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I am confused. I thought it is the raison d'être of Mozilla to develop a browser. So how does it come that the brand new browser engine they developed is being

I am confused. I thought it is the raison d'être of Mozilla to develop a browser. So how does it come that the brand new browser engine they developed is being given away? I mean, even if they need to cut costs, isn't Servo part of the team they should keep until the end?

phonon 6y ago
Because they wanted to "put a crisper focus on new product development and go to market activities."[1] I'm sure that explains it well... [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-to-Employees-Change-in-Difficult-Times.pdf https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...
- stuaxo 6y ago
  I'm guessing that the "new products" are not the browser.
  - Pet_Ant 6y ago
    They just launched a VPN Service
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
Shared404 6y ago
My understanding is that Servo was more experimental research, with an eye towards possibly being integrated at some point.
- gilrain 6y ago
  Except multiple parts of it had already been integrated into Firefox, providing its most recent performance gains (Webrender, Stylo).
  - stuaxo 6y ago
    Yes, they were developed in Servo first, then brought over when mature. I wonder if this is the end of that model, or more an effort to get external people to contribute more to Servo.
    - dralley 6y ago
      Based on their public communications, it's the former. They want to focus on rustifying Firefox directly rather than trying to integrate massive chunks of Rust code written in an external project.
- brabel 6y ago
  Does Firefox have any Rust component at all if Servo is not apparently used at all by it, currently? People have been claiming Firefox components were written in Rust for ages, usually meaning Servo, but it seems now that those claims were just misleading.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    They weren't misleading, and they didn't mean servo. Several Firefox parts are written in Rust. Stylo is the most famous, here's a list of various parts that have already shipped, and others that were/are in progress... https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation
  - jfk13 6y ago
    > Does Firefox have any Rust component at all Yes, lots (and increasing). E.g.: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/servo/components https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/servo/component... https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/wr https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/wr https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/third_party/rust https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/third_party/rus...
    - SimonSapin 6y ago
      https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Rust_Components https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Rust_Components is probably the most up to date
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    The first Rust component in Firefox was the URL parser, followed by the MP4 metadata arser for audio. Then the charset conversion component was rewritten in Rust, and then some other tiny components. And then Firefox imported Stylo (the CSS parsing and rendering) from Servo as the biggest Rust component yet. The Web Assembly portion of the JS engine is shifting to cranelift (written in Rust) as its backend, another massive component, but I don't believe it has done so in a released browser version yet. In general, a lot of text handling, and parsing in general, is moving to Rust, although some code is moving far more slowly than others. Additionally, APIs that had been implemented in JS that are too slow (or memory-heavy) are being moved to a Rust implementation instead, such as the l10n implementation.
JohnBooty 6y ago
I most definitely agree. All I can think is that they took a look at Servo and decided it was cool tech but was really nowhere near delivering things they needed for Firefox aside from Stylo which it had already delivered.
- gilrain 6y ago
  And Webrender.
- stuaxo 6y ago
  But the things being delivered by it were mostly being developed by Mozilla devs.
tyre 6y ago
There is some cost/effort to building a better browser engine. They might believe that the same cost/effort would better benefit the business if put elsewhere. You see this at companies when engineering teams get it into their heads that they need to rewrite in a new framework. There's a trade-off between that work and building new features for customers. The benefits might be worth it in the long term! They also might not be. That seems to be the call Mozilla made. I don't know if it's the right one, but it seems to be what they did.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >There is some cost/effort to building a better browser engine. They might believe that the same cost/effort would better benefit the business if put elsewhere. Yes, because all those years the Mozilla executive team has proved that they have a good grasp of where the cost/effort optimum lies... /s
  - stuaxo 6y ago
    From the outside it seems like eating the seeds for next years harvest.
    - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
      I can't speak for how things were at Mozilla, I have no idea. But separate teams working on "rewrites" of platforms that other teams have to maintain often leads to a demoralized environment, pointless duplicated work, and elongated schedules and failure to deliver on milestones. I've seen it several times: Often after years of promises from "the new hot" team, with them cannibalizing resources and top talent but missing milestones and still having failed to deliver, the new beast is cancelled and the value of the "old" system is suddenly recognized. There's the classic Spolsky essay about this: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... What's better? Refactor the old thing as you go. Include the "legacy" team in the development team of the new thing. Even more so, make the "new" team work on the old thing as well. Rotate developers between the two, build a culture of respect. Not saying that is what happened at Moz, but I've seen it play out so many times. And without a concrete commitment to be forced to deliver to actual customers projects like these can just go forever noodling around in perfection-land.
mlindner 6y ago
A lot of people misunderstand what Servo was. It was for developing components that could be integrated into a browser. Firefox integrated most of those and continues to develop more code in Rust. Servo lost it's use.
- NetOpWibby 6y ago
  Damn, so Mozilla just threw away Servo.
- mariusor 6y ago
  From an outsider point of view, I feel like Mozilla really missed the opportunity to invest in servo as a real world renderer and build a community around it. In this day and age is a shame that various out-of-date versions of webkit are the only things that you can build a niche browser on. By niche I mean the myriad of keyboard driven browsers. kiosks, QML, electron, etc.
konjin 6y ago
>I am confused. I thought it is the raison d'être of Mozilla to develop a browser. To put it bluntly: Mozilla is no longer a browser company. It is a patsy for google to point to and say "See we're not a monopoly.". Secondary goals are increasing the supply of devs for big tech and lowering wages.
- NetOpWibby 6y ago
  oof
- account42 6y ago
  > lowering wages Except for the leadership.
bytematic 6y ago
That seems to be what everyone was wondering about when they laid off a large portion of their web teams

phonon 6y ago

Because they wanted to "put a crisper focus on new product development and go to market activities."[1] I'm sure that explains it well... [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-to-Employees-Change-in-Difficult-Times.pdf https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...

