Re: [Ayatana] How Mozilla does community-driven open source design

[Greg K Nicholson <greg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mozilla's approach to community-driven design is exactly the same as
Ubuntu's: solicit ideas and implementations from all and sundry, then
take an opinionated decision on which to include by default.

Where Mozilla succeed better is that:
1. They solicit ideas more actively using their brand—Extend Firefox
and Mozilla Labs, for example. Ubuntu often still feels like a
collection of disparate stuff; while Ayatana feels too top-down.

2. They have better communication about why they're making the design
decisions they are. Usually they:

a) show the various options, to get the community used to the idea
that something will be changing
b) the community discuss various merits or otherwise
c) Mozilla then demonstrate why the chosen idea's the best (with
eye-candy for added effect)

See the current tabs-on-top discussion: http://ur1.ca/0eq4i

Mozilla learnt this early on from several “ZOMG NOES!” decisions
pre–Firefox 1.0 where LITERALLY-EVERYONE (i.e. a vocal minority who
eventually got over it) was up in arms. It's telling that I can't
actually remember what those decisions were.

Ubuntu has just had this with the lucid window-buttons-on-the-left
surprise, where we skipped straight to step c.

2½. There's less perception of a singular design figurehead. I suppose
this is largely because several people have assumed this role over
time (Ben Goodger, Beltzner, Faaborg).

I think Ubuntu would benefit if we moved away from the idea that
“everything sabdfl says is gospel; everything else is rumour”.
design.canonical.com is helping here.