17 ms·

A common refrain, but is anything but obvious. Focusing on the browser could be a losing strategy. I'd argue it probably is. The trajectory is terrible: the tec

by gfodor 6y ago

A common refrain, but is anything but obvious. Focusing on the browser could be a losing strategy. I'd argue it probably is. The trajectory is terrible: the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) and the market share picture is bleak. The opportunity cost is huge: maintaining a web engine, one which basically just tries to keep up with the others put out by Google et al, takes armies of people that could perhaps otherwise be leveraged elsewhere towards creating something disruptive which could carry Mozilla forward into the future. The entire revenue model is held up by, of all companies, Google. And that model is backed up by market share which is going down continuously, is under attack on all sides, and is morally compromised by being powered by by ads. The biggest counterincentive to Google pulling the plug isn't one of ending a transaction of mutual value exchange, but potential legal impact by regulators. Not exactly the most robust business model. When companies struggle with a failing product, the answer usually is to evolve. Not to double down on what has (thankfully for us) worked for several decades but now is starting to fail systemically. What you're saying here presumes to be the answer to the most important question Mozilla is struggling with: in 10 years, is a browser-focused Mozilla viable? Nobody knows the answer to this, there are strong reasons to think the answer is a strong "No." So stop pretending like you know the answer.

jacquesm 6y ago
Yes, it is a losing strategy because this is a rearguard action. There are only losing strategies, nothing will turn Mozilla around to be some kind of powerhouse besides what it already is. And that's fine. It doesn't need to be the next singing, dancing platform with bells and whistles. It's a tool. It should do one thing and do that one thing well. FireFox is not a failing product, it is the only product they have that is not failing and pursuing shiny and new stuff that nobody needs (despite the corpspeak there) is only going to accelerate that towards becoming the truth. Mozilla is a one-trick pony (well, they were a two trick pony but then they decided to murder Thunderbird and then retracted it or whatever they did, it also confused the hell out of me when they pulled that one). And they now have to accept that, deal with it and focus on being the very best one trick pony they can be.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Your two claims (Mozilla can't do anything other than Firefox, Firefox is not failing) are easy to provide counter-evidence to. You're making strong statements here as fact that are not only subjective but which run against evidence.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    So provide the counter evidence. Mozilla is letting 250 people go, that's not because their things other than Firefox are a resounding success, but mostly because none of those things pay the bills and are failures in the market place. Firefox is falling behind on Chrome and Edge, it is really annoying that since a couple of weeks I'm more or less forced to use Chrome because FireFox languishes in domains that matter to me personally. That's a pretty strong sign because if there is one thing that I never thought would happen it is that I would switch away from FF. So no, it is not failing - yet. But it may come to that. If people like me are considering to switch that future is closer than you might like. So maybe my strong statements are subjective but they are actually backed by some evidence, you did not provide any whatsoever other than naysaying.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      Happy to, I figured it was self-evident. Firefox has been losing market share steadily for years. The biggest efforts to turn that around have at best slowed it. Your subjective experience backs it up. That's evidence it is a failing product. Mozilla has shipped successful products other than Firefox. Rust being a strong example, and then there are moderately less successful ones that have varying impacts. I worked on one (Hubs) that had a strong trajectory when I left, both in terms of user and revenue growth.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        No, it is evidence of Google taking steady marketshare away from FF through underhanded tactics such as a basically unlimited advertising budget. You simply can not fight such a war and win, you can only lose gracefully. Rust is not a product. And for Mozilla it was a huge distraction, one they could ill afford. So my point stands: this is a rearguard action. Eventually they will lose, accelerating that is in nobody's interest.