stuaxo 6y ago
I'm guessing that the "new products" are not the browser.
- Pet_Ant 6y ago
  They just launched a VPN Service
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

Shared404 6y ago

My understanding is that Servo was more experimental research, with an eye towards possibly being integrated at some point.

gilrain 6y ago
Except multiple parts of it had already been integrated into Firefox, providing its most recent performance gains (Webrender, Stylo).
- stuaxo 6y ago
  Yes, they were developed in Servo first, then brought over when mature. I wonder if this is the end of that model, or more an effort to get external people to contribute more to Servo.
  - dralley 6y ago
    Based on their public communications, it's the former. They want to focus on rustifying Firefox directly rather than trying to integrate massive chunks of Rust code written in an external project.
brabel 6y ago
Does Firefox have any Rust component at all if Servo is not apparently used at all by it, currently? People have been claiming Firefox components were written in Rust for ages, usually meaning Servo, but it seems now that those claims were just misleading.
- coldtea 6y ago
  They weren't misleading, and they didn't mean servo. Several Firefox parts are written in Rust. Stylo is the most famous, here's a list of various parts that have already shipped, and others that were/are in progress... https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation
- jfk13 6y ago
  > Does Firefox have any Rust component at all Yes, lots (and increasing). E.g.: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/servo/components https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/servo/component... https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/wr https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/gfx/wr https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/third_party/rust https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/third_party/rus...
  - SimonSapin 6y ago
    https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Rust_Components https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Rust_Components is probably the most up to date
- jcranmer 6y ago
  The first Rust component in Firefox was the URL parser, followed by the MP4 metadata arser for audio. Then the charset conversion component was rewritten in Rust, and then some other tiny components. And then Firefox imported Stylo (the CSS parsing and rendering) from Servo as the biggest Rust component yet. The Web Assembly portion of the JS engine is shifting to cranelift (written in Rust) as its backend, another massive component, but I don't believe it has done so in a released browser version yet. In general, a lot of text handling, and parsing in general, is moving to Rust, although some code is moving far more slowly than others. Additionally, APIs that had been implemented in JS that are too slow (or memory-heavy) are being moved to a Rust implementation instead, such as the l10n implementation.

JohnBooty 6y ago

I most definitely agree. All I can think is that they took a look at Servo and decided it was cool tech but was really nowhere near delivering things they needed for Firefox aside from Stylo which it had already delivered.

gilrain 6y ago
And Webrender.
stuaxo 6y ago
But the things being delivered by it were mostly being developed by Mozilla devs.

tyre 6y ago

There is some cost/effort to building a better browser engine. They might believe that the same cost/effort would better benefit the business if put elsewhere. You see this at companies when engineering teams get it into their heads that they need to rewrite in a new framework. There's a trade-off between that work and building new features for customers. The benefits might be worth it in the long term! They also might not be. That seems to be the call Mozilla made. I don't know if it's the right one, but it seems to be what they did.

coldtea 6y ago
>There is some cost/effort to building a better browser engine. They might believe that the same cost/effort would better benefit the business if put elsewhere. Yes, because all those years the Mozilla executive team has proved that they have a good grasp of where the cost/effort optimum lies... /s
- stuaxo 6y ago
  From the outside it seems like eating the seeds for next years harvest.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    I can't speak for how things were at Mozilla, I have no idea. But separate teams working on "rewrites" of platforms that other teams have to maintain often leads to a demoralized environment, pointless duplicated work, and elongated schedules and failure to deliver on milestones. I've seen it several times: Often after years of promises from "the new hot" team, with them cannibalizing resources and top talent but missing milestones and still having failed to deliver, the new beast is cancelled and the value of the "old" system is suddenly recognized. There's the classic Spolsky essay about this: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... What's better? Refactor the old thing as you go. Include the "legacy" team in the development team of the new thing. Even more so, make the "new" team work on the old thing as well. Rotate developers between the two, build a culture of respect. Not saying that is what happened at Moz, but I've seen it play out so many times. And without a concrete commitment to be forced to deliver to actual customers projects like these can just go forever noodling around in perfection-land.

mlindner 6y ago

A lot of people misunderstand what Servo was. It was for developing components that could be integrated into a browser. Firefox integrated most of those and continues to develop more code in Rust. Servo lost it's use.

NetOpWibby 6y ago
Damn, so Mozilla just threw away Servo.
mariusor 6y ago
From an outsider point of view, I feel like Mozilla really missed the opportunity to invest in servo as a real world renderer and build a community around it. In this day and age is a shame that various out-of-date versions of webkit are the only things that you can build a niche browser on. By niche I mean the myriad of keyboard driven browsers. kiosks, QML, electron, etc.

konjin 6y ago

>I am confused. I thought it is the raison d'être of Mozilla to develop a browser. To put it bluntly: Mozilla is no longer a browser company. It is a patsy for google to point to and say "See we're not a monopoly.". Secondary goals are increasing the supply of devs for big tech and lowering wages.

NetOpWibby 6y ago
oof
account42 6y ago
> lowering wages Except for the leadership.

bytematic 6y ago

That seems to be what everyone was wondering about when they laid off a large portion of their web teams