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Hack 100. Help with the Future of Firefox

Much of the work done to make Firefox
successful is volunteer effort. You too can help.

The Firefox browser is the end result of thousands of
people's contributions. People contribute because
they think that it's a good idea, a worthy cause, or
perhaps just an enjoyable activity. If you care to participate as
well, this hack explains how.

9.11.1. Deciding

In Giving It Away: In Praise of Philanthropy
(Scribe Publications), Denis Tracy says that happy volunteers and
successful philanthropists take many different paths when
contributing to their favorite causes. Applying his ideas, any
contribution to Firefox or Mozilla will be a blend of the following
elements:

Money

The Mozilla Foundation and its regional affiliates are grateful for
any subsidization of their electricity bills and salary costs. Make a
donation or buy their stuff.

Time

Life is meant to be lived, not lost. Spend your time on things that
matter to you. If Firefox and the Web happen to be on your list, then
tinker with them.

Energy

If you have buckets of energy and nowhere to put it, you might care
to direct it Firefox's way or toward the upholding
of a free and public standards-based Web. You may not need a crusade,
but you may enjoy having a cause.

Skill and knowledge

If your own time is limited but your expertise is not, a drop of
advice or guidance can turn a poorly organized or poorly informed
participant into a productive Firefox contributor.

Passion

Enthusiasm is a catalyst for action, and it's also
infectious. Ignite other people with your passion if you care about
Firefox.

9.11.2. Contributing Engineering Effort

Here are some more concrete strategies for making a contribution. The
good news is that you don't have to be a hardcore
C++ programmer to participate. There are plenty of other ways to
contribute. These are the big four areas where you can help turn
Firefox into better code:

Triage

When Bugzilla bugs are first logged, they are sorted by the triage
team to see if they are duplicates of existing bugs or indicate other
problems. Some are closed right away, while others are demoted in
priority or severity. All you need to do is log onto Bugzilla, query
all bugs logged in the last week or day, and go to work.

You must apply for extra Bugzilla privileges (log a bug to get them) in order to be able to dispose of other people's bugs.

Quality assurance

Part of this work is the testing of fixed bugs and running regression
tests for new releases. In general, there's a lot of
product reality testing that developers don't get
around to. Read the QA pages at http://www.mozilla.org, and start testing.

Test-case reduction

Logged bugs often produce poorly defined or overly complicated test
cases. If you enjoy seeing software fail, a useful contribution is to
take triaged bugs and boil down any supplied test cases to the
essential minimum. That makes it a lot easier for the final bug fixer
to locate the problem lines in the source code.

Writing code

If you happen to be hot on programming, feel free to fix things.
Note, however, that all you can do is propose fixes;
it's up to the peer review process to decide whether
your fixes are suitable. You don't have to fix
Firefox code specifically; you can also fix Bugzilla code or any of
the other small systems that run the Mozilla web sites.

All these tasks have review functions as well; you can provide review
of anything that goes on in the Mozilla community.

9.11.3. Contributing Organizational Effort

Outside the code, there's also lots to do.

Documentation and web page writing and editing is one large area for
contribution. The Mozilla web site's documentation
is a massive archive in constant need of updating and redesign. Once
you have access, you can pull it from CVS. Third-party web sites that
don't work properly with Firefox, because
they're too old or too poorly made, need to be
politely asked for an update. Inaccurate and ancient fan documents
exist all over the Web, and their owners should be helped with
updates. The same goes for the Firefox Help system.

Another form of web activity is to propagate the Firefox brand. If
you're network-oriented or evangelical, you can
spend your time persuading others to put Firefox iconography on their
web sites. See http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ for details.

The MozillaZine forums are bursting with people, new and old alike,
and it's a simple matter to sit in those forums and
contribute answers to questions. That's an easy way
of spreading Firefox education.

In summary, anywhere that Firefox activity occurs helps the browser.
If you can't find a place to contribute, make such a
place yourself, with a web site or a local special interest
groupwhatever you see fit to do. Give a copy to your family
and friends.

9.11.4. Contributing Creative Effort

Some of the best Firefox innovations come from unguessed-at quarters.
The popular Tabbed Browsing feature was originally an enthusiastic
experiment by programmers not associated with the main Mozilla
project. If you have lots of creative energy, set up your own project
and do something unexpected. Your output contributes to the diversity
of the Mozilla community.

9.11.5. Contributing Professional Effort

Firefox is an emerging global brand, and astute professionals outside
the programming industry would do well to take notice. There are
cross-promotion opportunities to be had by contributing to the
Firefox brand. It's a matter of history that
professionals from public relations, marketing, design, illustration,
and law have all benefited in public profile and business from their
association with Firefox and Mozilla. It's only a
matter of time before other professionals seize a Firefox-related
niche as well.

9.11.6. Being a Fan

The simplest contribution you can make to the Firefox browser is
merely to use it. Sit back (or forward) and enjoy. After all,
Firefox is there to make your life easier, not harder.