933031 - Allow developers to use one account & one general profile for MDN, marketplace, AMO (etc.)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Robert Nyman]

To join our developer facing web sites and offerings, we need one single account for MDN, Firefox Marketplace, AMO and more. Same login, single sign-on if possible, and one central place to administer your account, settings, services and more.

Comment 1

[Robert Nyman]

I believe to do this the way it should be done, it needs to be a cross-collaboration between teams and Mozilla's developer facing web sites. Stormy, to move this forward, can you bring this up with Firefox Marketplace and AMO owners? Then we can have a meeting discussing possibilities.

Comment 2

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Wil, what do you think? How should we approach a single login, single sign-on solution for MDN & Marketplace?

Comment 3

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Piggybacking the Firefox Account initiative seems like the easiest win.  From my understanding, if you're Persona already it will be relatively easy to transition when it becomes available early next year.

Comment 4

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Agree. Is Firefox Account a Firefox-only thing? over 50% of MDN traffic is Chrome.

Comment 5

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I assume it will be similar to Persona except we store prefs/apps/scores/etc with your account as well.  So, working anywhere.  That said, the big meeting about how it works is happening in a week or two so at this point it's all hand waving, afaik.

Comment 6

[Robert Nyman]

> I assume it will be similar to Persona except we store prefs/apps/scores/etc
> with your account as well.  So, working anywhere.

If I understand this correctly (and I understand it's not entirely clear at the moment), Firefox Accounts could be an option, but only if it works everywhere, with no web browser dependency. Because right now we face a good challenge with being perceived as proprietary/just doing our own thing with Firefox OS and WebAPIs, so it's vital that the account handling/login etc for the Developer Program is completely web browser and platform independent.

Question: who could I talk to that would know more about the Firefox Account and technical approach?

Comment 7

[Stormy Peters]

Robert, Lloyd Hilaiel would be the person to start with for technical Firefox Account questions.

Comment 8

[Robert Nyman]

Ok, I can start with Lloyd for the Firefox Account. We do need consensus between the teams, though, to move into one joint central membership and administration.

Comment 9

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

Just to throw in some monkey wrenches beyond specific technology choices:

We'll need to look at what makes an MDN profile and a Marketplace profile and decide how they mesh together - they have some common fields and features, but also some differences.

The two sites also have different audiences - some MDN contributors have never been to the Marketplace site, and vice versa. I predict some fun angst when we run the big migration to join the profile sets.

Also, we'll need to consider how this affects current and future features on Marketplace & MDN that revolve around the profile.

For example, MDN displays recent demo uploads & wiki page edits. We also want to add badges to MDN and display them on the profile [1], and we've wanted to expand the "interests" feature to guide contributors toward areas of the site that could use their help.

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MDN/Development/Badges

And, there are basic things such as: Where do the profiles live, data-wise? Where does a user go to register / manage / delete a profile? Who works on the code behind the new profiles system?

Maybe "Firefox Accounts" answers all the above, but I don't expect it to be simple or answer all the above.

Comment 10

[Robert Nyman]

> Just to throw in some monkey wrenches beyond specific technology choices:
> 
> We'll need to look at what makes an MDN profile and a Marketplace profile
> and decide how they mesh together - they have some common fields and
> features, but also some differences.
> 
> The two sites also have different audiences - some MDN contributors have
> never been to the Marketplace site, and vice versa. I predict some fun angst
> when we run the big migration to join the profile sets.

Completely agree with all of this. I believe doing this, though, making it happen, is what we need to unify our outreach to developers. A possible bonus will be synergies between services (MDN, Marketplace etc) that will introduce and give developers an easy way into more of what we have to offer them.

> For example, MDN displays recent demo uploads & wiki page edits. We also
> want to add badges to MDN and display them on the profile [1], and we've
> wanted to expand the "interests" feature to guide contributors toward areas
> of the site that could use their help.
> 
> [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MDN/Development/Badges

I'd argue that while we still want wiki edits and contribution, our most vital strategy now is to have developers see HTML5 and Open Web Technologies as THE choice, especially for mobile. So this is what we need to push across the board, with extra benefits from becoming a part of contributing to MDN Docs and more.

> And, there are basic things such as: Where do the profiles live, data-wise?
> Where does a user go to register / manage / delete a profile? 

I would argue MDN. I see MDN as our umbrella for all Developers, incorporating Docs, Marketplace information, Developer Program and more. To me, it seems like the best place to join developers and build up and cherish that community.

> Who works on the code behind the new profiles system?

Yeah, that's not my call… :-)

> Maybe "Firefox Accounts" answers all the above, but I don't expect it to be
> simple or answer all the above.

Agreed. It could prove to be a good start, though.

Comment 11

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

(In reply to Robert Nyman from comment #10)

> Completely agree with all of this. I believe doing this, though, making it
> happen, is what we need to unify our outreach to developers. A possible
> bonus will be synergies between services (MDN, Marketplace etc) that will
> introduce and give developers an easy way into more of what we have to offer
> them.

Yeah, I can't disagree with any of that :)

> I'd argue that while we still want wiki edits and contribution, our most
> vital strategy now is to have developers see HTML5 and Open Web Technologies
> as THE choice, especially for mobile. So this is what we need to push across
> the board, with extra benefits from becoming a part of contributing to MDN
> Docs and more.

