4 ms·

Many talented developers are getting paid by Google to solely hack on Chrome - to add new features, to make it blazing fast, and to make sure it is well support

by javanix 16y ago

Many talented developers are getting paid by Google to solely hack on Chrome - to add new features, to make it blazing fast, and to make sure it is well supported. The fact that it is open source is kind of a nice little bonus - Google-sponsored development is going to dwarf the community development, as long as Google is paying. Not only that, but any major community development runs the risk of being forked off into a less visible product if it doesn't conform to Google's direction. Google, after all, is not going to spend ad money on convincing people to download an offshoot of Chrome. Mozilla does not pay a vast number of developers to head in one direction on Firefox - it asks the community nicely if it will head in one direction (because of Chrome's performance advantages, 4.0 will heavily emphasize that direction). By nature, this means that the Firefox codebase is going to be more fragmented than Chrome's. Things like comprehensive performance enhancements will be correspondingly tougher to do. The advantage of this is that there is a much less rigid steering committee - community developers on Firefox are free to go do whatever they want. The results are a slower, but more customizable browser. I suspect that Chrome will probably end up with a bigger market share within 5 years, just because of Google's financial clout, but I doubt that Firefox will disappear completely.

whopa 16y ago
Don't fall for the Mozilla marketing. Mozilla has >200 people on staff, and the vast majority of actual browser development is done by Mozilla staff. Getting Mozilla to actually respond to any external development community questions and feedback is like pulling teeth. There's a reason you hardly see anyone building on top of Mozilla anymore. Mozilla's problems stem from their management simply being over their heads, and not having the chops to run a development project of that scale. A good chunk of Chrome developers used to be Mozilla developers, who probably weren't exactly thrilled with how Mozilla was being run. And talk to any third party who has tried to work with Mozilla building on the code base, and you'll hear all sorts of frustrations. Mozilla has enough money in the bank to not disappear for a while, but they'll likely fade into irrelevance sooner, because it doesn't look like they can escape their institutional problems.
- celticjames 16y ago
  Mozilla Corporation employs 200+ people, but the community contribution, measured in commits, is substantial. But what you say about management is true. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand does. Communication between the corporation and the foundation is very poor.
  - whopa 16y ago
    In the past few years, the vast majority of commits to core browser code is by Mozilla paid staff. They mostly ignore outside contributors at that level.

by javanix 16y ago

whopa 16y ago

Don't fall for the Mozilla marketing. Mozilla has >200 people on staff, and the vast majority of actual browser development is done by Mozilla staff. Getting Mozilla to actually respond to any external development community questions and feedback is like pulling teeth. There's a reason you hardly see anyone building on top of Mozilla anymore. Mozilla's problems stem from their management simply being over their heads, and not having the chops to run a development project of that scale. A good chunk of Chrome developers used to be Mozilla developers, who probably weren't exactly thrilled with how Mozilla was being run. And talk to any third party who has tried to work with Mozilla building on the code base, and you'll hear all sorts of frustrations. Mozilla has enough money in the bank to not disappear for a while, but they'll likely fade into irrelevance sooner, because it doesn't look like they can escape their institutional problems.

celticjames 16y ago
Mozilla Corporation employs 200+ people, but the community contribution, measured in commits, is substantial. But what you say about management is true. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand does. Communication between the corporation and the foundation is very poor.
- whopa 16y ago
  In the past few years, the vast majority of commits to core browser code is by Mozilla paid staff. They mostly ignore outside contributors at that level.