Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird and the Hybrid Hypothesis
There’s been a fair amount of controversy regarding Mitchell Baker’s recent announcement that Mozilla is seeking a new home for Thunderbird. From my perspective, the issue stems in large part from a growing disconnect between Mozilla’s stated goals, as laid forth in the Manifesto, and its increasingly exclusive focus on Firefox. This isn’t to say that the latter is necessarily a bad thing, but the decision to saw off Thunderbird doesn’t seem to sit well with the open-ended objective to “build and deliver great consumer products that support the Manifesto’s principles.” If an open source email client based on the Mozilla platform with 5-10 million users (including me) doesn’t make the cut, what does?
Another concern that I have, from my perspective as a probably ill-informed outsider, is that Firefox itself is the product of a grassroots effort from inside the Mozilla community, not a top-down dictate. It would seem apt for Mozilla to retain a structure that is conducive to fostering the Next Big Thing, rather than merely nurturing the current hit product.
The final consideration is the ongoing platform debate. It’s no secret that I and some others think that Mozilla may be missing a truly forward-looking and visionary direction by not investing more into the platform as a competitor in the RIA space.
Mozilla has taken on an incredibly difficult and ambitious task in trying to innovate so deeply not just in the technological but also in the organizational sphere. This is exciting thing to watch, and I would hope that the Thunderbird debate will in the end help to clarify the overarching vision of what Mozilla, as an organization, wants to be.
I haven’t seen any comprehensive explanation of how the decision was made to create the Mozilla Corporation as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation (though I may well have missed this). I’d be interested to know whether an alternative was considered where the Foundation would remain “pure” and focus on development of the platform as a general-purpose framework for client-based internet applications. After all, it doesn’t seem right to say that the vast majority of Mozilla staff is working on the browser product. At least as far as developers are concerned, everyone I interact with is actually working on the platform.
An independent Firefox Corporation could focus on development and marketing of the browser product and contribute from its revenues to the operation of the Foundation. Other successful companies using the Mozilla platform would be expect to contribute as well (perhaps as part of some hybrid licensing scheme?). This would suggest a neat solution to the Thunderbird conundrum. The Thunderbird developers should put together a business plan and raise funding to enable them to continue operations under the auspices of a new Thunderbird Corp. Obviously this would require some promise of revenues and profits in the future. If they can’t raise money then I would submit that they probably aren’t meeting a pressing and unfulfilled need.
Another thing I like about this idea is that it promises increased incentivization for outstanding individuals in the Mozilla universe. Firefox Corp could eventually be acquired or go public, so people who could potentially be major contributors but aren’t motivated by idealism alone would have a more concrete reason for getting (and staying) involved. This might seem anathema to the whole open source ethos, but it’s suggestive that some of the key drivers behind Firefox have long since left the project to set up venture-funded companies.
To summarize: a hybrid structure that lets Firefox be a “real company” would eliminate the ambiguity that has led to the current Thunderbird controversy, make it clearer where the Joosts, Songbirds and AllPeers of the world belong in the big picture, help with staff recruitment/retention, retain ample scope for those who want to work on a wide-ranging project for a non-profit foundation and free Mozilla to focus its attention on continuing to develop a great platform for a range of client-based applications.
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reading your post I find myself acting like a hybrid human spiderbot. The keywords I find are:
- Dictate
- Corporation
- Grassroots
- Foundation
- ProductS
- Platform
- Firefox
- Thunderbird
The human in me sees only contradictions:
- Corporation vs Foundation
- ProductS (plural) vs Firefox (singular) minus Thunderbird and Platform
- Dictate vs grassroots
Mozilla clearly lacks the sort of benevolent leadership at both a CEO and structural level that can facilitate ongoing growth.
Instead they are shutting up shop by rationalising and narrowing their courageously lofty goals. Perhaps Baker’s been doing too much acrobatics? All that up, down, around abouts. Perhaps Mitchell doesn’t know what direction to lead Mozilla so she’s following her instincts and dragging it kicking and screaming here there and everywhere?
PS Do I think it’s reasonable to personalise this issue towards Mitchell? Well when she *appears* to be acting the dictator by making decisions without the wider consultation of the community, then yes I do think it’s reasonable to attack one person because where there’s a dictactor, who else can I address?
Comment by pd — 7/28/2007 @ 8:13 am
“If an open source email client based on the Mozilla platform with 5-10 million users (including me) doesn’t make the cut, what does?”
Exactly. EXACTLY. On one blog I saw it referred to as “only” 5-10m as opposed to FF’s 50-100m. How many were TB users before they were FF users? If I want to avoid IE I can get Opera or Safari or Firefox. If I want to avoid OE there is only one free, credible program in the Windows space.
My fear is that TB will be cut loose, er… “communitied” and will preserve a small, dedicated community like Seamonkey (which I still use from time to time), but will exit corporate use and be mowed down in the consumer space if Apple build a Windows Mail the way they have Safari, with all the cross-promotion they can bring to bear via iTunes, QT, Safari etc.
Comment by Mark Dowling — 7/29/2007 @ 6:29 pm