Mozilla Developer Resource Kit

Project Name

Mozilla Developer Resource Kit

Project Description

This project will create a resource kit suitable for new developers and students, and contain all the code, tools, build environment, documentation, and learning materials necessary to become a productive Mozilla developer and contributor.

Project Leader(s)

• David Humphrey
• Chris Tyler

Project Contributor(s)

• N/A

Project Details

Introduction

Mozilla is a large and difficult project to get started on because of its scale and scope. A number of issues stand in the way for new contributors:

1. tools and documentation is often scattered across the web in wikis, blogs, forums, etc. This situation has improved greatly in recent years, with improvements to MDC. However, MDC is not enough on it's own, and suffers from a lack of top-level paths through the enormous amounts of content (i.e., reference vs. learning).
2. often one needs more than just a tool or instructions on how to use it--examples, tutorials, etc. are also useful
3. many developers, especially those in the east where bandwidth is lacking, struggle to use web-based resources. Having local access to Mozilla's large resources (mxr, mdc, source) would open this world to a new set of developers
4. developers coming from proprietary platforms and development environments are used to the concept of resource kits, and find Mozilla's distributed approach to knowledge and resources foreign.

The goal of this project is to create a set of discs that remote users could download or order and begin learning and developing Mozilla easily.

Resource Kit Contents

The resource kit will be contained on one or more discs (likely DVDs). Initially the kit will target Windows developers, since this is the largest set of potential developers and because the tools and configuration necessary to do Mozilla development is less foreign to Linux/Unix developers. The disc or discs will contain a number of resources:

Complete Linux Development Environment

While the kit will target Windows, it will include a complete Linux-based Mozilla development environment. This will be done in order to introduce Windows developers to the need for cross platform development and testing, and also to help transition them onto other platforms like Linux and OS X.

The OS chosen would be Fedora Core, and the included software/packages would match the Linux Build instructions, the Linux reference platform doc, and the existing Linux Reference VM. We would not use the existing reference VM because our goal is to add convenience software and settings such that Mozilla development is made easier for new developers and so that Windows developers are made to feel comfortable.

This Linux development environment will be available in a number of formats:

1. LiveCD, which is also installable
2. VM Image. I have contacted VMWare to see if it is possible to redistribute the VMWare Player. Other hosts are also possible, but need to work well so that developers aren't turned-off Linux based on the Windows host software.

Tools

• Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition - checking with Microsoft to see what choices there are for including or auto-downloading this
• Microsoft Platform SDK (NOTE: When installing the SDK, you must install at least the "Windows Core SDK" (Tools, Build Environment, and Redistributable Components) and the "Web Workshop SDK" (Build Environment)).
• Mozilla Build 1.2
• Venkman
• Firebug
• KomodoEdit - checking with ActiveState to see what's possible here in terms of redistributing

Scripts and other Best Practices resources

• Editor config files and addons for common/supported editors
  • emacs
  • vi
  • komodo

Software

The user will get copies of the latest stable releases of popular Mozilla software. This is not strictly necessary for development, but helps give a sense of what's possible with the Mozilla platform. NOTE: these could be bundled on a supplementary disc:

• Firefox
• Thunderbird
• Miro
• KomodoEdit
• Songbird

Questions/Issues

• How to deal with localization?
• Can we allow the user to modify VS such that it knows about the symbol/source server when debugging?