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> If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someo

> If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someone on staff or available that knows how to build and change stuff in it. That's incredibly excessive. If a website design agency runs Wordpress on Linux servers, that certainly doesn't justify having a kernel developer on staff.

rocmcd 7y ago
That's taking it a bit far, no? A more charitable allegory would be a website design agency that relies on Wordpress for websites, so they have Wordpress developers on staff (or on retainer). That doesn't seem unreasonable.
kbenson 7y ago
Linux wouldn't be integral to their business. They could also easily run wordpress on BSD, or a Solaris derivative (Illumos), or Windows. Either Apache or Nginx specifically also wouldn't be integral, as they could use one or the other, or some other web server that works with PHP. PHP is integral to their business, but they're not using any special feature of it that others aren't, most likely (and it's not a small community, so there are plenty of people that would be affected by any one problem). Wordpress is integral to their business. If they run into a WordPress bug, it would be useful for them to have access to someone that could track it down and diagnose it. Any heavily used WordPress plugins, or custom WordPress plugins might be integral to their business. They maybe should have someone that can look into problems with those. If a million other people are using the same feature as you that might cause problems, you're probably safe letting the community provide a fix. If 1000 other people are using the feature, who knows how long that fix will take in coming? If the developer is busy, it could be days. It's a function of how important it is to a business and how rare/replacable it is.
nickpsecurity 7y ago
The thing he said before that it's a non-swappable integration of a highly-complicated, web browser. Firefox is a mix of Rust, C++, and C that Mozilla Corp. develops with over a 100 million dollars a year worth of developers. The standards it implements are numerous with many complex interactions, optimizations, security features, extensions, and so on. And you are saying it's excessive to pay a Firefox developer to made the change or consult on how it works? That instead use an internal developer with no clue about it? A Firefox consultant in that scenario sounds more like a necessity than an excess to me. If anything, one expert might not be enough given they're probably specialized to different parts of Firefox. Also, a reason to never want a non-swappable dependency as big and complicated as Firefox. Then, you might become one of those companies that get locked-in like customers of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.

rocmcd 7y ago

That's taking it a bit far, no? A more charitable allegory would be a website design agency that relies on Wordpress for websites, so they have Wordpress developers on staff (or on retainer). That doesn't seem unreasonable.

kbenson 7y ago

Linux wouldn't be integral to their business. They could also easily run wordpress on BSD, or a Solaris derivative (Illumos), or Windows. Either Apache or Nginx specifically also wouldn't be integral, as they could use one or the other, or some other web server that works with PHP. PHP is integral to their business, but they're not using any special feature of it that others aren't, most likely (and it's not a small community, so there are plenty of people that would be affected by any one problem). Wordpress is integral to their business. If they run into a WordPress bug, it would be useful for them to have access to someone that could track it down and diagnose it. Any heavily used WordPress plugins, or custom WordPress plugins might be integral to their business. They maybe should have someone that can look into problems with those. If a million other people are using the same feature as you that might cause problems, you're probably safe letting the community provide a fix. If 1000 other people are using the feature, who knows how long that fix will take in coming? If the developer is busy, it could be days. It's a function of how important it is to a business and how rare/replacable it is.

nickpsecurity 7y ago

The thing he said before that it's a non-swappable integration of a highly-complicated, web browser. Firefox is a mix of Rust, C++, and C that Mozilla Corp. develops with over a 100 million dollars a year worth of developers. The standards it implements are numerous with many complex interactions, optimizations, security features, extensions, and so on. And you are saying it's excessive to pay a Firefox developer to made the change or consult on how it works? That instead use an internal developer with no clue about it? A Firefox consultant in that scenario sounds more like a necessity than an excess to me. If anything, one expert might not be enough given they're probably specialized to different parts of Firefox. Also, a reason to never want a non-swappable dependency as big and complicated as Firefox. Then, you might become one of those companies that get locked-in like customers of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.