FirefoxOS/Participation

Problem

• Developing the core of Firefox OS is too hard
• Gaia does not have a supported development environment
• Contributor first-time experience is poor
• Navigating the dev->test->review process is too hard for contributors

Goals

• Vibrant and engaged development community, invested in the success of Firefox OS
• Clear and managed developer pathway for new contributors
• Supported and clearly documented development environment for Gaia
• An F5-style developer workflow for Gaia
• Tight Feedback loop from Contributors to core developers so we can continually improve our pathways

Non-Goals (yet!)

• Improving Gecko contribution pathways
• Improving Gonk contribution pathways

Plan

Phase 0 (complete in August 2015)

• Start hiring process for a dedicated community manager for fxos code contributions. STATUS: Asked Faramarz about headcount, no commitment to hiring at this time.
• Form team of Gaia engineers who will spend dedicated time on this project. STATUS: Gregor/mhenretty discussing with mobile managers, got the peoples. Next steps: down below, get them tooled up and on-call schedule.
• MDN document review: Ensure existing docs are correct. STATUS: Gaia team to did a first-pass on the main contribution docs. Existing docs are good, even the architecture bits.
• Start regular triage of UX items to unblock and open up design issues STATUS: Tif is doing weekly triage sessions w/ the UX team, Dietrich is joining.
• Begin discussion about Gaia dev environment STATUS: owned by the Jonas Task Force
• Design a plan for re-opening Github issues STATUS: Ongoing, moving to Phase 1 for completion. See below.
• Design a Flame-for-patches-landed program STATUS: Not as many Flames as first thought. Instead, going to give out at events, identified contributors. dietrich posted to b2g-internal and we now have a large number of Flames shipping out to contributors.

Phase 1

• Create Gaia contribution pathway page: Single page with sequential steps from zero to patch-landed. STATUS: Dietrich started outline, solicited input from Gaia team. Working with MDN to get collapsible content areas added to the site. Once that's working, can fill it in.
• Identify automate-able contributor activity monitoring. STATUS: not done, next on dietrich's list
• Identify developer papercuts
  • STATUS: not done. needs owner.
  • Regular Papercuts bug, Developer Papercuts bug, Dale's bug
  • Next steps: Find threads, etherpads, make one list, prioritize, fold into plan - OWNER: ???
  • Work with managers to prioritize fixing the developer papercuts we identified
• Get feedback from existing contributors (arroway)
  • https://etherpad.mozilla.org/gaia-contributor-feedback
  • Next steps: Fold into plan - TODO: arroway - will define the main action points from the feedback we received
• Merge dev-gaia and dev-b2g mailing lists into (mhenretty)
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1199334
• Merge #gaia and #b2g IRC channels (mhenretty)
• Figure out how to get more developer devices into people's hands - Foxfooding team owns this (Jean Gong)
• Consensus on a desktop development environment - TODO: needs owner
• Design a double-click+F5 workflow - TODO: needs owner
  • STATUS: not started. some existing recent discussion on dev-gaia. need to put Gaia team stakeholders together to draft a plan, then push out to dev-gaia for feedback
• Regular schedule for on-duty for IRC/lists by community team - TODO: needs owner
• Identify and expand other active contribution areas and begin monitoring - StackOverflow, Reddit, XDA-Developers, etc
• All apps have style, contribution and developer workflow info in their README files
• Update the Contribute page on mozilla.org/contribute to point to the right links
• Update the wiki to include entry points
  • https://wiki.mozilla.org/FirefoxOS
  • Right now, has no info about mailing lists, IRC channels and meeting info.

Phase 2

• Release strongly-supported desktop development environment
  • Mulet?
• Release a double-click+F5 workflow
• Bugzilla-less development flow through Github issues
• Expand Stackbot to cover more than just StackOverflow, for automated monitoring and notifying on more contributor activity
  • Reddit?
  • XDA Developers?
• Design a plan for re-opening Github issues. STATUS: In progress, owned by mhenretty; https://etherpad.mozilla.org/reopen-github-issues.
  • dev-gaia thread: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.gaia/T2OzUqG4Ri8/e8b4PwzUDAAJ
  • Feedback mixed. Conclusion is we need to have better MDN landing page, Gaia README, and Mulet everywhere first.

Metrics

Brainstorming

• Code
  • http://areweeveryoneyet.org/ for...
    • total numbers of staff vs non-staff code contributors
    • patches from staff vs non-staff code contributors
• Developer Support
  • Numbers of answered SO posts
  • XDA-developers
  • Reddit
• Documentation
  • Maybe num visits to the contribution pages?
• Evangelism
  • Talks
  • Videos
  • Visits to assets

Signposting

TODO: Add all this to main B2G wiki page (where else?)

• Product direction/vision
  • Roadmap
  • UX Specs
  • Where to submit requests/ideas
• Product development
  • All dev docs
  • All communication points
  • Where can I find something to work on, or figure out if what I want to work on will be accepted
• Release management/status
  • What release are we on, what's next
• Testing
  • Where can I get a build, and for what device
  • Where can I submit bugs
  • How can I manage my builds (backup, restore, OTA)

Needs Processing

• Integration tests are broken, cannot run - need to verify
• Building on Mac OS X is maybe broken, unclear - need to verify

Ideas

• Gregor suggested making videos for ‘My first FxOS app’, ‘My first FxOS add-on’ or ‘My development workflow', after seeing Reza's deck. We should publish through Hacks Youtube channel.

Notes

Existing docs and workflows

• Gaia (MDN)
• Code Repository READMEs
  • dev workflow README

Developer papercuts

• Desktop tools should work with double-click-to-open, not only command line pointer to profile
• Case-sensitive filesystem - container for solution?
• Mac build env broken - work with releng to add a build test to catch that regressing?

Contributor Types

• Gaia
  • Experience: Web developer
• Gecko
  • Experience: C++, JavaScript, build tooling
• Gonk
  • Experience: C, C++, build tooling
• Device Porting
  • Experience: C, C++, Android dev, build tooling