syshum 6y ago
That is a for-profit goal when profit is the sole motivation Mozilla while it has a For-Profit Corporation, is still at its core a Non-Profit, they need to keep true to that mission
godshatter 6y ago
> the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) An aside from the discussion at hand: is it possible to repackage Gecko so that it uses the same API calls that WebKit uses, basically translating from WebKit calls to Gecko calls? The problem with WebKit and Chromium is that all new browsers are going that direction and Gecko is being left behind. This isn't good for the web as a whole. A version of the Gecko API that could be a drop-in replacement for WebKit would be very helpful here, it seems to me.
- takluyver 6y ago
  That's a mug's game. The best you can do is exactly what Webkit does, because that's what you're trying to imitate. You won't do it 100% perfectly (all software has bugs), so in any direct comparison you come out looking worse.
  - grey_earthling 6y ago
    The behind-the-scenes API stuff may be no better, but the product's user experience can be better, and that can differentiate it from its competitors. This is how Vivaldi (and I guess every other Chromium-based browser) pitches itself compared to Chrome.
barrkel 6y ago
Counterpoint: Apple when Jobs came back. Sometimes the answer to a company which is trying too many things at random is to drastically reduce the dispersion of effort, and focus ruthlessly. It's very hard to do psychologically, though. IMO Mozilla would probably be better served, business-wise, as being "the customizable Chrome". It would be a much smaller business (i.e. less IP under development), but it could be profitable and it leverages their USP in a way that Chrome doesn't seem able or willing to follow. Finding different products to sell simply leads to Firefox going away, IMO. I don't care about Mozilla; I care about what Firefox does that Chrome does not. And at the end of the day, that's mostly Tree Style Tabs, uBlock and a menu bar.
- gfodor 6y ago
  I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. The users may be right. Your Apple analogy is a tough one - if Apple had just stayed focused on PCs, and not the higher level mission of the company around comput-ing-, they would have not invented new kinds of computers. Focus makes sense, once you've locked in on something. The trick of what to focus on is hard though, and the scope of things to consider as possible to focus on is informed by the mission of the company and its fundamental thesis for existing. When the iPod came out it was often chastised as being off-mission for Apple, and many Mac enthusiasts yelled that it would detract away from having them fix whatever the problem of the day was bothering them about their Mac. This kind of complaint is obviously very familiar in the Mozilla case - things other than Firefox are often considered 'distractions' much like the iPod (which led to the iPhone) was by similar people who were heavily invested in the company's existing product line. Time will tell if Mozilla survives if it turns out they should, unlike Apple, listen to them and accept they can't do more than one thing. Mozilla's thesis is about unlocking the potential of the Internet and ensuring it remains a public resource. Its purpose for existing is not about tree style tabs or ad blockers. But this makes for a tough process of determining how to foster innovative products since the mission is so broad.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. Spot on. In fact, I think that without FireFox Mozilla might as well be dead, even if it survives as a legal entity and employs people. That's it's whole reason for existence as far as I'm concerned.
shajznnckfke 6y ago
Making a browser is Mozilla’s purpose. If Mozilla can’t do that, it doesn’t have a reason to exist and will fail. If the Feed the Children charity decides that feeding children is too hard and decides to water plants instead, I expect it will fail too.
- gfodor 6y ago
  The Mozilla Manifesto says nothing about web browsers. If you think they should throw it out and focus on making web browsers (and abandon their mission as an organization) you'll have to take it up with them I guess.
  - ofrzeta 6y ago
