Apps/StatusMeetings/Engineering/2012-08-22

Details

• Time: Wednesday, 2012 August 22, 9:05 - 9:55am PT (16:05 - 16:55 UTC)
• Backchannel:
  • irc.mozilla.org #openwebapps
• Virtual Location:
  • "Mozilla Apps" Vidyo room
• Physical Locations:
  • Mountain View: 4K - Kung Fu
  • San Francisco: 324 - Bay Bridge
• Audio-only Access:
  • +1-650-903-0800 or +1-650-215-1282, x92, conf#: 98652 (US/INTL)
  • +1-800-707-2533, pin: 369, conf#: 98652 (US toll free)
• etherpad for taking minutes

Agenda

• Significant Updates
  • Firefox for Android Web Apps Test Day this Friday
• Checkin/Status on Major Challenges
• Questions and Concerns
  • Confusion on the payments story right now - Can we get clarity?
  • focusing this meeting on the Apps Ecosystem for Firefox OS
  • Need clarity on what the apps team is specifically tracking on Firefox OS (as in, what features are you tracking vs. not tracking)
  • Need for clear and consistent messaging about the current state of basecamp, specifically in relation to apps

Minutes

Significant Updates

Firefox for Android Web Apps Test Day this Friday

• have an Android phone? help us test!
• join the #testday channel
• atrain will be driving it

Android Runtime

• Android work is on track, perfectly timed
• end of August milestone is about getting components out into channel
• Marketplace will remain restricted to trusted Mozillians
• thanks to all who helped!

Checkin/Status on Major Challenges

Multiple Apps Per Origin

• bwalker's action item was to talk to one of the developers who was having trouble
• hasn't heard back from him
• -> bwalker to recontact developer who chafed at single app per origin restriction

• we aren't focusing on this for the first version
• it's too much trouble, we have too much else to do
• unless there's a compelling need, we plan to defer it

• -> pmpcat to get rpiovesan to talk to clee about multiple apps per origin

Packaged Apps

• our next session on packaged apps is today at 1pm PT
• focus is updates for packaged apps
• plan to finish out design for it

• go/no-go meeting on running banner ad in Fennec conflicts with this meeting

• -> pmpcat to determine if Fennec banner ad go/nogo meeting needs to be moved

Payments/Identity

• rfant conversed with bluevia/telefonica several weeks ago
• they agreed not to do a one-off for basecamp
• identity team engaging with telefonica next week to determine oauth-based identity solution for basecamp

• bluevia was going to spin up their own billing interface
• after some discussion, they decided to use an aggregator
• we're now in the process of picking an aggregator
• aggregators have been around for a while
• they already have interface, we understand how to integrate with them
• should save us time in the v1 timeframe

• next step conversation this week to agree on aggregator
• after which we'll reengage on technical level
• and figure out navigator.pay changes

• pmpcat and others have been driving updated user flow process for billing
• doing the same thing for marketplace and identity

Questions and Concerns

focusing meeting on Apps Ecosystem for Firefox OS

• myk proposed focusing this meeting on the apps ecosystem for firefox os
• most apps folks are spending most of their time working on it
• we should spend our precious meeting time talking about the thing we're spending most of the rest of our time working on

• Android is short-term, so keeping focus on it will help us in the short term

• are we still going to build an ecosystem for desktop?
• the steering committee wants to make sure we make basecamp successful
• the steering committee has deprioritized the desktop marketplace
• so we have delayed its release, but we haven't given up on it

• desktop has a huge role to play in discovery and send-to-phone
• ecosystem for desktop will not get attention right now
• don't think we've abandoned desktop! we haven't
• we're just focusing on mobile for the moment

• pmpcat is responsible for making sure teams dedicated to android and desktop have a place where they're not the second or third priority
• pmpcat will monitor concerns in this meeting and see if we need to set up separate meetings for desktop and android
• she won't let it fall through the cracks!

basecamp status updates

• some people say we're almost ready
• others say we're far away
• status reports are not in alignment with each other
• QA says we're red because smoke tests can't run because phones are busted
• others seem to have a different opinion

• mtreese is going to drop fuel gauges from status reports
• instead he's going to institute burn rates and other depictions
• will also have feature-by-feature status charts in report
• we're also working on ways to get accurate estimates on when we'll be there
• f.e. getting "level of effort estimates on every open bug
• so we can determine, given existing amount of work, whether schedule is realistic

• all those changes are in place
• we're driving toward consistency
• send remaining concerns to mtreese or raise them again next week!

• gas gauges have been helpful to rfant
• uses it to determine basecamp status at a glance
• mtreese has also received feedback elsewhere that there's too much info in the reports
• will continue evolving it

apps tracking for basecamp

• there are people tracking the platform
• there are people tracking gaia
• there are people tracking apps
• what apps features are we tracking?
• QA folks are confused

• pmpcat is going to take a deep dive into bugzilla
• suspects that dev hub, marketplace, apps management folks aren't marking bugs as basecamp blockers
• pmpcat will sit down with dietrich and ask help from myk to make sure we track apps features as basecamp blockers

\n's internship

• \n's internship is coming to an end
• yay \n!

Actions

• bwalker to recontact developer who chafed at single app per origin restriction
• pmpcat to get rpiovesan to talk to clee about multiple apps per origin
• pmpcat to determine if Fennec banner ad go/nogo meeting needs to be moved