5 ms·

Mozilla 2010: "join us, don't work for the man, work for mankind!" (this was their actual slogan) Mozilla 2020: "well actually, work for the man" (or woman in

by zobzu 6y ago

Mozilla 2010: "join us, don't work for the man, work for mankind!" (this was their actual slogan) Mozilla 2020: "well actually, work for the man" (or woman in this case) Sadly, even with Mozilla Foundation getting 40M in donations they need the Corporation to pay the bills (including Mitchell Baker's 2.5M/y salary) The fact that this makes it less likely Firefox continues to be competition for Chrome is bad news for the web ...

bogomipz 6y ago
>"Sadly, even with Mozilla Foundation getting 40M in donations they need the Corporation to pay the bills (including Mitchell Baker's 2.5M/y salary)" I remember a headline in 2006 that Mitchel Baker's salary at Mozilla was $500k which I thought was a lot for non-profit but her salary has increased 5X since then? Based on what exactly? I understand the need to pay competitive wages but $2.5 million when the organization is in such a state that you are laying off a significant chunk of your workforce? Is she giving up any salary? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12link.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12link.html
missedthecue 6y ago
This forum would be in uproar if the firm was offering their software devs $30k a year, but offering competitive pay for executives and managers is a sin incapable of restitution for some inconsistent reason.
- codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
  Exorbitant executive pay is a sin incapable of restitution wherever it occurs, much more today than at any point in the past. The leaders of nonprofits especially should be ashamed to accept such pay. Developer compensation generally is not exorbitant to nearly the same degree, so this comparison feels unfair.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    Explain to me why an executive who might have three or four opportunities choose the lowest paying one while a dev should be entitled to competitive pay?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
      They can do whatever they want. One should be ashamed to be overcompensated in the context of a non-profit, because they're leaching from an organization designed to do good. A competitive dev salary is probably nowhere near being overcompensated, but a multi-million dollar exec salary almost certainly is.
      - missedthecue 6y ago
        I have a feeling you hold this view because personally taking a million dollar salary would not reduce your quality of life. This is not true for all people.
        codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
        And then Jesus spoke untu his disciples, "Hey, sorry guys, but this do-gooder miracle business just isn't cutting it anymore. All the other carpenters are making bank, and my quality of life is reduced."
        missedthecue 6y ago
        What? So all managers are obligated to engage in charity?
- craigsmansion 6y ago
  > offering competitive pay for executives and managers "competitive" is key here, it means they have to compete. I know people on the work floor like to make jokes about executives golfing and yachting, but there is some truth to it that these executives are building and maintaining their network and that leads to contracts and revenue that keeps the company in business. That's what their worth is. That's the competition they have to be successful in. Mozilla gets about 400M in free Google idiot money. If burning through that for a 2.5M salary but still having to fire 25% of your workforce means you are being competitive at the C-level, then most random people can do that for half the money; a quick 1.25M saved. It's not about a C-level exec getting a large compensation. It's about them failing abjectly and not being worth a fraction of that money by normal management standards.
yborg 6y ago
The "new focus" isn't that new, it's been the same since Baker became CEO, and it's a focus on making Mitchell Baker really, really rich. Mozilla's privacy branding is in direct conflict with Baker's vision of some kind of corporate entity that can pay her a lot of money. Apple can do this because they are filthy rich themselves, Mozilla's puny market share means that increasing their revenue will require them to use the most valuable coin in the Internet realm, which is user data. I think a LibreOffice-style hard fork will be necessary at some point with a nonprofit carrying Firefox forward. Another thread mentioned Mozilla Firefox becoming a skin on Chromium ... Microsoft basically has validated this approach, and I can see Baker eliminating most of the rest of their engineering core to do the same.
- sedachv 6y ago
  > I think a LibreOffice-style hard fork will be necessary at some point with a nonprofit carrying Firefox forward. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
  - erk__ 6y ago
    GnuZilla does not appear to have had an update for more than a year, which would mean that there are multiple CVEs in it.
- erk__ 6y ago
  The issue is that there are few nonprofits that can carry Firefox as much as it need. The document foundation has around 0.2% of the revenue that Mozilla has, so that was a lot more manageable than a hard fork of Firefox would be. A potential new non-profit would need backing from some very large companies, donations from privite people would likely get no where near enough.
  - xigency 6y ago
    Can you explain why? Why would a fork need anything more than hosting and a mailing list?
- 6y ago

