4 ms·

At a high level my main question is: Why has Mozilla generally been so slow to react to market trends and taken so insanely long to deliver products that are c

At a high level my main question is: Why has Mozilla generally been so slow to react to market trends and taken so insanely long to deliver products that are competitive in other ways than fuzzy aspects like openness, freedom etc? This goes back back all the way to like 1998. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I remember it feeling like they were in rebuilding mode until like 2005-2006. And then Chrome launched in 2008... The first time around I guess it was massive amounts of technical debt and some questionable architectural choices (e.g. XPCOM), but how about the past decade?

b0rsuk 9y ago
I think Mozilla wasted some effort on some questionable initiatives, like Firefox OS. They became a little complacent and didn't put money(?) where their mouth is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mozilla_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mozilla_products In particular, check out the list of their abandoned projects. But some experimentation is necessary. You're never completely sure when you strike gold.
- johansch 9y ago
  Maybe the complacency came from having too much money from the first rounds of Google search deals in like 2004-2008? They had already fulfilled their primary goals (openness, transparency etc.)... I worked at Opera Software between 2004-2015. We also got loads of Google search placement money in that period, but for all of their other faults, our exec team(s) were able to keep us hungry for more.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Possibly. FOSS projects are notorious for going with rewrites rather than throttle back and maintain what is already there.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Effectively Mozilla, like a growing number of big name FOSS projects, got hijacked by SJW busybodies wanting to pad their resume. Thus they spun up a bunch of "social consciousness" projects that sapped time and resources. And now they have decided that to make Firefox competitive they have to throw out all that made Firefox distinct, and clone Chrome behavior by behavior. Just watch them up and decide that maintaining their own engine will be too much and go Blink in a few years...
  - sctb 9y ago
    This is not the kind of civil and substantive comment we're here for. If you'd like to make such a claim, please leave out the insults and include some tether to reality so we can learn something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

b0rsuk 9y ago

I think Mozilla wasted some effort on some questionable initiatives, like Firefox OS. They became a little complacent and didn't put money(?) where their mouth is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mozilla_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mozilla_products In particular, check out the list of their abandoned projects. But some experimentation is necessary. You're never completely sure when you strike gold.

johansch 9y ago
Maybe the complacency came from having too much money from the first rounds of Google search deals in like 2004-2008? They had already fulfilled their primary goals (openness, transparency etc.)... I worked at Opera Software between 2004-2015. We also got loads of Google search placement money in that period, but for all of their other faults, our exec team(s) were able to keep us hungry for more.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Possibly. FOSS projects are notorious for going with rewrites rather than throttle back and maintain what is already there.
digi_owl 9y ago
Effectively Mozilla, like a growing number of big name FOSS projects, got hijacked by SJW busybodies wanting to pad their resume. Thus they spun up a bunch of "social consciousness" projects that sapped time and resources. And now they have decided that to make Firefox competitive they have to throw out all that made Firefox distinct, and clone Chrome behavior by behavior. Just watch them up and decide that maintaining their own engine will be too much and go Blink in a few years...
- sctb 9y ago
  This is not the kind of civil and substantive comment we're here for. If you'd like to make such a claim, please leave out the insults and include some tether to reality so we can learn something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html