Weekly Call 2016-02-04

When

  • Thursday February 4th, 16:00 UTC

Agenda

  • Check the agenda and please add your own topics as well if you have something to share with us.

AirMozilla video

Weekly call details:

Topics

  1. Connected device announcement
  2. Innovation fund

And your topic! - feel free to add it on etherpad

PS: As always we encourage you to add some shout outs! We have amazing reps doing amazing work! Let’s send them some #mozlove!

2 Likes

Check raw notes here.

Attendees:

  1. Hi My name is Stafan AKA Costenslayer, and I am From London England My goal for 2016 is to help grow the UK community
  2. Hi my name is Radhakrishna Pemmasani and I am from Hyderabad. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to participate in the connected devices program and contribute to the Open Hardware through Mozilla.
  3. Hi my name is Andre Garzia, and I am from Niteroi, Brazil. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to keep Firefox OS alive despite what management thinks.
  4. Hi my name is Atique Ahmed Ziad, from Dhaka, Bangladesh. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to keep Firefox os alive!! Want to see the fx os is not dead.
  5. I am Bolaram, from Sylhet,Bangladesh . My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to participate in the connected device program and contribute to keep Firefox OS alive !
  6. Hi, my name is Amine Zaafouri and I am from Tunisia. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is help Mozilla build a great strategy for the new IoT challenge
  7. I am Prathamesh Chavan from Pune, India. My goal for 2016 is to grow the upstream contribution in Pune.
  8. HI I am Saurabh Shah From Pune, India. My Goal for 2016 is to build the community more engaged and grow in Pune and in India. Also I will be traveling for few other countries and would like to spread the same love and make more outreach.
  9. Hi my name is Christos and I am from Greece. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to better explore the IoT space! wohooo!
  10. Hi, Ioana from Romania. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to mentor more awesome reps indeed!
  11. Hi, Konstantina back to Greece. My goal for 2016 is to make sure that we are accountable for our budget+1
  12. Hi, Michael from Switzerland and I am too lazy to add my goals for Q1. So true!
  13. Hi Umesh from India. My goals for 2016 is to spread Mozilla mission.
  14. Hi, Aman from India. My goal for th first quarter od 2016 is to grow connected device program in my region.\o/
  15. Hi I am Trishul, from India
  16. Hi I am Rahul Talreja, from Bhopal, India. My Goal for the first quarter of 2016 is to mobilize more and more mozillians in my community.
  17. Hi I am Shahid from India
  18. Rubén here, streaming from Spain :wink:
  19. Guillermo, face muted today
  20. Brian from Novo Mesto and lazy to write my Q1 goals :P:p best :))
  21. Fabricio Zuardi watching from the browser (flash plugin) flash is one thing that refuses to die…
  22. Robby Sayles, I’m from Dallas, Texas USA, my goal will be to join more calls (smiles)
  23. Hi my name is Lucy from Toronto!
  24. Marios from London hmm no goals - goal for 2016 is to become active in the Mozilla UK community and Mozilla Advocacy
  25. Rosana, today from the Wedding room in Berlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_(Berlin)
  26. Belayet from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
  27. Anis from Dhaka, Bangladesh
  28. Abhiram from IndiaViswaprasath From India.
  29. Hi i am Manuela From Côte d’Ivoire Africa
  30. Hi my name is Kelimutu, and I am from Indonesia. My goal for the first quarter of 2016 is helping my community to establish our very first mozilla space in Jakarta \o/
  31. Hi! Im Fate from the Philippines
  32. Hi I am Istiaque form Bangladesh
  33. Sunnat from Bangladesh
  34. Nootan Ghimire from Kathmandu, Nepal. Couldn’t configure Vidyo on Debian :confused: . Goal: Revive Mozilla Nepal Community.
  35. Jobava from RomaniaJayesh from India
  36. Hi, my name is Mijanur and I am from Bangladesh
  37. Hi I’m Abin Abraham From Mozilla Kerala Community (India)
  38. Hi i am Tim Maks from The Netherlands
  39. Hi am Sandeep from India My goal for th first quarter 2016 is to grow connected device program in my region,

Shout outs!

  • to Ioana for organising and reforming this call+1
  • (Ioana) Thank you to all those present at FOSDEM - specially to those that spoke and helped at the booth ! You do inspire us all!
  • (elio) for showing that contributions go beyond code and that community design can be beautiful.+1+100+++
  • (Ioana) Big thank you for John B for joining the call and being there for the community to answer the questions and support mozillians initiatives!

AGENDA
TOPIC 1: Connected devices announcement (George and John)
Discourse: https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/firefox-os-connected-devices-announcement/6864

    1. We will end development on Firefox OS for smartphones after the version 2.6 release.
    1. As of March 29, 2016, Marketplace will no longer accept submissions for Android, Desktop and Tablet, we will remove all apps that don’t support Firefox OS. Firefox OS apps will continue to be accepted into 2017 (we have yet to finalize a date for when we won’t continue accepting these apps).
    1. The Connected Devices team has been testing out a new product innovation process with staff, 3 products have passed the first “gate” and many more are in the pipeline. Having multiple different product innovations in development will be the approach moving forward, and we’re hoping to open up the formal process to non-staff participation in the first half of the year.
  • 4.The foxfooding program will continue and will focus on these new product innovations (rather than improving the smartphone experience). We expect the Sony Z3C foxfooding devices to be useful in this, but we expect it to take until the end of March to figure out the specific design of this program.

