The research section behind Firefox’s parent company turned to the broader Internet community to find new concepts to mine.

Overly cynical title? Not really. Punch through the sunny-day speak surrounding the newest initiative from Mozilla Labs and it looks like this effort, dubbed the Concept Series, is just a reach for a clever spark from someone who may not implement it themselves. The sort of brilliant idea one expects from, well, Mozilla.

"Today we’re calling on industry, higher education and people from around the world to get involved and share their ideas and expertise as we collectively explore and design future directions for the Web," Chris Beard, vice president of Mozilla Labs, wrote at their blog.

Anyone, programmer or not, gained the opportunity to contribute and be a part of a bigger effort to dive into the future of the Web. Mozilla Labs is working with Adaptive Path to implement the ideas, mockups, and prototypes collected in the Concept Series.

But make sure those ideas, mockups, and prototypes have been licensed appropriately, with either Creative Commons or the Mozilla Public License as appropriate. Without a favorable licensing schema in place, a collaborative effort to develop the Concept further can’t take place.

Mozilla highlighted something called Aurora as an example of the kind of idea that could emerge. Aurora appears to be a type of web browser, something that we’re pretty certain Mozilla has today, in the form of its outstanding Firefox product.

The Concept Series might satisfy a given number of people who enjoy the group effort enabled through its structure. But with a real future-changing idea, we think people may be more tempted by the potential of a lucrative payoff through the startup route.