I am Mozilian at least since 2005 in the way that I have always used only Firefox to surf the web and Thunderbird to take care of my email. I have always defended Mozilla, and Firefox, for the value they represent, even at the time it was obvious Chrome was lighter, faster… let’s be honest, better.
I have never complained except about how my contacts are treated in Thunderbird. I’d like to thank here the Mozilian Philippe Vigneau who steps up to solve that problem by working on Cardbook add-on.
However, today, I feel like speaking my mind.
I had only two basic mobiles in my life, and I left France in 2012 to go traveling around the world before I had any pocket computer (so-called smartphone). I can assure you that was not by lack of envy to play with these new gadgets, I went in purpose to an Apple store when I pass by London in 2007 just to try one of them… It was too expensive for me at that time, true, but more than that, I couldn’t trust these objects.
I first trusted Nokia and there project… what a disappointment they sold themselves to Microsoft… then I follow what remain, Tizen, even though I can’t forget who is behind…
I don’t know if you can figure someone like me, without any real computing knowledge, who tries his best to speak freedom in software and neutrality in Internet around himself… in the emptiness of uncaring… I don’t know if you can imagine how happy I was when you, Mozilla, step up, for all of us, to open a free way to run our pocket computer. I was going to be able to have one show it, and keep speaking. Of course, I’m also following the work of Canonical, but still, if I have to choose, I trust more Mozilla.
Last year, I finally got a second hand Nexus 5. I’m using Firefox OS on daily basis (thanks to Vosky and eyoome) and run Android only to use OSMand when I need it. I love my pocket computer and I’m very proud every time people recognize Firefox on my wallpaper and I can tell them about Firefox OS.
For my need, only the support of carddav is really missing. If there were am OSMand like app, I would get rid of Android. Finally, because I’m living in Iran (I’m a bit proud to have contributed to the farsi keyboard, my first significant technical contribution), I’m missing an OpenVPN feature.
I need Firefox OS to be ported on a dual sim card pocket computer to be able to make it popular in here (in all Asia, dual sim card is very appreciated). You ported the xperia Z3c, why not the Z3 dual?
I am very happy you decided today to do something about our future objects, in order to allow us to trust them later as we are trusting them today, before they are connected to the web. It is definitely important and I approve your choice, and I would have vote for it if you had given us the right to speak.
Unfortunatly, you didn’t trust us, and you decided to kill Firefox OS before maturity. You didn’t highlight so much all that you have achieved through that adventure and all what it has brought to the modern web (I won’t list them, I’m not technician but I read several time that Firefox OS contributed on several aspect of the web). Worse than that, you killed it in front of our eyes in a very short time, like you didn’t want to give it any chance to go on.
Mozilla, we trust you! We have feeling for you. Our relation is different than the one some clients can have for a brand that they admire. We don’t admire you. We like you too, but in a different way. We trust you!
Trust takes time and it’s a very strong feeling that allow your community to do amazing things, you should cherish and take care of it!
Now, let me tell you what I’m dreaming from you, from all Firefox versions (desktops, Android, iOS…), Firefox OS (IoT) and Colibri (pocket computer). Colibri is the name I’ve chosen to give to the reborn of Firefox OS. I agree with the vision that we elaborate on this pad, the 10/03/2016 and I found the brainstorming pad very interesting.
It would be great to have Hello working on Colibri and all Firefox version. I’d like to contact my family and friend who have Hello (Hello ID, email) right from my list of contact. I need to be able to manage my contacts from Firefox. What about my email? And my other data?
Well I guess the best answer today is to speak personal cloud. About that, I have a serious potential partner to highlight, Cozy cloud. It should not be anonymous to you as a very famous mozilian is now working for them. Of course in the following, I use the Cozy cloud plateforme as an example, other personal cloud could do the same.
In Firefox and in Colibri, I can check my contact even off line using Cozy cloud’s app. I’m hoping someday to be able to call a contact from my cozy-contact list, by phone in Colibri and by Hello in Colibri and Firefox.
However, I still need to use Thunderbird because I can’t use cozy-email to re-read an email when I’m off-line (remember, I’m traveling a lot, and Internet is not yet accessible freely everywhere on earth). Can we imagine a kind of cache in Firefox and Colibri that we could dedicate to some pined website or webapp to solve that issue (keep inbox and archived email…)? That could also help the Cozy team to make cozy-email faster and more stable.
Would it be possible to imagine to synchronize all our “Firefox experiences” to any device through our own cloud. Let me explain. On my desktop, I have some settings, password, history, bookmarks, Hello ID… that I would synchronize on my cozy-firefox-sync. Then, on any other desktop in the world, I could sign in for a session and have Firefox being exactly like it is at home, same idea for my Colibri device. Let me call that our « Firefox Identity ».
I imagine also for Colibri a Ubuntu-convergence like : When I plug my pocket computer to an external screen with keyboard and mouse, Firefox desktop appears with all the web-app…
I come back to Cozy cloud which sounds a very good plateform to collect and treat all my data from all Firefox desktop, Android, iOS, Colibri and also Firefox OS (IoT) devices of course. With my Firefox Identity linked to my Firefox OS devices, I can access all my data and follow their evolution, their treatment, interpretation and so on…
Now, I have identified one more thing you share in common Mozilla and Cozy cloud, and you are laking, a decentralized marketplace! Colibri will soon not have marketplace anymore. Mozilla will need one for webapps on Firefox and Firefox OS, and cozy-marketplace is not yet developed and can’t stay as it is right now.