    Well, 99% of "the Internet" is the web, so a free web browser is the vital part in that. And not some tool about "remixing HTML" or open badges or something [1] [1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/artifacts/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/artifacts/
    - smabie 6y ago
      With mobile native apps, there's no way that 99% of the internet is the web. Video accounts for 60% of total web traffic, and a good chunk of that is not through a web browser, I'd imagine.
      - ofrzeta 6y ago
        I think most access to video is through the browser as well. Why not make Firefox the #1 Netflix platform?
        tvshtr 6y ago
        you're insane, average mobile user won't use a platform unless it has an "app". Companies purposely push users with intrusive popups and half or full page overlays into their apps, or just block access in some way
dragonwriter 6y ago
> What you're saying here presumes to be the answer to the most important question Mozilla is struggling with: in 10 years, is a browser-focused Mozilla viable? No, I think it presumes that given the Mozilla Foundation's mission, if a browser-focussed Mozilla Corporation is no longer viable, the parent Foundation has utterly failed, and neither it nor the Corporation that supports it has a reason to exist. Now, one can argue both sides of that, but I think there's a very good argument they the center of the open consumer internet is the browser, and that soloing functionality off of that (even if the particular thing you are promoting happens to be an open solution) ends up just reinforcing the trend toward balkanization of the internet into domains of disconnected functionality mostly ruled by proprietary apps and services.
- iso1210 6y ago
  > I think there's a very good argument they the center of the open consumer internet is the browser, and that soloing functionality off of that (even if the particular thing you are promoting happens to be an open solution) ends up just reinforcing the trend toward balkanization of the internet into domains of disconnected functionality mostly ruled by proprietary apps and services. That seems like the exact same argument people said with IE6.
lallysingh 6y ago
Really? Firefox continues to become more pleasant to use, and chrome less so. I think they should just have their own app store for extensions, handle payments and take a good cut.
Joeri 6y ago
The thing is, their only option for making a relevant browser is investing in it maximally because users will ruthlessly pick the best browser. If they cut back on the browser, they may as well just put it out to pasture, because that is where it will go in time. So either mozilla focuses on the browser first and foremost, or they get out of the browser business. And the thing with mozilla is that the browser is their core asset. All this other stuff they do? It is fluff, of marginal importance. If they’re not doing the browser, they’re just another small software vendor, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
krick 6y ago
I won't strongly argue with your opinion. Basically because business is complicated and I don't believe I would know what is the losing strategy for Mozilla. But I don't really know how Mozilla could be interesting to me outside of Firefox. Someday they had a name which could be worth something, but I lost my trust in Mozilla ages ago. I don't believe their management, to me they have as much integrity as Facebook (ok, maybe a little more... I'm not sure). I am using Thunderbird and don't know a good alternative, so it would be a pity if it dies, but I'll get over it pretty quickly. Moreover, I don't really need any new features for Thunderbird, nothing but security updates. Even more than that, I am not really that picky about the engine. Sure, I was always pretty enthusiastic about the technology in Mozilla (I mean — Rust! — do I even need to say more?). And I do like Gecko. But, you know, if they believe they will deliver better if they switch to WebKit, I'm kinda ok with it. If it won't break any plugins, chances are I won't even notice. I may cheer for Servo and stuff, but it's not why I use Firefox. The browser as a product is a bigger part of the UX for me than mere rendering engine. Also, Firefox is still a little less of a spyware than the competition. Fuck up that experience for me, and you lose a very loyal old-time user. Keep up with the competition while not fucking it up, and there's still enough momentum for me not to switch. I guess there's a lot of people like me in that regard. Finally, Mozilla is not a startup with a core of energetic talented people, who can make miracles happen. It is a quite old non-profit