14 ms·

Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. FireFox OS could have provided such model, in fact, its successor kaios is doing very well an

Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. FireFox OS could have provided such model, in fact, its successor kaios is doing very well and one can imagine that in the future, it will be the primary OS of half the mobile users on the planet. 'Feature phones' aren't dead. They provide a cheap alternative to touch phones, are usually more robust, and allowing them to run web apps instead of MIDP stuff is a giant opportunity for any web actor. Ditching Rust as a core component of the future of Firefox is also a demonstration that Mozilla isn't a tech focused corp anymore. Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory saftely and maintainability and firing Rust devs was terribly short sighted. So yes Firefox was always enough. Leadership at Mozilla doesn't get it.

secondcoming 6y ago
Out of all internet users out there, how many would choose Firefox just because it's written in rust? An insignificant fraction. That said. I've been using Firefox as my main browser for years. I only use chrome when a website needs it or works better in it.
- bobmichael 6y ago
  If you read GP carefully, they're not making the argument that users will choose Firefox because it's written in Rust, but rather that the improved security and performance brought about by Rust would be what attracts and retains users.
  - narag 6y ago
    Are users very worried about browser security nowadays? It was a major concern a few years back, but I seldom hear that kind of complaint. I do hear about surveilance and privacy, but not so much about catastrophic failures.
    - methodsignature 6y ago
      Sometimes you just need the differentiator in your feature set. Then you let your marketing team go to work.
- wgjordan 6y ago
  If you stipulate that 'Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory safety and maintainability' (see parent comment), then a great many Internet users out there would choose Firefox if as a result of being written in Rust it's more secure, memory-safe (less crashing/bugs) and maintainable (more and better features).
  - tleb_ 6y ago
    Maybe in the Hacker News bubble but that's not "a great many Internet users". People either use what is pre-installed, what they are used to or what their techy friend recommended them.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      That "what their techy friend recommended them" does a hell of a lot of work. It pretty much drove Firefox up to 30% market share once, remember.
      - emn13 6y ago
        A counter point to that is that the impact of the tech sector on recommendations like that is ever shrinking - tech is normalized; everyday stuff where people feel comfortable making their own choices (and where the number of people that haven't made those choices pretty solidly yet is ever shrinking). The market is more mature, in essence.
        methodsignature 6y ago
        Yap. People ask the internet now maybe more than their techie friends, and the marketers are probably as likely to be the ones amswering.
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        I think it's why Firefox's market share is declining too. I don't recommend firefox for non-technical users anymore because of its relative complexity and incompatibility with the modern web when compared to Chrome.
narag 6y ago
Application programmers often dream of writing some different layer when we're frustrated because it's not working as is. Sometimes it ends well, like git. Most times it's a huge waste of time. I don't really think of Firefox OS a an operating systems, more like a layer to connect the web with the phone, so not so megalomaniac, actually it would have been a practical idea if hardware wasn't involved.
krmboya 6y ago
I can't understand how Mozilla failed to execute on Firefox OS. From where I am at it was a massive opportunity for Mozilla and Web developers all round the world. They didn't have to take on Android and iOS directly, but may have gotten there eventually thru 'worse is better'. Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs
- aduitsis 6y ago
  For some reason, yesterday's HN post "I can't keep up with React" came to mind :)
  - julenx 6y ago
    Out of curiosity, which post is that? I cannot find it.
    - aduitsis 6y ago
      https://medium.com/swlh/sorry-react-but-i-cant-keep-up-anymore-6b6c8415708c https://medium.com/swlh/sorry-react-but-i-cant-keep-up-anymo...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs This was WebOS in 2009. Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego and Ubuntu Phone all "failed" around the same time period as Firefox OS. I have a hard time laying blame solely on Mozilla there.
  - jdc 6y ago
    FWIW webOS is still alive and well. https://www.webosose.org https://www.webosose.org https://github.com/webosose https://github.com/webosose
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
deepstack 6y ago
>So yes Firefox was always enough. Leadership at Mozilla doesn't get it. that is why founder started brave.
- toastal 6y ago
  We've all been curious how Brave would have panned out as a Firefox for instead of Chromium
  - clankyclanker 6y ago
    Is there any background on that decision? I'd use Brave at the drop of a hat if it didn't involve giving yet more market-share to Google-based browsers.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Chrome only sites[1] and DRM module licensing[2]. [1] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/959909542246019072 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/959909542246019072 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062636