Cool. I just want us to be clear that if we have to cut or juggle some MDN- or Marketplace-specific features, this is the good reason why we're doing it.

> I would argue MDN. I see MDN as our umbrella for all Developers,
> incorporating Docs, Marketplace information, Developer Program and more. To
> me, it seems like the best place to join developers and build up and cherish
> that community.
> 
> > Who works on the code behind the new profiles system?
> 
> Yeah, that's not my call… :-)

Mainly I think my thing here is this: If we on the MDN team start working on this stuff, we're not energetically stomping all over the toes of the Marketplace team. Well, that, to make sure we're clear on who's working on this stuff and to make sure no us-vs-them crud happens while we're trying to be a united happy Developer Program team.

> > Maybe "Firefox Accounts" answers all the above, but I don't expect it to be
> > simple or answer all the above.
> 
> Agreed. It could prove to be a good start, though.

Cool beans.

Comment 12

[Robert Nyman]

> > I'd argue that while we still want wiki edits and contribution, our most
> > vital strategy now is to have developers see HTML5 and Open Web Technologies
> > as THE choice, especially for mobile. So this is what we need to push across
> > the board, with extra benefits from becoming a part of contributing to MDN
> > Docs and more.
> 
> Cool. I just want us to be clear that if we have to cut or juggle some MDN-
> or Marketplace-specific features, this is the good reason why we're doing it.

Yeah, definitely. We need to keep those in mind, but I'd say focus #1 is features, info etc that applies across the board, and then as #2 we could have some subsections for specific parts (MDN, Marketplace etc).

> Mainly I think my thing here is this: If we on the MDN team start working on
> this stuff, we're not energetically stomping all over the toes of the
> Marketplace team. Well, that, to make sure we're clear on who's working on
> this stuff and to make sure no us-vs-them crud happens while we're trying to
> be a united happy Developer Program team.

Indeed. I think we need to set up a meeting with the various stakeholders for this, and the reason why we're doing it, so we don't just hack away on something that really needs consensus first.

Comment 13

[Robert Nyman]

Lloyd, Wil, Luke, Les and I just had a meeting about this. The outcome was:

- We believe it is a good thing to have one central account
- Basing it on Firefox Accounts seems like the best solution
- Firefox Accounts have to be web browser and platform agnostic to be used for this
- Llloyd and team will discuss roadmap and features for Firefox Accounts tomorrow, and we'll follow up on this
- Potentially, the bulk of data for an account/membership for a user can be maintained at accounts.firefox.com - desirably, as much as possible (akin to Google profiles)
- Then some specific data can be connected to one of the web sites (MDN, Marketplace, AMO) but that should generally be considered as settings for that specific service, as opposed to account data spread out
- When we know more about Firefox Accounts and roadmap, Wil and Luke and their teams will look into how we can collaboratively do this

I hope this is a fair summary of what was said. If anything is missing, incorrect or needs discussion, please let me know!

Comment 14

[Robert Nyman]

After more talks with Lloyd:

"The Identity team expects to have a web based means to sign in with Firefox Accounts in February”. 

Meaning we need to regularly touch base, and potentially start this work and testing for both MDN and Marketplace/AMO in January.

Comment 15

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Lloyd, what's the best mechanism for keeping tabs on the Firefox Accounts plans? dev-identity mailing list? a blog? a tracking bug?

Comment 16

[Lloyd Hilaiel [:lloyd]]

Yo Luke!  The best mechanism is this:  https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Roadmap

Our leads meet weekly, open a beer, and verify that this roadmap matches reality.

Comment 17

[Janet Swisher]

Should the title of this bug be changed to something like "Single Sign-on for Mozilla developer-related accounts?

Comment 18

[Les Orchard [:lorchard]]

(In reply to Janet Swisher from comment #17)
> Should the title of this bug be changed to something like "Single Sign-on
> for Mozilla developer-related accounts?

Single sign on alone is bug 932708. 

This bug has been a tracker for profiles for a Developer Program with MDN as its HQ. A much, much bigger project than just single sign-on, involving shared profile management & more.

But, I think that's no longer a thing. So, this bug and two of the blockers should probably be closed. (bug 932710, bug 932709)

Comment 19

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I think all 3 bugs mentioned in comment 18 should be closed.  The Marketplace is working with the Fx Accounts team to integrate their system.  I expect that to be the central solution to our logins.

Comment 20

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

I closed those 3 bugs. 

:hoosteeno - we could keep this bug as a tracking bug to enabled Firefox Accounts on MDN? Or I suggest we file a new one for that to clear it of the "Program" account legacy.

Comment 21

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

I think comments 18-20 sum it up. This bug is a tracker for a bunch of WONTFIX bugs, so we can close it WONTFIX. 

Reading the FxA/Persona documents available[0] does not shed enough light on their relationship for me to write an intelligent bug about it. If someone else can write that bug now, I hope they will. Otherwise, I'm fairly sure this won't fall off the radar for lack of a bug.

[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox-Accounts, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.identity/Grd5XwRW-UA/4-Bh49Y74YYJ,

Comment 22

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

Moving to General component.