7 ms·

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as free if he were at Mozilla.

msy 6y ago
A chromium wrapper that inserts affiliate links? This doesn't seem a compelling argument based on available evidence.
- d3nj4l 6y ago
  Yeah, I see all of these people implying Eich leaving was the "end" of Mozilla, but what Eich has been up to after Mozilla hasn't been amazing either.
- ShinTakuya 6y ago
  Yeah Brave's business model always seemed incredibly scummy to me. For ad blocking arguments can be made both ways, but Brave's "let's replace them with our ads" model (I know it's opt-in) just seems like a way to hold site revenue hostage. Either join Brave's network or miss out. Vivaldi seems like the better Chromium wrapper to me. But my daily driver is Firefox.
  - blacksmith_tb 6y ago
    FF is my daily driver too, but since Google properties increasingly only work reliably in Chromium, I use Brave for those (without opting in to BAT, which doesn't appeal to me). It's not bad, works fine on Ubuntu, built-in adblocking (but you can install uBo etc.)
mythz 6y ago
He would've had an iconic brand, elite staff, an established business model & userbase, etc. I'd posit he'd have been a much better technology focused CEO then the leaders of Mozilla's current titanic trajectory into obsolescence. Instead of Brave where he's having to build a product, brand & userbase from scratch & try to force a niche unproven VC business model with Brave.
- BrendanEich 6y ago
  FWIW, Brave's VC funding is < 10%. No "VC business model", whatever that is, either — I carved nature at the joint using science, proceeding from ad/tracker blocking and reconnecting the necessary parts of the Web's funding ecosystem via crypto.
dotancohen 6y ago
The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was attacked for his personal beliefs regarding gay marriage, which went against the current popular liberal attitudes, who attack anything they perceive as against them with a fury on the scale of lynch mobs. The web, for better or for worse, gives huge leverage to whoever is willing to make the most noise and be the most unruly. So Eich was attacked, Firefox market share plummeted, the new CEOs take home four times what Eich was taking home yet add "Pocket" and other misfeatures while funding for Rust and MDN is being cut. Instead of a 95% monoculture of a Microsoft product we now have a 95% monoculture of a Google product. But hey, the guy who doesn't support gay marriage is out of the picture, right? That's a win, right?
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Sorry, but you're not going to paint Eich as a victim over what is a totally self inflicted wound. And there is no argument from utility to be made here either along the lines of 'oh Eich may be a bigot, but look at that nice browser he gave us'. He has to work with the people around him and that scenario would have likely not panned out. Instead, a large chunk of Mozilla/FireFox' employees may have walked if he had tried to hang on, or maybe he could have come around on the subject in a halfway believable way. But he chose to walk instead, his loss, and ultimately, possibly our loss too.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    It's obscene to paint Eich as the perpetrator of a self inflicted wound for not "coming around on the subject in a halfway believable way", for not trying to appease the mob. "Stop hitting yourself."
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      > for not trying to appease the mob. No, I meant as in genuinely doing that. People are typically capable of learning. I'm pretty sure Eich is smart enough to do so.

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as free if he were at Mozilla.

msy 6y ago

A chromium wrapper that inserts affiliate links? This doesn't seem a compelling argument based on available evidence.

d3nj4l 6y ago
Yeah, I see all of these people implying Eich leaving was the "end" of Mozilla, but what Eich has been up to after Mozilla hasn't been amazing either.
ShinTakuya 6y ago
Yeah Brave's business model always seemed incredibly scummy to me. For ad blocking arguments can be made both ways, but Brave's "let's replace them with our ads" model (I know it's opt-in) just seems like a way to hold site revenue hostage. Either join Brave's network or miss out. Vivaldi seems like the better Chromium wrapper to me. But my daily driver is Firefox.
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  FF is my daily driver too, but since Google properties increasingly only work reliably in Chromium, I use Brave for those (without opting in to BAT, which doesn't appeal to me). It's not bad, works fine on Ubuntu, built-in adblocking (but you can install uBo etc.)

mythz 6y ago

He would've had an iconic brand, elite staff, an established business model & userbase, etc. I'd posit he'd have been a much better technology focused CEO then the leaders of Mozilla's current titanic trajectory into obsolescence. Instead of Brave where he's having to build a product, brand & userbase from scratch & try to force a niche unproven VC business model with Brave.

BrendanEich 6y ago
FWIW, Brave's VC funding is < 10%. No "VC business model", whatever that is, either — I carved nature at the joint using science, proceeding from ad/tracker blocking and reconnecting the necessary parts of the Web's funding ecosystem via crypto.

dotancohen 6y ago

The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was attacked for his personal beliefs regarding gay marriage, which went against the current popular liberal attitudes, who attack anything they perceive as against them with a fury on the scale of lynch mobs. The web, for better or for worse, gives huge leverage to whoever is willing to make the most noise and be the most unruly. So Eich was attacked, Firefox market share plummeted, the new CEOs take home four times what Eich was taking home yet add "Pocket" and other misfeatures while funding for Rust and MDN is being cut. Instead of a 95% monoculture of a Microsoft product we now have a 95% monoculture of a Google product. But hey, the guy who doesn't support gay marriage is out of the picture, right? That's a win, right?

jacquesm 6y ago
Sorry, but you're not going to paint Eich as a victim over what is a totally self inflicted wound. And there is no argument from utility to be made here either along the lines of 'oh Eich may be a bigot, but look at that nice browser he gave us'. He has to work with the people around him and that scenario would have likely not panned out. Instead, a large chunk of Mozilla/FireFox' employees may have walked if he had tried to hang on, or maybe he could have come around on the subject in a halfway believable way. But he chose to walk instead, his loss, and ultimately, possibly our loss too.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  It's obscene to paint Eich as the perpetrator of a self inflicted wound for not "coming around on the subject in a halfway believable way", for not trying to appease the mob. "Stop hitting yourself."
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    > for not trying to appease the mob. No, I meant as in genuinely doing that. People are typically capable of learning. I'm pretty sure Eich is smart enough to do so.