by zobzu 6y ago

bogomipz 6y ago

>"Sadly, even with Mozilla Foundation getting 40M in donations they need the Corporation to pay the bills (including Mitchell Baker's 2.5M/y salary)" I remember a headline in 2006 that Mitchel Baker's salary at Mozilla was $500k which I thought was a lot for non-profit but her salary has increased 5X since then? Based on what exactly? I understand the need to pay competitive wages but $2.5 million when the organization is in such a state that you are laying off a significant chunk of your workforce? Is she giving up any salary? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12link.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12link.html

missedthecue 6y ago

This forum would be in uproar if the firm was offering their software devs $30k a year, but offering competitive pay for executives and managers is a sin incapable of restitution for some inconsistent reason.

codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
Exorbitant executive pay is a sin incapable of restitution wherever it occurs, much more today than at any point in the past. The leaders of nonprofits especially should be ashamed to accept such pay. Developer compensation generally is not exorbitant to nearly the same degree, so this comparison feels unfair.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  Explain to me why an executive who might have three or four opportunities choose the lowest paying one while a dev should be entitled to competitive pay?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
    They can do whatever they want. One should be ashamed to be overcompensated in the context of a non-profit, because they're leaching from an organization designed to do good. A competitive dev salary is probably nowhere near being overcompensated, but a multi-million dollar exec salary almost certainly is.
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      I have a feeling you hold this view because personally taking a million dollar salary would not reduce your quality of life. This is not true for all people.
      - codemonkey-zeta 6y ago
        And then Jesus spoke untu his disciples, "Hey, sorry guys, but this do-gooder miracle business just isn't cutting it anymore. All the other carpenters are making bank, and my quality of life is reduced."
        missedthecue 6y ago
        What? So all managers are obligated to engage in charity?
craigsmansion 6y ago
> offering competitive pay for executives and managers "competitive" is key here, it means they have to compete. I know people on the work floor like to make jokes about executives golfing and yachting, but there is some truth to it that these executives are building and maintaining their network and that leads to contracts and revenue that keeps the company in business. That's what their worth is. That's the competition they have to be successful in. Mozilla gets about 400M in free Google idiot money. If burning through that for a 2.5M salary but still having to fire 25% of your workforce means you are being competitive at the C-level, then most random people can do that for half the money; a quick 1.25M saved. It's not about a C-level exec getting a large compensation. It's about them failing abjectly and not being worth a fraction of that money by normal management standards.

yborg 6y ago

The "new focus" isn't that new, it's been the same since Baker became CEO, and it's a focus on making Mitchell Baker really, really rich. Mozilla's privacy branding is in direct conflict with Baker's vision of some kind of corporate entity that can pay her a lot of money. Apple can do this because they are filthy rich themselves, Mozilla's puny market share means that increasing their revenue will require them to use the most valuable coin in the Internet realm, which is user data. I think a LibreOffice-style hard fork will be necessary at some point with a nonprofit carrying Firefox forward. Another thread mentioned Mozilla Firefox becoming a skin on Chromium ... Microsoft basically has validated this approach, and I can see Baker eliminating most of the rest of their engineering core to do the same.

sedachv 6y ago
> I think a LibreOffice-style hard fork will be necessary at some point with a nonprofit carrying Firefox forward. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
- erk__ 6y ago
  GnuZilla does not appear to have had an update for more than a year, which would mean that there are multiple CVEs in it.
erk__ 6y ago
The issue is that there are few nonprofits that can carry Firefox as much as it need. The document foundation has around 0.2% of the revenue that Mozilla has, so that was a lot more manageable than a hard fork of Firefox would be. A potential new non-profit would need backing from some very large companies, donations from privite people would likely get no where near enough.
- xigency 6y ago
  Can you explain why? Why would a fork need anything more than hosting and a mailing list?
6y ago