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  yeah and we see how poorly that turned out
giancarlostoro 6y ago
> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. This is the meat of my problem with Firefox as it stands. I've not stopped using Firefox since the mid 2000's but come on, you need something more than just checks from Google. Charge me for a commercial version of FireFox that includes a VPN subscription and funds its development. Just do it ten years ago. Honestly, if they're not going to embrace Rust and Servo becomes completely usable I may just jump ship eventually. My hope for Servo is that it becomes 100% Rust as much as sustainably possible (I understand for codecs and some things recreating them in Rust might be overkill when there's standardized libraries just use them), even the JS engine.
- wussboy 6y ago
  This most common thing I write on HN is that I can’t believe I can’t pay to use Firefox. “How will we ever earn money here at Mozilla? All we have is this world class web browser that provides massive value to millions of people, but we refuse to directly monetize. Oh whatever will we do?”
  - vkou 6y ago
    Charging money for the browser will quickly push them down to single-digit marketshare, and will make "works on Chrome, ship it" the only correct way to develop for the web. If you want to pay for using their browser, you could always donate to them.
    - leeoniya 6y ago
      the donations never went to firefox. it was dispersed to many of their other misguided and failed revenue gen efforts. they redirected a ton of servo engineers to focus on VR/Magic leap, ffs.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        Both of those projects were part of MoCo, not MoFo, and so your donations would not have gone to them either.
echelon 6y ago
Mozilla business model : 1. Ask that the DOJ strips Chrome from Google. You can't make the browser, search, and ad platform. Monopoly power. Google needs to exit Chrome right now. 2. Ask the DOJ to force vendors like Apple to allow other browser engines. They can't lock down all "code execution" on generic computers they sell. 3. Integrate Ad Blocking in Firefox. 4. Collect money from advertisers willing to make non-invasive ads that want to be seen. Brave's business model, but with much more badass tech. After revenue comes back, make a mail service.
- toastal 6y ago
  What isn’t bad ass about Brave’s Basic Attention Token initiative? At least it theory users and content creators get better compensated for their work/attention?
  - dralley 6y ago
    https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/tomscott-tweet-20181221.png https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019...
lordnaikon 6y ago
> Ditching Rust ... have i missed something?
- gilrain 6y ago
  They laid off their Rust and Servo developers.
  - dralley 6y ago
    They did lay off their Servo developers, and a few of their Rust developers. They did not lay of all of their Rust developers, or even most of them. WebRender and Stylo are now integral parts of Firefox, and are actively maintained by teams of people, and a lot of new code continues being written in Rust. The Servo DOM and HTML engine is massively complex - far moreso than Stylo or WebRender - and nowhere near ready for production use. Mozilla decided that rewriting the remaining parts (read: vast majority) of Firefox slowly, in-place, would be a better path forwards than maintaining two massively complex browser engines in parallel and trying to swap it out completely.
- dralley 6y ago
  No, you haven't, because it's not happening.
jrochkind1 6y ago
kaios is "doing well" in the sense that it is on a lot of phones. It's execution is not actually very good, if "doing well" means quality. I was actually avoiding getting a smartphone for a while, but the rise of kaios-powered phones, at least the ones in the US, drove me to smartphones. Contrary to the promise of firefoxOS/kaiOS, there was no kind of "app store" or other way to install custom apps, it just had the usual featurephone features. What there was, was a phone where every keypress had like 750ms-2000ms of latency until it had an effect on screen, making it almost unusable. It ruined feature phones, at least for now. I tried a couple. It's a pretty terrible product on every US phone using it I have seen; whatever led to it being on those phones, it was not quality. It may be that KaiOS phones available in other countries (always the target market) are better, and an improvement from what came before. (But why are phones available in the US using it for such awfulness worse than what came before?) I would like to think if Mozilla had stayed involved, it would be better. The business question of course is how the current (Chinese?) company behind KaiOS found enough runway to get it to market when Mozilla did not. Lowered standards/expectations might be part of it though. But it may not at all, I have no idea the story behind what happened. This thread has people giving their reasons for why FirefoxOS failed... but most of their reasons fail to explain why someone else could somehow take the open source IP behind Firefox OS and have a succesful company which succesfully got it onto phones. What was the difference?
Uninen 6y ago
> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. I've said this many times and I'm going to repeat it again; I wish Mozilla would offer me a way to purchase a monthly subscription for Firefox. I want to support the open Web and I want to support FireFox development (but not any n+1 random Mozilla products / experiments) and I hate that they don't offer this.
