Firefox: Mainstreaming Open Source

Ben GoodgerSoftware Engineer, Google Inc.

Outline

• Building a Product• Building a Brand• Building a Community• Successes and Failures• Changes for 1.5• The Technology Platform• The Future of Firefox• Success in OSS Distribution

In the Beginning…

The promise:

Small Size

Web Standards

Next Generation Browser

…In less than 6 months!

In the Beginning…

…and a 12 MB download size!

The reality…

Phoenix Rising

• Dissatisfaction among engineers, later users

• Offshoot browsers: Manticore, Chimera, Phoenix

• One common theme:

Make a great browsing experience first.

• “Mozilla Browser” is born in XUL in April of 2002.

Phoenix Rising

• Remove less-used components

• Polish the user experience

• Market it!

On top of the Netscape / Seamonkey core:

Phoenix Rising

• Late 2002: “Phoenix” 0.1

• Early 2003: “Firebird” 0.6

• Late 2003: 1.0 roadmap drafted

• Early 2004: “Firefox” 0.8

• Late 2004: Firefox 1.0

Order to Chaos

• Understand our target audiences

• Specify requirements

• Establish design direction

• Design components

• Allocate resources

• Execute!

Order to Chaos

• Adhere to Mozilla’s module ownership policy

• Say no a lot

• Deal with being unpopular

Understand that you can’t please everybody, and that the target audience is king!

The 1.0 Roadmap

Lower the barrier to entry:• Distribution Site • Installers• Data Migration

Improve the Browsing Experience• Find Toolbar• Download Manager• Password Management

…and so we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot:• Extension Management• Software Update

• Help System

The 1.0 Roadmap

Other Firefox-specific features:

• Integrated Search• Customizable Toolbars• Form Auto complete• Live Bookmarks

… and improved default settings

Building a Brand

• Integrated brand identity

• The Visual Design Team

• Legal requirements

• A new look

Visual Design

Quality, Consistency, Simplicity across:

• Logos

• Product skin

• Web site and documentation

Building a Distribution Machine

• Top half of Mozilla homepage updated to have a consumer focus

• One click to download featured products

• Highly optimized download and install experience, as few user clicks and decisions as possible

Building a Community

• Testing, coding, localization and documentation

• Release early and often

• Provide useful feedback mechanisms

• Provide a good set of developer tools

• Provide a good set of collaboration tools

• Provide a hackable, extensible codebase!

Community Marketing

• SpreadFirefox.com

• New York Times Campaign

• Referral Campaigns

• Individual Initiatives

by piro & inugamixhttp://piro.sakura.ne.jp/ http://inu.imagines.jp/

design by mya leighhttp://myaleigh.com/

art by rakazhttp://rakaz.nl/

http://firemonger.org/

art by rakazhttp://rakaz.nl/

Challenges

• Source management leading up to ship was painful

• Consumer focus contentious among contributors

• Security update distribution

• Extension distribution site

• Extension authoring

• Too much serialization of effort

Success

• Nearly 100 million downloads

• ~10% marketshare

• Many happy users

• Lots of recognition and attention for the Open Source model & community

Changes for 1.5

• Retiring Seamonkey

• Consolidated tree management

• Better tools for developer documentation and communication

• New update system

• New extension site

• New extension installation system

Improvements in 1.5

• Much Faster

• More Privacy Tools

• Streamed Security Updates

• Additional Tabbed Browsing controls

• For Developers: SVG, <canvas>, CSS columns, easier extension development

The Technology Platform

• Scalable Vector Graphics

• Programmable Image

Firefox into the Future

• Document Management

• Search

• Bookmarks and History

• Enhanced Platform (SVG, XULRunner, etc)

• Better Graphics (Cairo)

source: Robert O’Callahan

Successful OSS Distribution

• Understand your users

• Plan, plan, plan!

• Use wikis

• Track bugs

• Optimize the delivery process

• Be resolute

Q&A