Blake Ross, who was one of its lead programmers, gave a brief talk on the Firefox experience and how it compared to traditional product development, even in the open source world.
Blake made the parallel between Netscape, that was eventually purchased by AOL and had to serve the purpose of the corporate parent (which meant that Netscape could not have a popup blocker since AOL had popups on its home page), and Firefox which was and still is developed for the benefit of its users – and is organized such that its developers feel the pain of these users (I guess by being responsible for the support of the product). Too many companies isolate them through layers of support, product marketing, and program management. This is actually a theme developed by Jason Fried, the CEO of 37Signals in a worth-listening podcast.
Blake points to an issue of some open source projects: generally made up of brilliant technologists who consider that code is what makes the value of a project, as opposed to a means to an end. The Firefox team was built on a different approach that led them to really focus on users and deliver a product solving their needs. They also innovated by deploying a true marketing compaign to push the deployment of Firefox, through the site SpreadFirefox.com and the now famous $200K NY Times ad that was paid by 10,000 members of the community.
Tag: ac2005
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