organisation, entrenched with politics. Their biggest (only?) asset I know of is people, who know browser stuff. Well, maybe the brand, known for browser stuff. Do they have anything else at all? So, yeah, anything is a bet, but I don't think I would bet on anything outside of Firefox. Not now, anyway. When everything is good financially and we have money to spare, well, looking for alternatives may be good. But when you are struggling for money and are about to lose everything you were keeping afloat for the last 20 years... As I said, Mozilla is not known for brilliant top-management, that has a crystal-clear vision and makes ingenious decisions that save the company when the business is struggling. The best thing I would expect them to be able to do is cutting costs, finding new sponsors and new ways to "slightly sell" Firefox without angering too many users. And even that they don't do very well. The most radical thing I would reasonably expect them to pull of would be to switch all forces to mobile version of Firefox and win it, while loosing desktop version. But I doubt it. [Also, in some parallel reality they could take advantage of political situation and sell Firefox OS to Huawei (or maybe get a sponsorship). But in this reality, Firefox OS is dead, Mozilla is too rigid to make wild moves like that, and Huawei is waaay more capable of building their own OS than Mozilla.]
ivalm 6y ago
Mozilla is a non-profit which, in my view, is valuable only as a chromium alternative. Why must it be big/etc? Being a megacorp shouldn’t be Mozilla’s goal.
- notyourday 6y ago
  Without being a mega corp, Mozilla execs won't get mega bonuses and become mega rich. This is the fundamental problem with Mozilla.
crazypython 6y ago
> And that model is backed up by market share which is going down continuously Firefox bugs that I have personally encountered as a user or developer I want fixed: - localStorage implementation easily breaks during power failure https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1341070 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1341070 - SVG rotation glitches - Fails to correctly render the "Exo 2" font inside an SVG (Granted, for this one, it just made me switch fonts for my application.) - Spidermonkey, as a JavaScript engine, is slow and the documentation (Perhaps it could be replaced with GraalJavaScript? An engine that lacks basic escape analysis is bad in my book.) - Various bugs I am assisting them in resolving.
gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
Mozilla's whole purpose is Firefox (and Thunderbird). If Mozilla exists without Firefox it has totally and utterly failed in its one purpose.
- detaro 6y ago
  > Mozilla's whole purpose is Firefox (and Thunderbird). That's certainly not Mozilla's position on the matter.
  - gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
    I and nearly everyone else even know who they are certainly don't care what Mozilla think about this. We know it as the custodian of Firefox and nothing more. Beyond that my limited (and I do mean limited because I seriously don't care what they do as long as the browser remains FLOSS and high quality) understanding some political activists (with unrelated and potential laudable political agendas) have taken over financial control of Firefox development and are using it to fund their unrelated politics.
  - gsich 6y ago
    That's why they are failing.
xigency 6y ago
I disagree on a couple of points. The idea that it takes armies of people to develop a web browser or that the Firefox's technology would be less relevant because of the existence of alternatives like WebKit. WebKit had its beginnings by being borrowed from Konqueror, an open-source and little used web browse for Linux. That really underscores both how it's possible to develop a quality web browser with fewer resources and that having independent technology is useful. Safari wouldn't have been able to leap frog some other browsers if they weren't able to use WebKit to do it. And I think most readers of this site know that it is important that web technology doesn't become a monoculture. Whether or not Mozilla can secure independent funding without Google, whether they are "viable" or "relevant". I think those questions are a distraction. The real question is, what is Mozilla's mission? Because if they aren't fulfilling the mission, those other factors are irrelevant. And it's clearly possible for them to do something useful in the browser realm even with 0 resources if they had to fall back on community contributions and be a project like Konqueror.