Questions:

  • Andre: If the implementation of these decisions are open but the decision was done without consultation, how do we move future decision to a more transparent way?
    John: Firefox OS is something that is being discussed for months now. There have been conservations on having those discussions publically. This decision was not taken lightly from the SVP. I’ll write to Mitchell about those kind of decisions more openely.
    Andre comment: We used to have volunteers present in high-level executive meetings between Mozilla and Telefonica here in Brazil. This was great.
    Christos: yes we were not included in the decision but we have an opportunity on building the future so let’s show the way
  • Andre: How can community have an open channel, both ways, to decision makers to convey the importance of certain projects and aspects of our products before they get killed?
    George: there is a volunteer (an idea?) about having a volunteer on the board or having a well developed muscle on surfacing those issues. We used to have that and we need to rebuild it.
  • Prathamesh : The Community, like the FSAs, who have newly joined, wish to do more research on Firefox OS. What should we, as Reps, should answer them regarding the future of Firefox OS ? +1
    Brian: even though we announced that firefox OS staff support is no longer there we haven’t figured the future of the program so I would like to ask everyone to contribute on that conversation in discourse.
    George: this conversation is being shaped right now
    The same answer that will be given to us. Or clarified today?
  • Trishul - what will be future of marketplace and now will their be any Apps? Do we have anything to give the app developer when we take FXOS apps from them?
    Marketplace and firefox OS apps will be supported until 2018. Developers will still be able to access their apps.
    Lucy: Marketplace will be supported until 2018. There is a movement on asking people to move to addons while the apps will be mantained. We encourage people to look to addons
    By Q3 2017 you won’t be able to add new apps. hey will transition add-ons to AMO so that the dependencies on Marketplace can be removed.
    Rosana: we need to understand what people really love and let’s move the energy where we love, what are other low-barrier, immediate impact projects we can direct people towards.
  • Umesh - What is the priority now Firefox for desktop and mobile / Connected Device / Campus Campaign? +1
    Rosana: Firefox for desktop is a high priority for Mozilla and that’s the high priority for everyone. We have other areas, like campus campaign (swift the policy) and the connected devices space. It’s difficult to prioritise completely, Firefox for desktop it’s still a priority. We are not deprioritizing it but it’s a good working machine maybe that’s we put more effort on the other 2.
  • Fabricio: (I dont have a mic or vydio) followup to Prathamesh’s, from a developer perspective. As a web developer, I know how to make things appear on a screen, not sure what people that write web pages and like mozilla will be able to contribute on IoT projects, “things” don’t always have screens :slight_smile: The new fxOS for “connected devices” will be what? An OS for embedded systems? This is not clear to me, will this OS be gecko based? A linux distro? What?
    Also, what will happen to Appmaker ? (Prathamesh)-
    Prathamesh - Appmaker is closed as project for a few months now.
  • Ok https://blog.webmaker.org/product-update-for-appmaker-and-popcorn-maker Closed to focus on smaller focused web-literacy projects.
    If u enter the page this is the message you see: Our tools for teaching the Web are evolving. As of September 30th, Mozilla will no longer support Appmaker. To learn more, read our blog post. (y)check http://teach.mozilla.org/clubs for those programs.
    John: please be patient, we don’t the answer for now but we will get back to you
    George: 2 things – 1) Yes, many CD don’t have screens, but the hope is to shape how the web is relevant for things that don’t have screens (likely need to link with something that has a screen eventually) … this is an exploration right now, and a bet that we can find powerful answers to this. I think this will push all of us to be quite creative. 2) OS – This really is an open question right now. Do we need a full stack OS moving forward? What will help us make this decision?Andre: food for thoughts: if we don’t have a full-stack OS, what can we do once other vendors use proprietary private APIs for CD which we won’t have access to?
  • For component Firefox OS marketing ,what about? What are the priority projects?Communities must stop marketing around firefox OS?
    John: if there are events that are planned we will continue to support you
    Rosana: would you advice people to stop planning events for Firefox OS
    John: on a marketing purspective, it will be better to look on connected devices
  • Abhiram: (not on Vidyo) - What events can we plan around connected devices as of now in colleges? IoT workshops? Run-up events of any kind?
    Rosana: we will have the innovation fund (check next topic)

TOPIC 2: Innovation fund (Christos)
Discourse: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Connected_Devices/Participation/Reps_Innovation_Fund

  • aimed to empower Mozillians who want to explore the connected devices space.
  • we have volunteers that have the background and the imagination in creating more in the IoT space
  • there are 2 funds 1) 100 usd for hardware 2) hackathons TBD on how the hackathons will be structured
  • The fund is open to all mozillians so find a Rep around you to help you
  • This is a 3 months experiment
  • A commitee will guide the hackathons and and help with the experiments
  • Questions:
  • Andre: 100 USD is too small to do events. A single raspberry pi will cost that here in Brazil. That amount will buy about 8 arduinos the most. (Tessel would be nice, but also expensive around here) Settling for such small sum will prevent sucessful, meaningful, events to be held. Is this sum final or can we talk about increasing it?
    the amount is still under discussion
    +1 on the kits idea (there are some common elements any hardware project would need - like a board, sensors, etc)
    MozTechspeakers can help with kits. I will post a message in our channels with the idea and call everyone to a discourse thread where we can discuss kit ideas.
  • Abhiram: (not on Vidyo) : Will there be a set of mentors accessible to Reps who’d like to organize hackathons? (Thank you Rosana! Clarified.)
    Contact your Reps Mentor & the committee will help proposals for hackathons (Rosana)

[OFF TOPIC]

  • what is the essence of FOXFOODING program?
    * Andre: The foxfooding is pivoting so strongly right now that it may affect the tides. (I lol’d :slight_smile:
    * Valentin: The purpose is using and testing Firefox OS ourselves, as the product is changing shape, the foxfooding program also needs to evolve. Please bear with us, we need to figure it out and will have more answers in the upcoming weeks.

NON-VERBAL UPDATES (ie: you can’t attend but want to share something)