Have an impact on Mozilla’s mission.

The answer has been consistent every time we’ve asked volunteer Mozillians what their primary motivation is for contributing to Mozilla. 3 years ago, last year, this month, “have an impact on Mozilla’s mission” is always the number one answer.

What we’ve also heard over the past few months is that lacking clarity on the best areas to have an impact is one of the main things limiting contribution. When I look at this objectively, I completely understand. Mozilla is a huge and complex project, with multiple products, projects and activities, and we’re right now in a constant state of change as Mitchell recently articulated nicely. To exacerbate the situation, we haven’t been very good at clearly communicating where Mozilla is heading.

Our much needed effort to reinvent participation at Mozilla has added yet more ambiguity to the mix. As a Participation Team, we’ve made some progress on bringing more clarity, and have laid out a broad strategy for 2016. But this isn’t enough. We need to do better.

We need to help Mozillians know where they can apply their skills, time and passions to have an impact on Mozilla’s mission.

My teammate Rosana Ardila had a great analogy that I’ll borrow: We once had a delicious, well laid out food buffet of contribution and impact areas at Mozilla. But that food has been sitting out for quite a while. Some of it is stale. Some of the dishes aren’t even on the menu anymore. We’ve moved around the serving stations so that some are sitting in a dark corner that nobody can find. Some of the food is still really tasty and just needs a flame lit underneath it … okay, I’ll stop killing the analogy!

Over the next couple of months we’re going to refresh this participation buffet.

We’re going to do this by both designing and rolling out some new, high impact and well designed contribution areas and campaigns, in partnership with teams around Mozilla. And we’re also going to curate and highlight fantastic contribution opportunities driven primarily by other teams.

We need all Mozillians (employees and volunteers) to help with this, by helping to build, highlight and lead great areas of participation. Please get in touch with your thoughts and ideas (groter@mozilla.com).

Our filters for what makes it into the buffet are simple and what we have come to understand will represent outstanding participation at Mozilla.

First, we will focus on participation areas that:

1. Help Mozilla innovate, driving the leading edge of our work and thinking.
2. Extend Mozilla’s reach, by bringing Mozilla products, ideas and issues to more people, and connecting more people with Mozilla.

Second, we will highlight contribution opportunities that have a well designed participant experience, and that have thought-through methods for bringing value to both Mozilla’s mission and to Mozillians. To be clear, these opportunities won’t each be applicable to everyone; most will require a specific set of interests or backgrounds. We do want to make sure that the full buffet will provide opportunities for a diverse range of participants and plenty of opportunities for people to build new skills.

Third, we know that we don’t have the next phase of Mozilla figured out — far from it! So activities that help us learn about the future of participation at Mozilla are a priority. And by definition, that will mean trying things out that may not work.

How about a sneak preview? What can you get involved with RIGHT NOW!?

You’ll be able to find great opportunities highlighted here – https://wiki.mozilla.org/Participation#Focus_Areas_for_Participation

There’s a couple ready right now, and many more that we’ll highlight soon on Discourse and the Wiki page above.

Helping Mozilla innovate:

• Dino Tank London – We want you to pitch problems that are worth solving at Mozilla! This opportunity closes on May 27th, but will be refreshed again in June/July.

Coming soon…

• Next phase of the Community Experimentation Launchpad
• Mapping our hacker-space/makerspace/lab footprint
• Helping grow the impact of Test Pilot
• Something exciting in partnership with Rust, Servo or Browser.html
• Refreshing our brand identity

Extending Mozilla’s reach:

• Open Comms: Making Encryption Mainstream – submit ideas on how to educate people around the world or in your community about the importance of encryption. This closes on June 3rd, but Open Comms will have many more opportunities coming soon.

Coming soon…

• Next phase of the Take Back the Web campaign
• MakerParty
• Growing the Firefox Nightly community
• Something exciting on engaging developers

Final ask

Please do let me know what you think of the above. Does it resonate? Do you have areas you’d suggest we highlight or build for? What else might be missing from our approach?

Head over to this conversation on Discourse to share your thoughts and ideas.

http://georgeroter.org/2016/05/25/refreshing-the-participation-buffet/

Chintai is yet another Japanese Web site with plenty of WebKit issues, but in this case I want to focus on width rounding in CSS. Let's see this navigation navbar in Firefox for Android (aka Gecko).

And in Blink (Chrome, Opera).

What's happening?

<ul class="btn_read tapon">
    <li><p><a href="/info/inquiry.html" 
              target="_blank" 
              class="ui-link">

http://www.otsukare.info/2016/05/25/width-rounding-in-css

http://tantek.com/2016/145/b1/tomorrowland-misjudging-by-name-association

I have already explained this in the context of Gmail, but I thought we should make it more explicit.

If you go on Music Oricon Japanese Web site with Firefox Android with about:config?filter=prefixes.webkit set to false, you will see massive breakages, including this navigation bar:

There are a couple issues including flexbox, but let's ignore it for the moment and let's focus on background-image issues. The markup is simple.

<ul class="btn-navi">
        <li class="current"><a href="http://music.oricon.co.jp/?&clt=WW5retn8C31gDygq5DOAPvc732o8EWMcQAtlkTOLQNcOUlh72xokjWq9tkN7-TQX24EuyA~~">J-POPspan>a>span>li>
        <li><a href="http://music-world.oricon.co.jp/?&clt=WW5retn8C31gDygq5DOAPvc732o8EWMcQAtlkTOLQNcOUlh72xokjWq9tkN7-TQX24EuyA~~">

http://www.otsukare.info/2016/05/25/howto-fix-css-border-image

In Bug 1275069 (which I stumbled upon thanks to one of my "Neil deGrasse Tyson" bugmail filters), we run into an interesting bug that's the result of same origin policy restrictions and vendor prefixes.

For those unfamilar with how Buzzfeed works, frequently you get a list of blurry images and click on them for a dramatic reveal. Riveting stuff.

To set up the blur, if you're using Firefox, they serve you an SVG , because before Firefox 35, CSS filters weren't yet supported. Other browsers get a vendor prefixed CSS filter (and whatever the progid:DXImageTransform junk for IE is called).

But, there's a problem for Firefox users. There's no blurry image—just a blank space. A literal Neil deGrasse Tyson vacuum.

Here's what that SVG looks like in devtools:

The problem is that img.buzzfeed.com is a different origin from www.buzzfeed.com and that server isn't sending any CORS headers, so Firefox doesn't actually render the filter (...or the image at all. That seems weird to me—see 1105145).

OK, whatever. I still want to click on that to see some sensuous lounging (the user is probably thinking).

And the plan is that once you click the (missing) blurry image, they remove the inline style with the filter url() function, but, oops now the following class applies (they remove the entire class in other browsers):

.graphic_image {
...
  -webkit-filter: blur(30px);
  -moz-filter: blur(30px);
  -o-filter: blur(30px);
  -ms-filter: blur(30px);
...
}

So just when you thought you were gonna get the big Neil deGrasse Tyson reveal, you're stuck with the following:

(Until we added support for -webkit-filter as an alias of (unprefixed) filter (-moz-filter was never like, a thing), that rule was ignored, fun!)

Anyways, in your own web journalism going forward, you can just use unprefixed CSS blur filters and skip the super fragile UA sniffing code paths.

And if you'd like to stick with SVG filters, make sure you're serving those from the same origin as your content, or at the very least go copy pasta some CORS headers from stack overflow for your asset servers.

https://miketaylr.com/posts/2016/05/neil-de-grasse-tyson-is-blurry.html

Today, Mozilla released our transparency report. Transparency and openness are among Mozilla’s founding principles and a key part of who we are and how we operate: from our open, auditable codebase to our open development work in Bugzilla and Github. The report is another example of our commitment to these principles.

https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2016/05/24/mozillas-transparency-report/

After a couple of years working on Mozilla’s mobile operating system project, I’m coming back to Firefox!

I’ll be doing some familiar things and some new things. My official title is Product Manager, Firefox Roadmap and Community. What that means, first and foremost, is that I’ll be returning as our storyteller, making sure that we’re communicating regularly about where Firefox is heading, and that we’re fully engaged with Firefox users, fans, and contributors.

My first few weeks will be spent getting up to speed with the Firefox teams, from Product  Management and User Experience to Engineering and Program/Project Management. We’re doing a lot with Firefox in 2016 and 2017. I can’t wait to start sharing that story.

If you’ve got ideas about what needs improving first with Firefox communications, perhaps the Monday all-hands meeting content, or the roadmap documents on the wiki, or something completely different, please let me know in comments or email.

I’m over the moon excited about this role. Stay tuned. It’s gonna be great.

http://asadotzler.com/2016/05/24/my-new-role-mozilla/

Generalmente, enviar y recibir archivos mediante correo electr'onico es muy com'un por estos d'ias tan movidos del mundo actual.  Pero, ?que ocurre cuando lo que deseas enviar sobrepasa el l'imite admitido por tu proveedor de correo? En ese caso tendr'ias comprimir y picar el fichero en varias partes para que luego la otra persona descargue cada una de ellas y las una. Hasta aqu'i todo bien, pero, si se llenan los buzones, el nuestro o el del destinatario, la transferencia se ver'ia afectada y habr'a que intentar en otra ocasi'on para lograr nuestro objetivo. Por lo que este m'etodo es poco razonable pues, adem'as de saturar los servidores, para algunas personas resulta ser muy complicado.

Gracias a los avances de la tecnolog'ia, hoy contamos con sistemas “en la nube” que nos permiten entre muchas funcionalidades m'as, sincronizar y almacenar archivos f'acilmente. Entre estos sistemas podemos encontrar Box, Mega, Amazon, Dropbox, Google Drive y ownCloud, por solo mencionar algunos.

Thunderbird desde su versi'on 13, incorpora Filelink, funcionalidad permite utilizar estos servicios de almacenamientos en l'inea para enviar archivos grandes, de forma tal que nuestros destinatarios solo recibir'an el enlace para descargar el archivo y ahorrar cuota en nuestro servidor.

Para nuestro benepl'acito, en la UCI trabajadores y estudiantes contamos con servidores ownCloud para almacenar parte de nuestra informaci'on. Y de paso, podemos utilizarlo para enviar archivos grandes o peque~nos.

?C'omo a~nadir el soporte ownCloud en Thunderbird?

1. Por defecto Thunderbird no incorpora ownCloud, as'i que tendremos que instalar este complemento y reiniciar Thunderbird.
2. En las preferencias de Thunderbird, ir a la secci'on Adjuntos y luego a la pesta~na Saliente. En esta ventana podremos configurar el tama~no que deben superar los archivos para que Thunderbird ofrezca enlazar los adjuntos a la nube, por defecto este valor es 5 MB.
   
3. Dar clic en el bot'on A~nadir. Cuando se muestre la ventana Configurar Filelink, debemos elegir ownCloud en la lista desplegable.
4. Introducir los siguientes datos:
   Servidor: https://misarchivos.uci.cu/owncloud, si eres estudiante debes utilizar https://misarchivos.estudiantes.uci.cu
   Username: nuestro usuario
   Storage path in ownCloud: /, por defecto. Si desean, pueden crear una carpeta para subir solamente los ficheros enlazados desde Thunderbird y tener un mejor control de los mismos.
   Password for uploaded files: si queremos poner contrase~nas a todos los archivos que compartimos desde Thunderbird.
   
5. Dar clic en el bot'on Configurar cuenta y escribir nuestra contrase~na para acceder al servicio, si desean pueden almacenarla en el administrador de contrase~nas.
   
6. Si todo ha salido bien, se mostrar'an algunos datos relacionados con nuestra cuenta
   
7. Listo, ya puedes enviar un archivo utilizando Thunderbird y ownCloud.

Hasta ahora, ya tenemos instalado y configurado el complemento. Solo falta probarlo y verlo en acci'on.

?C'omo enlazar un archivo?

1. Al adjuntar un archivo a un correo, si este es mayor que la capacidad m'axima configurada en Thunderbird, el cliente de correo autom'aticamente te preguntar'a si deseas “convertirlo a un adjunto enlazado”.
   
2. Al dar clic en el bot'on Enlazar, inmediatamente el fichero ser'a enviado a la nube y luego veremos como en el cuerpo del correo se adjuntan el nombre, el tama~no y el v'inculo para descargarlo desde ownCloud.
   
   Tambi'en puedes “convertir” un adjunto haciendo clic derecho sobre el, ir hasta Convertir a … y seleccionar el servicio Filelink deseado, en este caso ownCloud.
   
3. Por defecto, Filelink se autentica con el servidor solamente cuando es necesario, por lo que algunas veces es necesario ejecutar esta acci'on manualmente en la secci'on Adjuntos/Saliente de las opciones de Thunderbird, seleccionando el servicio desea y dando clic en el bot'on Autorizar.
   

Ahora solo resta comenzar a utilizar Filelink para enviar archivos y de esta forma no llenar nuestro buz'on y el de los destinatarios. Si deseas probar otras formas de utilizar Filelink en Thunderbird, puedes visitar la etiqueta  filelink de nuestro sitio de complementos. Espero que les sea 'util.

http://firefoxmania.uci.cu/como-se-hace-emplear-owncloud-en-thunderbird-para-enviar-archivos-grandes/

We’ve been looking for the right home for Firefox browser development Q&A for a while now. It’s taken longer than it should have, but after a lot of discussion and experimentation with different tools and forums, we’ve finally come to a conclusion.

In retrospect the decision was obvious; hindsight is like that. But here it is; if we want everyone in the community to be a part of making Firefox great, then we should be where the community is: part of the Mozilla Community Discourse forum.

Things are a bit thin on the ground there now; I’ll be migrating over some questions and answers from other forums to stock that pond shortly. In the meantime if you’re new to Discourse it’s a very civilized piece of forum software. You can keep track of discussions happening there by logging in and taking a look in the upper right-hand corner, where you’ll see “Watching”, “Tracking”, “Normal” and “Muted”. Set that to “Watching”, and you’ll get a notification when a new topic comes up for discussion. Set it to “Tracking”, and you’ll also get a note when you’re called out by name. You can also watch or track individual threads, which is a nice touch.

Alternatively, if you’re a fan of syndicated feeds you can grab an Atom feed as follows:

https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/c/firefox-development.rss

I hope you’ll join us in helping build Firefox into everything it can be, the best browser in the world and the cornerstone of a free, open and participatory Web. And as always, if you’ve got questions about that, please email me directly.

Thank you,

– mhoye

http://blog.mozilla.org/community/2016/05/24/a-new-firefox-development-forum/

Weekly project updates from the Mozilla Connected Devices team.

https://air.mozilla.org/connected-devices-weekly-program-update-20160524/

Reuni'on bi-semanal para hablar sobre el estado de Mozilla, la comunidad y sus proyectos. Bi-weekly meeting to talk (in Spanish) about Mozilla status, community and...

https://air.mozilla.org/martes-mozilleros-20160524/

the following changes have been pushed to bugzilla.mozilla.org:

• [1274139] QuickSearch: searching for text containing colons no longer works
• [1262039] typo in error message “Failed to retreive components…”
• [1272548] bug link in header broken if format param specified
• [1225241] Section titles should be highlighted
• [1149384] implement time tracking interface
• [1265392] Clicking “stop following this bug” also turned off the ‘restrict comments to users not in editbugs’ flag
• [1262462] automatically collapse the first comment when it’s empty
• [1262468] add reporter_accessible checkbox
• [1275077] Add Alex Salkever to the VP drop down list? Thanks!
• [1268305] Integrate Readable Bug Status in Bug Detail Page

discuss these changes on mozilla.tools.bmo.

https://dlawrence.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/happy-bmo-push-day-19/

It was recently discovered that support for using the defaults/profile directory to prepopulate a Firefox profile was removed in Firefox 46.