by gfodor 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

Yes, it is a losing strategy because this is a rearguard action. There are only losing strategies, nothing will turn Mozilla around to be some kind of powerhouse besides what it already is. And that's fine. It doesn't need to be the next singing, dancing platform with bells and whistles. It's a tool. It should do one thing and do that one thing well. FireFox is not a failing product, it is the only product they have that is not failing and pursuing shiny and new stuff that nobody needs (despite the corpspeak there) is only going to accelerate that towards becoming the truth. Mozilla is a one-trick pony (well, they were a two trick pony but then they decided to murder Thunderbird and then retracted it or whatever they did, it also confused the hell out of me when they pulled that one). And they now have to accept that, deal with it and focus on being the very best one trick pony they can be.

gfodor 6y ago
Your two claims (Mozilla can't do anything other than Firefox, Firefox is not failing) are easy to provide counter-evidence to. You're making strong statements here as fact that are not only subjective but which run against evidence.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  So provide the counter evidence. Mozilla is letting 250 people go, that's not because their things other than Firefox are a resounding success, but mostly because none of those things pay the bills and are failures in the market place. Firefox is falling behind on Chrome and Edge, it is really annoying that since a couple of weeks I'm more or less forced to use Chrome because FireFox languishes in domains that matter to me personally. That's a pretty strong sign because if there is one thing that I never thought would happen it is that I would switch away from FF. So no, it is not failing - yet. But it may come to that. If people like me are considering to switch that future is closer than you might like. So maybe my strong statements are subjective but they are actually backed by some evidence, you did not provide any whatsoever other than naysaying.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Happy to, I figured it was self-evident. Firefox has been losing market share steadily for years. The biggest efforts to turn that around have at best slowed it. Your subjective experience backs it up. That's evidence it is a failing product. Mozilla has shipped successful products other than Firefox. Rust being a strong example, and then there are moderately less successful ones that have varying impacts. I worked on one (Hubs) that had a strong trajectory when I left, both in terms of user and revenue growth.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      No, it is evidence of Google taking steady marketshare away from FF through underhanded tactics such as a basically unlimited advertising budget. You simply can not fight such a war and win, you can only lose gracefully. Rust is not a product. And for Mozilla it was a huge distraction, one they could ill afford. So my point stands: this is a rearguard action. Eventually they will lose, accelerating that is in nobody's interest.

syshum 6y ago

That is a for-profit goal when profit is the sole motivation Mozilla while it has a For-Profit Corporation, is still at its core a Non-Profit, they need to keep true to that mission

godshatter 6y ago

> the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) An aside from the discussion at hand: is it possible to repackage Gecko so that it uses the same API calls that WebKit uses, basically translating from WebKit calls to Gecko calls? The problem with WebKit and Chromium is that all new browsers are going that direction and Gecko is being left behind. This isn't good for the web as a whole. A version of the Gecko API that could be a drop-in replacement for WebKit would be very helpful here, it seems to me.

takluyver 6y ago
That's a mug's game. The best you can do is exactly what Webkit does, because that's what you're trying to imitate. You won't do it 100% perfectly (all software has bugs), so in any direct comparison you come out looking worse.
- grey_earthling 6y ago
  The behind-the-scenes API stuff may be no better, but the product's user experience can be better, and that can differentiate it from its competitors. This is how Vivaldi (and I guess every other Chromium-based browser) pitches itself compared to Chrome.

barrkel 6y ago

Counterpoint: Apple when Jobs came back. Sometimes the answer to a company which is trying too many things at random is to drastically reduce the dispersion of effort, and focus ruthlessly. It's very hard to do psychologically, though. IMO Mozilla would probably be better served, business-wise, as being "the customizable Chrome". It would be a much smaller business (i.e. less IP under development), but it could be profitable and it leverages their USP in a way that Chrome doesn't seem able or willing to follow. Finding different products to sell simply leads to Firefox going away, IMO. I don't care about Mozilla; I care about what Firefox does that Chrome does not. And at the end of the day, that's mostly Tree Style Tabs, uBlock and a menu bar.

gfodor 6y ago
I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. The users may be right. Your Apple analogy is a tough one - if Apple had just stayed focused on PCs, and not the higher level mission of the company around comput-ing-, they would have not invented new kinds of computers. Focus makes sense, once you've locked in on something. The trick of what to focus on is hard though, and the scope of things to consider as possible to focus on is informed by the mission of the company and its fundamental thesis for existing. When the iPod came out it was often chastised as being off-mission for Apple, and many Mac enthusiasts yelled that it would detract away from having them fix whatever the problem of the day was bothering them about their Mac. This kind of complaint is obviously very familiar in the Mozilla case - things other than Firefox are often considered 'distractions' much like the iPod (which led to the iPhone) was by similar people who were heavily invested in the company's existing product line. Time will tell if Mozilla survives if it turns out they should, unlike Apple, listen to them and accept they can't do more than one thing. Mozilla's thesis is about unlocking the potential of the Internet and ensuring it remains a public resource. Its purpose for existing is not about tree style tabs or ad blockers. But this makes for a tough process of determining how to foster innovative products since the mission is so broad.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. Spot on. In fact, I think that without FireFox Mozilla might as well be dead, even if it survives as a legal entity and employs people. That's it's whole reason for existence as far as I'm concerned.

