Foundation:Planning

Building on the Mozilla project-wide 2010 goals process, the Mozilla Foundation is undertaking a Vision and Roadmap development process throughut 2009. Its goals are:

1. Articulate Foundation role and identity within the broader Mozilla community (long term)
2. Define new programs that advance the Mozilla Foundation mission (medium term)
3. Catalyze community and get good ideas rolling along the way (starts now!)

This process is related specifically to activities undertaken directly by the Foundation. It does not replace or compete with the 2010 goals process. Rather, it will draw on 2010 goals and other inputs as a way to shape the future programs and focus of the Foundation.

Process

The Mozilla Foundation Vision and Roadmap will be developed by staff, board and community members throughout 2009. The rough process looks like this:

April 2009 update: As noted above, the initial strawman and brainstormning process are now complete. We're now in a piloting and experimenting phase. We will loop back for a strategic review and visioning in September 2009.

Strawman - Role and Programs

In late 2008, we developed a 'strawman' description of Mozilla Foundation role and programs as a way to gather input and stimulate discussion.

The 'role' section of the strawman proposed two primary functions for the Foundation: 1. support system for the Mozilla Project and 2. manager of programs that go 'beyond software' to promote Mozilla's values. These roles are illustrated here:

There was general agreement that these are the right roles for the Foundation. During 2009, the team is focused on building its skills in these two areas.

The 'progam' section of the strawman focused on give possible program areas for the Foundation to focus on:

• Mozilla Education: Help people learn about Mozilla's open, participatory and distributed way of working. Build on the Seneca model, with students participate directly in Mozilla development, but do it at scale.
• Mozilla Research: Solve big open web tech and user problems that no one else will tackle. Mozilla's main role is to frame the questions, provide infrastructure and build networks of researchers.
• Movement building: Engage millions of people as promoters the open internet, providing concrete ways to participate in projects like Mozilla even if they don't have technical skills.
• Accessibility: Drive web accessibility for people with disabilities into the mainstream of web development, and continue to support open source accessibility projects that have potential to really scale.
• Community Support: Provide support for smaller Mozilla, open source and free culture projects, helping them to build community and sustainability.

During early 2009, we are experimenting with most of these ideas in one way or another. The Foundation's 2009 operational plan and the Foundation wiki provide details and offer status updates.

Useful Blog Postings

• Proposed Mozilla 2010 Goals
• Circles of Community
• More on circles of community
• Next Million Mozillians
• Whistler reflections by Mark Surman
• Mozilla Puzzle Pieces post about MozFdn role by Mark Surman

Other useful references:

• 2010 Goals Wiki
• Mozilla Futures Friend Feed