Let me describe a decentralized marketplace based on Web of Trust that I imagine:
Everybody can submit its web-app with a name, a description, specifications (is it for Firefox ? Colibri ? Firefox IoT ? Cozy cloud ? Something else ?, it’s marketplace doesn’t have to be limited to Mozilla) an icon and the link from where the package can be installed. Packages of apps are not stored on a centralized plateform. Each dev is responsible of the package of his own apps, either on github, on Gitlab, his own server or…). The install button will just be a link to the package.
Nobody have to control who and what is submitted.
Every app can be certified (stable, beta, not working, for adult, for +7, +16…) by everybody. It can also be “liked”. Certification and “likes” are two things different.
“Likes” are linked to the app only and everybody will see the same “popularity”. Certification is linked to the app and the certifier (who certify the app).
I’ll see an app as certified only if one of my trusted person have certified it.
Let me give some examples :
A dev of Mozilla, who belongs to Mozilla-dev group, certify an app, app Alpha. I trust Mozilla-dev group. App Alpha appear certified to me. Same thing happen if I trust cozy-dev group, The-Document-Foundation-dev group…
My friend Frank, who doesn’t belong to any group, certify an app, app Beta. I trust him and his own friends (because I trust him very much, it’s the second level of trust). App Beta appear certified.
One of his friend certify an app, app Omega. App Omega appear certified also.
My friend Jane certify an app, app Epsilon. I trust her, but not enough to trust her friends (first level of trust). App Epsilon appear certify but if a friend of her certify an app, as long as she doesn’t, this app will not appear certify to me.
Now, my mum, she doesn’t know who to trust except me. She can choose the highest level of trust and trust me, my friend (Mozilla-dev group, cozy-dev group, The-Document-Foundation-dev group…, Frank, Jane) and the friend of my own friends (in my case only Frank’s friends because I don’t trust Jane’s friends).
Basically, my mum will see exactly the same certified apps than me.
Why making a « highest level of trust” because otherwise, the chain of trust is too long then there will always be a connection between you and everybody on earth, so all apps will appear certified to everybody… For the same reason, I think group of dev can be trusted only at the first level of trust, we can’t trust all the dev’s friends of a group of dev.
The control is made by the Web of Trust. If an app of pedopornography is registered on this marketplace, no one else than its author and those who certified it are responsible of it. If it appears as “Certified!” on someone’s screen, I guess this person might need to review who he is trusting (same as in life).
I have no idea how difficult it could be to create such marketplace of trust but it has several adavantage. It’s very human (based on trust). It gives back responsibilities to users and devs. Mozilla for example will be responsible only about apps they have certified but it would not block users to install apps that they trust, before Mozilla does it. It’s decentralized (peer to peer I would say) and tools are existing (OpenPGP is what comes to my mind). It would help to spread the usage of OpenPGP and so later make Internet more secure. We’ll probably find allies to help on that subject.
Firefox could offer, at the first time the user open the marketplace, to import/create OpenPGP key, to identify himself on this marketplace (it will need explanation, like a video).
Colibri could offer at first boot to import/create OpenPGP keys, and offer to use them for emails account at the same time it identify the user on this marketplace (it will need explanation, like a video).
Cozy cloud and other actors who are interested would need to implement this technology if they want to share the use of this marketplace.
In fact, this web of trust could be use for a marketplace for all webapps on different platform. The magic comes from the fact that devs and group of devs of these different apps (running on different platform) are the same, human.
Idealy, this ID created for this marketplace could be merged with the firefox sync ID, replace persona and be the one I was talking about earlier, our « Firefox Identity ».
Finally, Mozilla, and Cozy cloud, let me introduce you two potential partners for this marketplace, the two softwares of free cryptomoney, http://ucoin.io/ and http://project.openudc.org. Free is to understand as freedom, not as free beer. I invite you to understand where it comes from by reading “The Relative Money Theory” the english translation or in its original version, “La Théorie Relative de la Monnaie“, written by Stéphane Laborde.
A lot of things have been forced to adapt to the post Internet world. I won’t make the list here but it’s obvious that almost everything had been impacted by this new way-of-communication / media / network, but not the monetary system (the finance yes, but not moneys). Most of moneys are still created by a privileged private group of people called bankers. I let you investigate the debt-monetary system and let you discover why we can’t solve the false problem of “debt” (debt is the fuel of our economy at the same time than the threat used and reused by rulers).
In our modern world, volunteering, unpaid job (Richard Stallman has never been paid at the value of his contribution, and so it is for most of free contribution, free software, free culture) and unconsidered jobs (our mothers, and modern fathers are doing quiet good job at home I think) are taking a noticeable (I don’t dare saying big or huge) part in the real economy. By real, I mean out of the financial sphere.
Let’s imagine and create a monetary system that suits us best, a money for the Web! We already experimented some possibilities of cryptomoney, and we learned from the limit of Bitcoin and its derivatives.
The Relative Money Theory describe a monetary system based on a universal dividend, a basic income calculated from the number of people in the community, their lifetime and the existing money supply. The two cryptomoney I mentioned, ucoin and openudc are based on a Web of Trust, and we could use these cryptomoney to exchange on the marketplace I was describing.
It would be a parallel economy for this marketplace that would free us completely from any form of centralization. Their will be no need to think about how to allow customers to pay on their own currencies, the dev of an app in his own currency, whereas we don’t want any one in the center [to collect and exchange these privates money].
This money could be used also for in-app purchases, inside games, between people (direct exchange)…
And who knows maybe it will spread the word of free alternative currency… and free people a little bit more.