- pldr1234 6y ago
  I actually love this concept. Though would Mozilla grant some type of premium version of Firefox or premium support for your subscription monies?
- twblalock 6y ago
  You can donate to the foundation. I'm not sure why that would turn out any different -- even if you paid a subscription for Firefox directly, what would prevent Mozilla from using that money for their other products? The problem with optional subscriptions is that most people will never opt-in. If subscriptions are made mandatory, the general public will be driven to one of the other major browsers.
  - dralley 6y ago
    The difference is that the Foundation legally cannot spend their tax-free money paying the salaries of employees of a for-profit entity, to develop a product that pulls in significant revenue. It's a matter of "can't", not "won't". Subscription revenue would go to Mozilla Corp directly and therefore has no restrictions, because it's taxed as income. It at least has the possibility of being spent on Firefox development even if it actually goes to Rust maintainence or whatever else.
    - thayne 6y ago
      However, money can go the other way. Paying a subscription might end up just sending at least some of the money to the Foundation, rather than Firefox (or even Rust) development.
- 6y ago
twblalock 6y ago
Even if Firefox does well on feature phones like you suggest they should, how would that give Mozilla a source of revenue other than the money from Google's search deal?
dralley 6y ago
>Ditching Rust as a core component of the future of Firefox is also a demonstration that Mozilla isn't a tech focused corp anymore. Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory saftely and maintainability and firing Rust devs was terribly short sighted. Ugh, this is nonsense. Mozilla has not "ditched Rust as a core component of a tech focused corp". Mozilla has ditched the idea of developing entire components of Firefox in a silo for 5-8 years, and then spending 3 years trying to integrate that component back into the browser, the entire time trying to keep both components maintained and up-to-date with ridiculously fast changing web standards. They want to continue using Rust, but it will be done more piecemeal and in-place, rather than trying to keep two entirely separate browser engines maintained and standards-compliant for the next 5+ years.
- thayne 6y ago
  They did however ditch a lot of resources they were putting into Rust, and in particular making Rust a great language for making a secure browser.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Largely because Rust has grown massively and Mozilla isn’t even close to its biggest sponsor at this point. Azure, AWS, Google Cloud are all major Rust sponsors at this point. It doesn’t make sense for Mozilla to remain a major sponsor for a product that almost certainly can and will exist, and likely flourish even more, as a more independent project. At this point Mozilla’s ownership of Rust would likely only cost resources and serve to limit the growth and development of rust.
zelly 6y ago
> Ditching Rust as a core component of the future of Firefox is also a demonstration that Mozilla isn't a tech focused corp anymore. Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory saftely and maintainability and firing Rust devs was terribly short sighted. Mozilla was tired of getting smoked by Chrome, which actually invested in browser development using what the tools they already had ("engineering"), as opposed to subsidizing PhDs on programming language theory. Now it's too little too late. They've passed the point where they could catch up on technical grounds, so they make appeals to morality to market their software. Yes, I agree it was bad leadership.
higerordermap 6y ago
I was using Firefox on both mobile and desktop for a significant period of time. I was little infuriated when they added pocket. Google meet does work well on chrome only. (Not firefox's fault completely) I didn't like how they suddenly changed layout on Android and made many extensions unusable. I didn't like Mozilla the corp / foundation's political alignments, a personal opinion and actually I don't even care about politics. But we Indians (much like South America I guess), have an aversion to SJW virtue-signalling politics because we have seen how it brings too-much right leaning parties into power. Why would a tech company get into politics at all unless it's about some virtue signalling execs pushing their agenda? They fired some actually talented programmers but kept the C-suite, with their non-technical CEO being paid big amounts despite company being in losing game. While I personally don't like some aspects of rust community, the language itself is solid and could be a differentiating point for firefox. As soon as I have seen their management take such decisions and their pushing of political agenda, I can't trust these people to maintain a browser well. No offense to engineers I was telling about Mozilla itself. So I somehow migrated to chrome. I miss UBO on mobile but bromite is good enough. Google is not much better They may not lose much from a middle-class Indian dude switching to other browser. But think about it. Bringing politics and favoring useless C suite execs is a great way to lose future donors. A company should not do politics. They say they do politics for open web, that's not what I am talking about. FSF has done much better than Mozilla foundation in this regard. Mozilla just favoured execs and their agendas before technology, and lost the market.

