OStatic reports that the latest build of Google's Chrome browser outpaces Firefox 3 beta 4, with up to 30 percent faster performance than its Chrome predecessor, but this report overlooks a speedier Firefox alternative (Firefox 3 beta 5 is zippier), but it also misses arguably the biggest advantage Firefox has over every other browser:
A massive, growing, deeply involved add-on community, one that is only going to get stronger with the release of Jetpack.
Google has talked about getting Firefox-like extensions for Chrome but it, like Microsoft's Internet Explore and Apple's Safari, woefully underdeliver on community.
Before you cry 'Foul!', recalling that I dubbed the value of community "overhyped" in software, let me quickly suggest Firefox as an exception to the general rule, and a significant one, at that. John Lilly, Mozilla's CEO, reminded me on Twitter that 40 percent of Mozilla's development comes from outside contributors.
This makes sense, as Mozilla's Firefox fits all the parameters I outlined to hit the open core, open complement, open community box on my "openness grid."
So, fast as Firefox is, forget speed for a minute. Or two, because you really do have time, especially when the benefits of the Firefox add-on development community dramatically outpace whatever JavaScript improvements Google, Apple, or Microsoft may manufacture into their browsers.
Jetpack, as CNET reports, makes building and maintaining add-ons much easier for developers. InformationWeek notes that Firefox already sports more than 7,000 add-ons/extensions. Imagine what happens once the bar to creating and maintaining those add-ons/extensions gets better with Jetpack....
Mozilla is also proposing new rules for commit access to the core Firefox code, which could further open up the development process and encourage even more community involvement. Firefox, in other words, is going from strength to strength while its proprietary peers (which does not include open-source Google Chrome) struggle to be all things for all people.
In a product like the browser, which has so many disparate uses and users, this is an exercise in futility. Horizontal technologies like browsers and operating systems are best developed by communities, not individual organizations. They can be shepherded by a single organization - be it a for-profit corporation or a non-profit - but unless they break through the walls of their own office complex, they will struggle.
Dave Neary has suggested different ways to calculate the size of an open-source project's community. By any measure, Mozilla's Firefox community is large and growing.
This, and not JavaScript enhancements (of which Firefox will continue to do plenty), is what sets Firefox apart, and ensures that it's the browser to beat. Even though its 22-percent market share, growing 5 percent each year, still trails IE's dwindling 68-percent market share, declining 5 percent each year, Firefox has community, and that community is the decisive factor in the browser battle.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Open source is very popular these days, but it remains a bit of a mystery how to actually build a successful open-source project. I once reviewed some research on how to create winning open-source projects, but delivering results against basic principles remains a crap shoot of sorts.
I was therefore gratified to see John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, weigh in on the subject with his excellent "Lessons from Mozilla" talk at Heise in Nuremberg, Germany, this week. With more than 220 million users and 40 percent of its code contributed by developers that don't work for Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser is an excellent example of open-source success.
Even so, Lilly was quick to warn people away from a cookie cutter approach to open-source success. While he was slated to discuss "how to bring an open-source project into the mainstream," he called out three serious caveats to that premise:
(Credit:
John Lilly)
Given that there is no One True Way to do open source, what are some key principles for aiding, though not ensuring, the success of a project?
Lily cites seven lessons that can be derived from the Mozilla experience. (I've added some context based on his presentation.)
- Superior products matter. Apache, Firefox, WordPress, Wikipedia, etc. What's the common theme? "All are known for being best-in-class for users." If the code is weak, the project will be weak. Period. Open source is an accelerant: it either makes poor code die faster or great code thrive faster.
- Push (most) decision-making to the edges. The important thing is to have "high agreement on core values," while simultaneously allowing developers closest to the code/problem to make independent decisions as to how to resolve issues.
- Communication will happen in every possible way (so make sure it's reusable). To eliminate wasteful re-explanation of why things were done in X manner, and to disseminate information on how or why decisions were made, it's critical to have open communication and the ability to revisit that communication after the fact.
- Make it easy for your community to do important things. Things like localization need to be easy in order to encourage adoption and use. If the community has to go back to the mother ship for every little thing, those little things will not happen.
- Surprise is overrated. Lilly states that "surprise is the opposite of engagement," and therefore Mozilla's goal is to "increase the 'inner circle' of participation." By allowing more people to participate in "core" decisions, the core grows, and the friction to actually get things done by a growing body of people grows along with it.
- Communities are not markets: members are citizens. It's therefore important to treat them like active, valuable participants in open source, not consumers thereof because, as Lilly notes, such citizens "don't just make products better. They make them what they are."
- The key (to successful open-source project building is) the art of figuring out whether and how to apply each of these ideas.
Excellent counsel, and a reminder that while open source is not easy, it can have powerful effects. Mozilla's Firefox would not be the same, if it were just another proprietary browser. It would just be Opera, which has struggled to be relevant in part because it has resisted open source.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
I'm all for capitalism and bare-knuckled competition. In fact, much as I bag on Microsoft, it's precisely because I respect it as an organization that I devote any time to it at all.
However, there are some areas where I'd rather have a "public utility" running the show, and the Web browser is one of them. (The operating system is another, which is one reason I'm a big proponent of Linux.) For this reason, I loved this Seattle Times interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly, in which he expresses the precise attitude that we want from an organization serving as a gatekeeper of the Web with a browser:
Q: You've said Mozilla is there to make the Web better. Is that all? No dreams of empire?
Lilly: No, no, no. We talk about our mission literally every day, which is to keep the Web open and participatory. When Mozilla started 2003, it felt that 96 percent of the Web being controlled by Microsoft wasn't good for anyone.
Our goal is to make the Web better. We have a single agenda. Beyond that, we're proud about a few things. Our open-source nature is significant. Our community is significant.
Q: If someone ever comes up with a better open-source browser than Firefox, and Mozilla disappeared, would that be a success or a failure for the company, or a little of both?
Lilly: It's not exactly plan A, but the mission is to keep the Web open.
I love that. No talk of kidney-punching its way to the top. No talk of FUD and other common mechanisms for gaining or keeping market share. Just open source and community, duking it out for market supremacy. That's the kind of Web domination with which I can live.
Correction: This post was updated to correct the time line of John Lilly's meeting with Jerry Yang.
John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla
(Credit: Matt Asay)I spent an hour Thursday with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, and Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of Engineering, and learned a few things. For one thing, I once argued that Mozilla should hire more "capitalist pigs." John's riposte Thursday was, "We have more capitalist pigs than you think."
John didn't mean that Mozilla is just another commercial open-source company. It's not. Clarifying that comment, John went on to point out that four out of its five executives are entrepreneurs. In other words, though Mozilla is tiny compared to its proprietary competition (and big by open-source project standards), Mozilla's team and community are well-architected to compete. It's not going to fall over at Microsoft's feet anytime soon.
But while competing, Mozilla is heavily focused on its customers first and its competitors second. As John indicated to me:
Our question is always, how do we grow in a way that is leveraged? We always lead with the user experience and think about the money secondarily.
That user experience is starting to evolve beyond today's browsing experience. The most interesting topic discussed in our meeting was just how compelling Mozilla's Firefox will increasingly be as the platform for much that happens on the Web. Forget Facebook, MySpace, the iPhone, and other so-called platforms. Firefox could well prove to be the most disruptive Web platform on the market. Here's why.
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