Foundation:Planning
We are in the midst of a conversation about the future vision and focus of the Mozilla Foundation. This page is a dashboard.
- Purpose: define the role and programs of Mozilla Foundation.
- Status (April 6 2009): piloting various activities. Strategic review begins again in Q3 2009.
The Mozilla Foundation's Vision and Roadmap process is taking place throughout 2009.
Purpose
Building on the Mozilla project-wide 2010 goals process, the Mozilla Foundation is undertaking a Vision and Roadmap development process. Its goals are:
- Articulate Foundation role and identity within the broader Mozilla community (long term)
- Define new programs that advance the Mozilla Foundation mission (medium term)
- 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.
Strawmen and Scratchpads
In late 2008, we developed a 'strawman' description of Mozilla Foundation programs as a way to gather input and stimulate discussion. It included these program ideas:.
- 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.
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 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.
The Mozilla Foundation Vision and Roadmap process is a conversation. Members of the Mozilla community are encouraged to share their ideas early and often.
At this stage, we're most interested in comments or involvement in the experiments listed below. Please comment on the relevant pages, or send mail to all -- @ -- mozillafoundation -- .org with ideas.
Useful Blog Postings
- Proposed Mozilla 2010 Goals
- Circles of Community
- More on circles of community
- Next Million Mozillians
- Whistler reflections by Mark Surman
Other useful references: