Mozilla has seen declining contributions from non-employees over time. A mixed-methods study found that contribution is growing for some projects like Rust but mailing lists are less used as platforms divide. Contributors feel things change without input. Diversity also impacts contribution. To address this, Mozilla formulated a strategy of "Open By Design" to bring staff and contributors together, focus on diversity and inclusion, advocate for projects, and improve contributor experiences. This led to over 30 new projects and initiatives to revitalize open contribution to Mozilla.

1. Mixed Methods
Strategy
Formulation for
Community
Building at
Mozilla
B y : R i n a J e n s e n

2. Strategy
How to make
UX part of
business
strategy
formulation?

3. - C I O K a t h a r i n a B o r c h e r t
Open
Source is a
main
competitive
advantage
for Mozilla It is easy today to forget how powerful
Microsoft was in its era. If you think about
Google, Facebook and Amazon, if they were all
one company. Microsoft controlled the OS, the
server side and all apps. It had 92-94%
marketshare in every category. - Mitchell
Baker, Chairwomen Mozilla, 2015.

4. Mozilla 2004
Mozilla is faced with a Dilemma
Mozilla 2018

5. Mozilla 2004
Mozilla is faced with a Dilemma
Mozilla 2018
“We now have a significantly large enough
population of staff at Mozilla… you know
people that don’t have that history, that
don’t know the history of Mozilla being built
by contributors... ” - Sr. Staff Engineer -
Firefox

6. Mozilla 2004
Mozilla is faced with a Dilemma

7. Mitchell Baker,
Chairwoman.
Mozilla needs the open
source community to
compete in todays
marketplace.
“We urgently need
to revitalize open
contributions to
our projects again”

8. Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
S

9. Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
S
• What is the current state of open
collabora3ons at Mozilla?

10. Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
S
• What is the current state of open
collabora3ons at Mozilla?
• What, if anything, has changed
over3me? And Why?

11. Q
U
E
S
T
I
O
N
S
• What is the current state of open
collabora3ons at Mozilla?
• What, if anything, has changed
over3me? And Why?
• What are other successful examples of
open collabora3on that Mozilla can be
inspired by

12. Mixed
Methods
Approach3 streams of research…
Qualitative Research
Staff and Contributor
interviews
Contributor Survey
Market Research
Competitor Research
& Interviews
Data Analysis
Contribution data
across platforms

13. Mixed methods
Shared hypothesis &
research questions
Market Research
Competitor Research
& Interviews
Qualitative Research
Staff and Contributor
interviews
Contributor Survey
Data Analysis
Contribution data
across platforms

14. Findings

15. C h a r t : c o m m i t s b y n o n - e m p l o y e e s o v e r t i m e , p e r q u a r t e r .
Contribution is growing

16. C h a r t : N u m b e r o f c o m m i t s b y n o n - e m p l o y e e s t o t o p s i x p r o j e c t s w h e r e t h e y
c o n t r i b u t e d t h e m o s t .
Contribution is growing

17. C h a r t : N u m b e r o f c o m m i t s b y n o n - e m p l o y e e s t o t o p s i x p r o j e c t s w h e r e t h e y
c o n t r i b u t e d t h e m o s t .
Contribution is growing
Rust is doing great! It is
super popular and the
community is really
thriving!” - Rust Engineer

18. C h a r t : O v e r a l l e v o l u t i o n o f m a i l i n g l i s t s ( n u m b e r o f m e s s a g e s b y
q u a r t e r ) , s p l i t b y e m p l o y e e s ( b l u e ) , a n d n o n - e m p l o y e e s ( o r a n g e ) .
Platforms that divide

19. C h a r t : O v e r a l l e v o l u t i o n o f m a i l i n g l i s t s ( n u m b e r o f m e s s a g e s b y
q u a r t e r ) , s p l i t b y e m p l o y e e s ( b l u e ) , a n d n o n - e m p l o y e e s ( o r a n g e ) .
Platforms that divide
` “What people get frustrated with is that things just all of
the sudden look different. Just making them open would go
a long way to quelling some of the grief we get from
contributors who feel like things materialize out of
nowhere, because we hide all of our processes behind
closed tools.” - Engineer, Mozilla

20. Diversity has a real
impact
Table: comparison of female contributors in source code repositories for several FOSS projects

21. Diversity has a real
impact
Table: comparison of female contributors in source code repositories for several FOSS projects

22. Current
Mental
model

23. A new
mental
model

24. Synthesis Workshop

25. Strategy
Formulation

26. Strategy
Formulation
Open By Design

27. Strategy
Formulation
Open By Design
• Contributor experiences

28. Strategy
Formulation
Open By Design
• Bring Staff & Contributors
together
• Contributor experiences

29. Strategy
Formulation
Open By Design
• Bring Staff & Contributors
together
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Contributor experiences

30. Strategy
Formulation
Open By Design
• Bring Staff & Contributors
together
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Project advocacy
• Contributor experiences

31. Outcomes
Designing the
Contributor
Experience

32. Outcomes
Identity
and
Access
M

33. Outcomes
Diversity &
Inclusion

34. Outcomes
Open Source
Clubs

35. Over 30 projects have been initiated since the
research started. All trying to answering:
How do we revitalize
contribution to Mozilla?

36. Qual
Together
Stronger
Quant
Strategy

37. Thank
You