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

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.
• MDN document review: Ensure existing docs are correct.
  • Gaia team to did a first-pass on the main contribution docs.
  • Existing docs are good, even the architecture bits.
• Create Gaia contribution pathway page: Single page with sequential steps from zero to patch-landed.
  • Dietrich started outline, solicited input from Gaia team
  • Working with MDN to get collapsible content areas added to the site.
• 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: 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
• Design a Flame-for-patches-landed program
  • Not as many Flames as first thought
  • Instead, going to give out at events, identified contributors
  • STATUS: dietrich posted to b2g-internal and we now have a large number of Flames shipping out to contributors. UPDATED: more requests still coming in!
• Identify automate-able contributor activity monitoring
  • STATUS: not done, next on dietrich's list
• Identify developer papercuts
  • STATUS: not done. need to find those threads/etherpads about this over the years.
  • Regular Papercuts bug
  • Developer Papercuts bug
  • Dale's bug
  • Next steps: Find threads, etherpads, make one list, prioritize, fold into plan - OWNER: dietrich will do the research, then Gaia team can analyze for priority.
• Get feedback from existing contributors
  • https://etherpad.mozilla.org/gaia-contributor-feedback
  • Next steps: Fold into plan - TODO: owner?

Phase 1 (complete in Q3)

• Consensus on a desktop development environment
• Design a double-click+F5 workflow
  • 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
• Re-open Github issues on Gaia
• 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
• Work with managers to prioritize fixing the developer papercuts we identified
• Update the Contribute from mozilla.org/contribute to point to the right links

Phase 2 (complete in Q4)

• Release strongly-supported desktop development environment
• 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

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

Actions

Open

• Faramarz: delivering queries for backlog bugs. Nada,
• Faramarz: said someone had list of bugs where contributors failed.
• Dietrich: Contact Vishy about his papercut-like items (no reply yet)

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?