Dear Foxfooders,
We’d like to share this follow-up communication with you on Foxfooding. In this message we want to focus mainly on what to do with your current Foxfooding devices, for those of you that have one.
Our push into the Connected Devices space will absolutely necessitate strong community support for our initiatives to be successful–and that means hacking on and testing new product innovations coming through the pipeline.
That means some kind of testing, feedback and preview program will continue to engage community members with new product concepts early and often. We’re not sure that the Sony Z3C Foxfooding devices in the existing program will be useful in this next phase; we need until the end of March to figure out the detailed design of this program based on how the product innovation process proceeds. So please stay tuned for another communication that will dive into specifics.
What to do with existing devices
You have two choices—continue to participate in whatever the Foxfooding Program becomes or withdraw from it:
A) If you want to continue participating…
Please keep your Z3C/Flame devices. They could possibly be useful for certain test scenarios (to be identified). Except as otherwise specified below, your participation will continue to be governed by the terms and conditions you agreed to when you signed up to participate in the Foxfooding Program.
Previously Mozilla collected data in order to improve the Foxfooding Program and Firefox OS. That has changed in view of the evolution of the Foxfooding Program. Accordingly, we are planning to push out the latest 2.6 software for the Z3C’s within a few days. The primary purpose of this update is to stop the data collection by Mozilla on your phone (it switches off the data collection flag so your data will no longer be collected). We ask that once this update is available, you accept OTA update. In the event OTA update is not possible, we ask that you please install the update manually. If you don’t accept or install the update, the data collection will continue.
B) If you don’t want to continue participating in Foxfooding…
You have two things to do please:
i) Notify us by Email. Please send us your name and email address via email to foxfood-opt-out@mozilla.com to be removed from the Foxfooding program. We’ll remove you from the Foxfooding Contributor email list so that you will no longer receive communications regarding the Foxfooding Program from us. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll assume you want to continue with the Foxfooding Program.
ii) Return/Keep Your Device. You may either return the device to us or keep it.
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Return. If you choose to return your device to us, please bring or mail it to one of our Mozilla offices (e.g. London, Paris, Berlin). Or if you’re attending the London All-Hands in June 2016, please bring it with you. We’ll share further instructions at the All-Hands on returning the devices to us. In all cases of a return, please fill out the return form here and enclose it with your phone.
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Keep. You may choose to keep your device and continue to use it with Firefox OS, or flash it with another operating system if you wish. Please be aware that we will no longer be supporting the phone. It will become your property and you will be solely responsible for it. If you keep the phone and want to continue using it as a Firefox OS phone, we highly recommend upgrading your phones with the latest 2.6 software update before continuing to use it (or before you give it away). If you don’t accept the 2.6 update, the data collection will continue.
How we envision Foxfooding to evolve
We originally envisioned the foxfooding program as a way for Mozillians to use, test and provide specific feedback that would improve a product that users were already relying on as their primary device. We’re well aware that this context is really different with Connected Devices – it will be some time before users have a Mozilla product, other than a SmartTV, in their hands or homes.
While the specifics are still to be figured out, we anticipate that the program will evolve to ask for help from Mozillians in shaping early stage products. This might include testing or getting feedback on individual features and pre-alpha products, or potentially doing user research.
If you have ideas on what this program could look like or how you would want to contribute, please get in touch. We’re aiming to have a plan in place for this by the end of March/early April.
Next steps
Below are a few next steps we’re going to follow through on in the next few days and weeks:
- OTA push for Z3C upgrades: week of the 29th of February.
- Connected Devices “Office Hours”: Ongoing, weekly
- Next communication on Foxfooding program - more details on specific scenarios and opportunities: March/April
- London All-Hands – Some volunteer foxfooders may be invited – process coming soon – and there will be an opportunity to get together to discuss Foxfooding, or hand us back devices: 13th - 18th June
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or suggestions.
We’re excited about the future for Connected Devices, and both staff and non-staff community participation is being built into the fabric of how this team will have impact on Mozilla’s mission. Take a look on the wiki here for opportunities to get involved, and please don’t hesitate to reach out with your ideas and questions.
Keep on rocking the free web!
In my point of view/what I understand