FxSiteCompat

The Firefox Site Compatibility (FxSiteCompat) project tackles the backward compatibility and regressions of the Firefox Web browser, both on desktop and mobile, and engages developers better.

Motivation

Web site breakages lead to a bad user experience and reputation among Firefox users and Web developers regardless of the reason. We could avoid such situations as much as possible by providing helpful resources and encouraging better communication between Mozilla and developers. Ultimately, this project aims to minimize the number of regressions in Firefox OS that may annoy app developers.

Though Mozilla has the Developer Engagement and Compatibility team but no employees are working on those areas for now. That's why this is a community effort run by active volunteer(s).

Focus Areas

Backward Compatibility

Objectives

• Avoid Web site breakages due to backward compatibility changes in Firefox
  • Firefox has brought many changes to the Web platform features to improve its standard compliance and interoperability. We should let developers know those changes are necessary to keep up with this HTML5 era.

Activities

• Tell Web developers about changes that may affect backward compatibility for Web sites
  • Write documents on MDN
  • Announce the latest releases with the compatibility doc via Twitter, Facebook and Google+
• Research real-life examples (in progress)

Regressions

Objectives

• Avoid Web site breakages due to regressions in Firefox
  • "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow."
  • Because Firefox OS is not updated frequently, regressions can give developers headaches more than the standalone Firefox browser. The number of regressions should be minimized as possible.

Activities

(No specific actions taken yet)

• Find regressions and get them fixed as soon as possible
  • Build a robust Aurora community of Web developers and encourage them to test their sites with one of the latest Aurora builds
  • Commit many automated tests
  • Observe new bug reports on Bugzilla
• If a regression is found in the final version of Firefox, tell developers about it ASAP via Twitter or other channels, with a workaround if available, to avoid confusion
• Research real-life examples

Notes

How to write a Firefox Site Compatibility doc

(WIP)

Members

• Kohei Yoshino