Mozilla is looking well past Firefox 3.1 and 4.0, the next versions of its open source browser, and is not doing it alone, as it is inviting the community to explore the future of Firefox with no holding back from bold, radical and even crazy ideas. In this regard, Chris Beard, Vice President and General Manager of Mozilla Labs, introduced the Concept Series, issuing a veritable call for participation not only for those involved in the shaping of the browser market, but also to academia, software engineers, designers and even people who haven't written a single line of code, as long as they have an idea.
"Everyone is welcome to participate. We're particularly interested in engaging with designers who have not typically been involved with open source projects. And we're biasing towards broad participation, not finished implementations," Beard revealed. "We're hoping to lower the barrier to participation by providing a forum for surfacing, sharing, and collaborating on new ideas and concepts. Our goal is to bring even more people to the table and provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole."
In the end, the Concept Series is meant not only as an online effort aimed at centralizing ideas related to the future of Firefox, but as an invitation to develop and research web-based innovations. In the end, the role of Mozilla Labs is to drive the creation, experimenting, and exploring of new concepts, some of which might end up as an integral part of Firefox.
"Concepts may take the form of Ideas, Mockups or Prototypes," Beard added. "Ideas - it all begins with an idea. A sentence, paragraph, or even bullet-points kick-start the process. Ideas can be simple and non-technical. Mockups - turn your idea (or someone else's) into an image, sketch or video. Prototypes - a prototype is interactive. Feel, touch and play with developing concepts. Prototypes get ideas across by showing off the moving parts."
The sole condition imposed by Mozilla Labs is that all the Ideas and Mockups to be shared under a Creative Commons license while the prototypes will be subject of the Mozilla Public License. And in order to illustrate his point, Beard offered a few examples of concepts, available via the videos embedded at the bottom of this article.
In the meanwhile Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 and Firefox 3.0 are available for download here.
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