Here’s an AutoConfig file that adds back the functionality:

//
const {classes: Cc, interfaces: Ci, utils: Cu} = Components;
Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/Services.jsm");
Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/FileUtils.jsm");

if (!Services.prefs.prefHasUserValue("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone")) {
  // New profile
  var defaultProfileDir = Services.dirsvc.get("GreD", Ci.nsIFile);
  defaultProfileDir.append("defaults");
  defaultProfileDir.append("profile");
  if (defaultProfileDir.exists()) {
    var profileDir = Services.dirsvc.get("ProfD", Ci.nsIFile);
    try {
      copyDir(defaultProfileDir, profileDir);
    } catch (e) {
      Components.utils.reportError(e);
    }
  }
}

function copyDir(aOriginal, aDestination) {
  var enumerator = aOriginal.directoryEntries;
  while (enumerator.hasMoreElements()) {
    var file = enumerator.getNext().QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIFile);
    if (file.isDirectory()) {
      var subdir = aDestination.clone();
      subdir.append(file.leafName);
      try {
        subdir.create(Ci.nsIFile.DIRECTORY_TYPE, FileUtils.PERMS_DIRECTORY);
        copyDir(file, subdir);
      } catch (e) {
        Components.utils.reportError(e);
      }
    } else {
      try {
        file.copyTo(aDestination, null);
      } catch (e) {
        Components.utils.reportError(e);
      }
    }
  }
}

This should work for most file types, although it probably won’t work for bookmarks.html

I’ll also be adding this functionality to the next version of the CCK2 which will be released later today.

https://mike.kaply.com/2016/05/24/default-profile-directory-doesnt-work-in-firefox-46/

Git crypt is a neat git extension to encrypt some files - if not all - in a git repository. Integrates nicely with git using filters and it's use is completely transparent once you have unlocked a repository.

Using git-crypt you can still share a repository in public and maintain a set of files with secrets that are accessible to a limited number of users. Especially useful for open source projects.

At some point maybe you'll need to remove one of the users who have access to the encrypted files. Git-crypt does not provide a command to remove users (yet) because it's complicated to be done right while preserving history.

Until this issue is fixed, I put together a script to automate the procedure. The script will de-initialize git-crypt from the repository, completely remove the git-crypt keys and users. Then it will re-encrypt the repository and re-add all the keys (users) expect the one requested to be removed.

This is obviously a work-around and a proper solution with multiple git-crypt key versions is preferred but still it gets the work done. The solution was inspired by comments in the corresponding issue.

Grab with the script and documentation from GitHub.

https://giorgos.sealabs.net/remove-users-from-git-crypt-enabled-repository.html

http://nurav.github.io/posts/solving-update-races-in-balrog-the-plan/

Nearly 4 billion people around the world don't use the Internet. Bringing developing countries into the global digital community should be a priority for the...

https://air.mozilla.org/bringing-the-next-billion-online/

http://mozillamarciaknous.wix.com/mozcommunity#!Excited-to-be-working-with-our-Outreachy-intern/c218b/574321330cf2d7217a1c21f2

The Monday Project Meeting

https://air.mozilla.org/mozilla-weekly-project-meeting-20160523/

http://danielpocock.com/postbooks-pgday-ch-2016

https://blog.mozilla.org/mozillareps/2016/05/23/rep-of-the-month-january-2016/