March 13th, 2017

There are a set of topics that are important to Mozilla and to what we stand for in the world — healthy communities, global communities, multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, inclusion, empathy, collaboration, technology for shared good and social benefit. I spoke about them at the Mozilla All Hands in December, if you want to (re)listen to the talk you can find it here. The sections where I talk about these things are at the beginning, and also starting at about the 14:30 minute mark.

These topics are a key aspect of Mozilla’s worldview. However, we have not set them out officially as part of who we are, what we stand for and how we describe ourselves publicly. I’m feeling a deep need to do so.

My goal is to develop a small set of principles about these aspects of Mozilla’s worldview. We have clear principles that Mozilla stands for topics such as security and free and open source software (principles 4 and 7 of the Manifesto). Similarly clear principles about topic such as global communities and multiculturalism will serve us well as we go forward. They will also give us guidance as to the scope and public voice of Mozilla, spanning official communications from Mozilla, to the unofficial ways each of us describes Mozilla.

Currently, I’m working on a first draft of the principles. We are working quickly, as quickly as we can have rich discussions and community-wide participation. If you would like to be involved and can potentially spend some hours reviewing and providing input please sign up here. Jascha and Jane are supporting me in managing this important project.

I’ll provide updates as we go forward.