shajznnckfke 6y ago

Making a browser is Mozilla’s purpose. If Mozilla can’t do that, it doesn’t have a reason to exist and will fail. If the Feed the Children charity decides that feeding children is too hard and decides to water plants instead, I expect it will fail too.

gfodor 6y ago
The Mozilla Manifesto says nothing about web browsers. If you think they should throw it out and focus on making web browsers (and abandon their mission as an organization) you'll have to take it up with them I guess.
- ofrzeta 6y ago
  Well, 99% of "the Internet" is the web, so a free web browser is the vital part in that. And not some tool about "remixing HTML" or open badges or something [1] [1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/artifacts/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/artifacts/
  - smabie 6y ago
    With mobile native apps, there's no way that 99% of the internet is the web. Video accounts for 60% of total web traffic, and a good chunk of that is not through a web browser, I'd imagine.
    - ofrzeta 6y ago
      I think most access to video is through the browser as well. Why not make Firefox the #1 Netflix platform?
      - tvshtr 6y ago
        you're insane, average mobile user won't use a platform unless it has an "app". Companies purposely push users with intrusive popups and half or full page overlays into their apps, or just block access in some way

dragonwriter 6y ago

> What you're saying here presumes to be the answer to the most important question Mozilla is struggling with: in 10 years, is a browser-focused Mozilla viable? No, I think it presumes that given the Mozilla Foundation's mission, if a browser-focussed Mozilla Corporation is no longer viable, the parent Foundation has utterly failed, and neither it nor the Corporation that supports it has a reason to exist. Now, one can argue both sides of that, but I think there's a very good argument they the center of the open consumer internet is the browser, and that soloing functionality off of that (even if the particular thing you are promoting happens to be an open solution) ends up just reinforcing the trend toward balkanization of the internet into domains of disconnected functionality mostly ruled by proprietary apps and services.

iso1210 6y ago
> I think there's a very good argument they the center of the open consumer internet is the browser, and that soloing functionality off of that (even if the particular thing you are promoting happens to be an open solution) ends up just reinforcing the trend toward balkanization of the internet into domains of disconnected functionality mostly ruled by proprietary apps and services. That seems like the exact same argument people said with IE6.

lallysingh 6y ago

Really? Firefox continues to become more pleasant to use, and chrome less so. I think they should just have their own app store for extensions, handle payments and take a good cut.

Joeri 6y ago

The thing is, their only option for making a relevant browser is investing in it maximally because users will ruthlessly pick the best browser. If they cut back on the browser, they may as well just put it out to pasture, because that is where it will go in time. So either mozilla focuses on the browser first and foremost, or they get out of the browser business. And the thing with mozilla is that the browser is their core asset. All this other stuff they do? It is fluff, of marginal importance. If they’re not doing the browser, they’re just another small software vendor, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

