Hot on the heels of recent announcements from Mozilla about strategy, personnel, and general company changes, Brendan provides us with almost 12 minutes of very deep insight into the future of Mozilla and the web. As a long term citizen of the web, open source, and all that is right with technology, I (Chris Williams) applaud the strides and direction that Mozilla is making and most importantly the courage they have to make them. This is a long and deep episode that revolves around the following 5 points:
- Our mission obligates us to make the user sovereign and keep the web open and innovative.
- The rise of mobile computing requires new explorations, projects, and products to fulfill our mission. This means new Mozilla modules and activities.
- Mobile browsers and apps require always-available (i.e., cloud) services, working with the desktop to create a continuous user experience.
- Higher-layer services on the Web today, particularly for mobile, apps and user data or "social", pull away from open / user-as-sovereign toward closed / user-as-product.
- So our innovations to advance the mission must expand up the stack, from HTML, CSS, and JS, to mobile, apps, and social, always putting users first and in control.
Where I would normally summarize further, I really encourage you to take a full 12 minute break, listen, and understand this episode. It jumps around from open web app stores, mobile interface/devices, profiteering, growth, anticipating change, and beyond. Well worth your time.
