10 ms·

I don't understand what Mozilla is. They re-upped the Google deal to the tune of $400-450million/year for the next 3 years, so their revenue is secure. That's g

I don't understand what Mozilla is. They re-upped the Google deal to the tune of $400-450million/year for the next 3 years, so their revenue is secure. That's great. I can also understand that it makes sense to cut some side-projects that are probably a distraction (and this one may very well fit that category). But if you cut funding to things like MDN, Servo/Rust and move away from Firefox as a core focus (the thing that just brought you another $1.2 billion) .. what the heck is Mozilla now?

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Wait, move away from firefox as a core focus ?
- macspoofing 6y ago
  Yeah. From https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/11/changing-world-changing-mozilla/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/11/changing-world-chan... They list their 5 areas to focus on .. and Firefox isn't mentioned by name anywhere. For example: "New focus on product. Mozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization. That means diverse, representative, focused on people outside of our walls, solving problems, building new products, engaging with users and doing the magic of mixing tech with our values" (emphasis mine)
  - Krasnol 6y ago
    The second sentence of the article you linked is: > Mozilla exists so the internet can help the world collectively meet the range of challenges a moment like this presents. Firefox is a part of this. They follow up on this by saying that they need to go BEYOND the browser but it doesn't mean that they want to drop it. But well...you never know with that hollow techmarketing talk...
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >but it doesn't mean that they want to drop it. I wasn't trying to suggest there was no mention of Firefox in their roadmap blog - though it is telling that the Firefox mention you pointed to is in context of an argument for developing non-Firefox products. Nor was I arguing that they will drop Firefox. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't be able to because Firefox is their sole revenue driver and the only thing that gives them a seat at the table for developing open-standards. To me the telling part was when they listed their five areas of focus, and Firefox was not one of them.
- chrshawkes 6y ago
  Firefox is getting its ass beat in the market right now. It's essentially a dying product.
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    I'm seing more Firefox than before in my stats, not less. Not a lot more, but a few %. "Not dead yet"
jansan 6y ago
I personally have the feeling that their main focus is on promoting wokeness/social justice in the software industry. They probably claim that their core competency is still browser technology, but I am not so sure when looking at our code and seeing comments like this: // Change these to proper private fields once Firefox supports them
- CodeGlitch 6y ago
  The phrase "get woke go broke" comes to mind unfortunatly. I'm a heavy Firefox user, and have given money to Mozilla in the past, but their leadership has dropped the ball and I'm sorry to say I'm reluctant to give them any more $. My hope is that they focus efforts on Firefox as an open-web, security and privacy-promoting system (which it does a lot of already). I do think things like Rust have been a distraction, the world doesn't need yet another programming language (compared to Modern C++, Rust doesn't seem worth the effort?).
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    > the world doesn't need yet another programming language I disagree there. I think the world needed a systems-level language to replace C++ with safer constructs, more consistent syntax and no historical baggage. It's an open question whether Mozilla was the right sponsor for the development of that language, but nobody else was there (Sorry Dlang =) ).
    - jansan 6y ago
      > Mozilla was the right sponsor for the development of that language, but nobody else was there. Which may indicate that the world really doesn't need another programming language.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        I take your point and you may be right. I don't do a lot of C++ development, so I can't speak from first-hand experience if Modern C++ makes Rust superfluous.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

Wait, move away from firefox as a core focus ?

macspoofing 6y ago
Yeah. From https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/11/changing-world-changing-mozilla/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/11/changing-world-chan... They list their 5 areas to focus on .. and Firefox isn't mentioned by name anywhere. For example: "New focus on product. Mozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization. That means diverse, representative, focused on people outside of our walls, solving problems, building new products, engaging with users and doing the magic of mixing tech with our values" (emphasis mine)
- Krasnol 6y ago
  The second sentence of the article you linked is: > Mozilla exists so the internet can help the world collectively meet the range of challenges a moment like this presents. Firefox is a part of this. They follow up on this by saying that they need to go BEYOND the browser but it doesn't mean that they want to drop it. But well...you never know with that hollow techmarketing talk...
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >but it doesn't mean that they want to drop it. I wasn't trying to suggest there was no mention of Firefox in their roadmap blog - though it is telling that the Firefox mention you pointed to is in context of an argument for developing non-Firefox products. Nor was I arguing that they will drop Firefox. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't be able to because Firefox is their sole revenue driver and the only thing that gives them a seat at the table for developing open-standards. To me the telling part was when they listed their five areas of focus, and Firefox was not one of them.
chrshawkes 6y ago
Firefox is getting its ass beat in the market right now. It's essentially a dying product.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  I'm seing more Firefox than before in my stats, not less. Not a lot more, but a few %. "Not dead yet"

jansan 6y ago

I personally have the feeling that their main focus is on promoting wokeness/social justice in the software industry. They probably claim that their core competency is still browser technology, but I am not so sure when looking at our code and seeing comments like this: // Change these to proper private fields once Firefox supports them

CodeGlitch 6y ago
The phrase "get woke go broke" comes to mind unfortunatly. I'm a heavy Firefox user, and have given money to Mozilla in the past, but their leadership has dropped the ball and I'm sorry to say I'm reluctant to give them any more $. My hope is that they focus efforts on Firefox as an open-web, security and privacy-promoting system (which it does a lot of already). I do think things like Rust have been a distraction, the world doesn't need yet another programming language (compared to Modern C++, Rust doesn't seem worth the effort?).
- macspoofing 6y ago
  > the world doesn't need yet another programming language I disagree there. I think the world needed a systems-level language to replace C++ with safer constructs, more consistent syntax and no historical baggage. It's an open question whether Mozilla was the right sponsor for the development of that language, but nobody else was there (Sorry Dlang =) ).
  - jansan 6y ago
    > Mozilla was the right sponsor for the development of that language, but nobody else was there. Which may indicate that the world really doesn't need another programming language.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      I take your point and you may be right. I don't do a lot of C++ development, so I can't speak from first-hand experience if Modern C++ makes Rust superfluous.