With each new release we will become more transparent about features earlier in the development cycle.
For the next few releases there will be a few special new features that we want to be able to get wow for around release time and that we will therefore be low key about.
Flock staff should be free to talk about whatever they want, save those special new features until we are feature complete.
Once we are feature complete, we release the product requirements document for that release.
Flock and the Open Source Community
Development
Flock developers are working around bugs instead of fixing them.
This week we upstreamed our first patch to Mozilla. We want to do much better on that.
Developers should be fixing Firefox bugs and patching them, or at least commenting on bugs, as long as the extra time spent is reasonable.
Flock needs to sponsor significant developer hours in things we want to see happen upstream in other open source project. Some examples would be Places, Lucene, feed services, open source update service, spellchecking support and editor.
Conversation
Flock developers and Firefox developers are friendly with each other, but we're not talking to them.
We should be participating in discussions about Firefox's future.
Flock developers should be hanging out on Mozilla IRC, mailing lists.
We should invite the Mozilla folks over to Flock HQ for a release party.
Submitting Good Bug Reports to Mozilla
Search to see if it has been filed already.
Make sure it isn't our bug, open Firefox and attempt to recreate the problem.
Try to make a patch, barring that make a use case.
You forgot to mention what the secret features are.
Seriously, I'm already kinda wowed by flock. It seems you folks have thought a LOT about usability, which is nice. And extremely rare. Basically, your browser is a more usable firefox, and firefox is pretty damn good.
I'm guessing one secret feature will be your implementation of RSS, as it is sorely lacking in 0.7.x builds, preventing me from using Flock as a default browser. I prefer Firefox's menu RSS system, others prefer Safari style RSS reading... I figure you'll do both or something. A personal, local portal, perhaps? With more interesting info at the top, more world-newsy stuff towards the bottom?
The reason I like FF's RSS is because you don't have to load a page to see what the stories are, or if anything is new. It's just there, transparently.
Built in bug reporting would be nice; It would be nice to just fire off bugs as I notice them . Also, features work and stop working intermittently; examples include the blog editor, which hasn't been able to add blog accts in the last while.
Okay, my comment is a bit off topic, but since I don't have any other way to reach your staff... what's with the Flock nightly builds?! Do you HAVE to put "blah blah blah blah" everywhere? Is it a joke, cause it's kinda stupid. Also, would you please remove the red tab that pops everytime there's a Flickr photo? The one saying "view photostream"? It's really really irritating and prevents me from filling in descriptions on my own Flickr stream as it block the box. If there's a way to disable it, please tell me, cause I haven't been able to find one. I'm a huuuuge Flock fan and this is just constructive criticism. Flockstars 4ever!
Useful meeting notes! I agree with everything stated, now let's take some action. Already an active member of the Firefox community, I look forward to increasing my participation in the Flock community, especially since I've switched over to Flock a few months ago. :)
You forgot to mention what the secret features are.
Seriously, I'm already kinda wowed by flock. It seems you folks have thought a LOT about usability, which is nice. And extremely rare. Basically, your browser is a more usable firefox, and firefox is pretty damn good.
I'm guessing one secret feature will be your implementation of RSS, as it is sorely lacking in 0.7.x builds, preventing me from using Flock as a default browser. I prefer Firefox's menu RSS system, others prefer Safari style RSS reading... I figure you'll do both or something. A personal, local portal, perhaps? With more interesting info at the top, more world-newsy stuff towards the bottom?
The reason I like FF's RSS is because you don't have to load a page to see what the stories are, or if anything is new. It's just there, transparently.
Built in bug reporting would be nice; It would be nice to just fire off bugs as I notice them . Also, features work and stop working intermittently; examples include the blog editor, which hasn't been able to add blog accts in the last while.
cheers,
rm
Okay, my comment is a bit off topic, but since I don't have any other way to reach your staff... what's with the Flock nightly builds?! Do you HAVE to put "blah blah blah blah" everywhere? Is it a joke, cause it's kinda stupid. Also, would you please remove the red tab that pops everytime there's a Flickr photo? The one saying "view photostream"? It's really really irritating and prevents me from filling in descriptions on my own Flickr stream as it block the box. If there's a way to disable it, please tell me, cause I haven't been able to find one. I'm a huuuuge Flock fan and this is just constructive criticism. Flockstars 4ever!
Simran
Useful meeting notes! I agree with everything stated, now let's take some action. Already an active member of the Firefox community, I look forward to increasing my participation in the Flock community, especially since I've switched over to Flock a few months ago. :)
Just a note folks, you can always reach us at
flock.com/feedback