krick 6y ago

I won't strongly argue with your opinion. Basically because business is complicated and I don't believe I would know what is the losing strategy for Mozilla. But I don't really know how Mozilla could be interesting to me outside of Firefox. Someday they had a name which could be worth something, but I lost my trust in Mozilla ages ago. I don't believe their management, to me they have as much integrity as Facebook (ok, maybe a little more... I'm not sure). I am using Thunderbird and don't know a good alternative, so it would be a pity if it dies, but I'll get over it pretty quickly. Moreover, I don't really need any new features for Thunderbird, nothing but security updates. Even more than that, I am not really that picky about the engine. Sure, I was always pretty enthusiastic about the technology in Mozilla (I mean — Rust! — do I even need to say more?). And I do like Gecko. But, you know, if they believe they will deliver better if they switch to WebKit, I'm kinda ok with it. If it won't break any plugins, chances are I won't even notice. I may cheer for Servo and stuff, but it's not why I use Firefox. The browser as a product is a bigger part of the UX for me than mere rendering engine. Also, Firefox is still a little less of a spyware than the competition. Fuck up that experience for me, and you lose a very loyal old-time user. Keep up with the competition while not fucking it up, and there's still enough momentum for me not to switch. I guess there's a lot of people like me in that regard. Finally, Mozilla is not a startup with a core of energetic talented people, who can make miracles happen. It is a quite old non-profit organisation, entrenched with politics. Their biggest (only?) asset I know of is people, who know browser stuff. Well, maybe the brand, known for browser stuff. Do they have anything else at all? So, yeah, anything is a bet, but I don't think I would bet on anything outside of Firefox. Not now, anyway. When everything is good financially and we have money to spare, well, looking for alternatives may be good. But when you are struggling for money and are about to lose everything you were keeping afloat for the last 20 years... As I said, Mozilla is not known for brilliant top-management, that has a crystal-clear vision and makes ingenious decisions that save the company when the business is struggling. The best thing I would expect them to be able to do is cutting costs, finding new sponsors and new ways to "slightly sell" Firefox without angering too many users. And even that they don't do very well. The most radical thing I would reasonably expect them to pull of would be to switch all forces to mobile version of Firefox and win it, while loosing desktop version. But I doubt it. [Also, in some parallel reality they could take advantage of political situation and sell Firefox OS to Huawei (or maybe get a sponsorship). But in this reality, Firefox OS is dead, Mozilla is too rigid to make wild moves like that, and Huawei is waaay more capable of building their own OS than Mozilla.]

ivalm 6y ago

Mozilla is a non-profit which, in my view, is valuable only as a chromium alternative. Why must it be big/etc? Being a megacorp shouldn’t be Mozilla’s goal.

notyourday 6y ago
Without being a mega corp, Mozilla execs won't get mega bonuses and become mega rich. This is the fundamental problem with Mozilla.

crazypython 6y ago

> And that model is backed up by market share which is going down continuously Firefox bugs that I have personally encountered as a user or developer I want fixed: - localStorage implementation easily breaks during power failure https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1341070 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1341070 - SVG rotation glitches - Fails to correctly render the "Exo 2" font inside an SVG (Granted, for this one, it just made me switch fonts for my application.) - Spidermonkey, as a JavaScript engine, is slow and the documentation (Perhaps it could be replaced with GraalJavaScript? An engine that lacks basic escape analysis is bad in my book.) - Various bugs I am assisting them in resolving.

gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago

Mozilla's whole purpose is Firefox (and Thunderbird). If Mozilla exists without Firefox it has totally and utterly failed in its one purpose.

detaro 6y ago
> Mozilla's whole purpose is Firefox (and Thunderbird). That's certainly not Mozilla's position on the matter.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 6y ago
  I and nearly everyone else even know who they are certainly don't care what Mozilla think about this. We know it as the custodian of Firefox and nothing more. Beyond that my limited (and I do mean limited because I seriously don't care what they do as long as the browser remains FLOSS and high quality) understanding some political activists (with unrelated and potential laudable political agendas) have taken over financial control of Firefox development and are using it to fund their unrelated politics.
- gsich 6y ago
  That's why they are failing.

xigency 6y ago

I disagree on a couple of points. The idea that it takes armies of people to develop a web browser or that the Firefox's technology would be less relevant because of the existence of alternatives like WebKit. WebKit had its beginnings by being borrowed from Konqueror, an open-source and little used web browse for Linux. That really underscores both how it's possible to develop a quality web browser with fewer resources and that having independent technology is useful. Safari wouldn't have been able to leap frog some other browsers if they weren't able to use WebKit to do it. And I think most readers of this site know that it is important that web technology doesn't become a monoculture. Whether or not Mozilla can secure independent funding without Google, whether they are "viable" or "relevant". I think those questions are a distraction. The real question is, what is Mozilla's mission? Because if they aren't fulfilling the mission, those other factors are irrelevant. And it's clearly possible for them to do something useful in the browser realm even with 0 resources if they had to fall back on community contributions and be a project like Konqueror.