mozilla source (press release, blog post, etc.). Just because information has been published in an article doesn't mean that it is correct.

Lawrence

[Patrick Finch]

I might be having a sense of humour failure (a full inbox will do that
to a chap), but I'm strongly in favour of this on the Mozilla wiki,
community-driven.

Patrick


--
Patrick Finch
Director of Product Marketing Strategy, Mozilla
Mobile: +46 768 444 833
IM: patric...@gmail.com

[Gervase Markham]

On 05/03/13 12:43, Patrick Finch wrote:
> I might be having a sense of humour failure (a full inbox will do that
> to a chap), but I'm strongly in favour of this on the Mozilla wiki,
> community-driven.

What say you to Lawrence's concerns?

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/03/13 20:39, Lawrence Mandel wrote:
> I'm suggesting that we shouldn't promote any partner related
> information that has not publicly been disclosed from a Mozilla
> source (press release, blog post, etc.). Just because information has
> been published in an article doesn't mean that it is correct.

I think that information with a named source ("A Sony spokesman", as
opposed to "sources close to Sony") should be OK.

There seems to be divided opinion in this thread on whether this would
be useful or whether we should just read Wikipedia to find out what we
can say publicly about Firefox OS... I think it would be better for us
to have our own primary source, but it would require someone who also
thinks this is a good idea to commit a small-ish amount of time to
maintain it.

Is anyone interested?

Gerv