secondcoming 6y ago

Out of all internet users out there, how many would choose Firefox just because it's written in rust? An insignificant fraction. That said. I've been using Firefox as my main browser for years. I only use chrome when a website needs it or works better in it.

bobmichael 6y ago
If you read GP carefully, they're not making the argument that users will choose Firefox because it's written in Rust, but rather that the improved security and performance brought about by Rust would be what attracts and retains users.
- narag 6y ago
  Are users very worried about browser security nowadays? It was a major concern a few years back, but I seldom hear that kind of complaint. I do hear about surveilance and privacy, but not so much about catastrophic failures.
  - methodsignature 6y ago
    Sometimes you just need the differentiator in your feature set. Then you let your marketing team go to work.
wgjordan 6y ago
If you stipulate that 'Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory safety and maintainability' (see parent comment), then a great many Internet users out there would choose Firefox if as a result of being written in Rust it's more secure, memory-safe (less crashing/bugs) and maintainable (more and better features).
- tleb_ 6y ago
  Maybe in the Hacker News bubble but that's not "a great many Internet users". People either use what is pre-installed, what they are used to or what their techy friend recommended them.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    That "what their techy friend recommended them" does a hell of a lot of work. It pretty much drove Firefox up to 30% market share once, remember.
    - emn13 6y ago
      A counter point to that is that the impact of the tech sector on recommendations like that is ever shrinking - tech is normalized; everyday stuff where people feel comfortable making their own choices (and where the number of people that haven't made those choices pretty solidly yet is ever shrinking). The market is more mature, in essence.
      - methodsignature 6y ago
        Yap. People ask the internet now maybe more than their techie friends, and the marketers are probably as likely to be the ones amswering.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      I think it's why Firefox's market share is declining too. I don't recommend firefox for non-technical users anymore because of its relative complexity and incompatibility with the modern web when compared to Chrome.

narag 6y ago

Application programmers often dream of writing some different layer when we're frustrated because it's not working as is. Sometimes it ends well, like git. Most times it's a huge waste of time. I don't really think of Firefox OS a an operating systems, more like a layer to connect the web with the phone, so not so megalomaniac, actually it would have been a practical idea if hardware wasn't involved.

krmboya 6y ago

I can't understand how Mozilla failed to execute on Firefox OS. From where I am at it was a massive opportunity for Mozilla and Web developers all round the world. They didn't have to take on Android and iOS directly, but may have gotten there eventually thru 'worse is better'. Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs

aduitsis 6y ago
For some reason, yesterday's HN post "I can't keep up with React" came to mind :)
- julenx 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, which post is that? I cannot find it.
  - aduitsis 6y ago
    https://medium.com/swlh/sorry-react-but-i-cant-keep-up-anymore-6b6c8415708c https://medium.com/swlh/sorry-react-but-i-cant-keep-up-anymo...
heavyset_go 6y ago
> Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs This was WebOS in 2009. Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego and Ubuntu Phone all "failed" around the same time period as Firefox OS. I have a hard time laying blame solely on Mozilla there.
- jdc 6y ago
  FWIW webOS is still alive and well. https://www.webosose.org https://www.webosose.org https://github.com/webosose https://github.com/webosose
  - heavyset_go 6y ago

deepstack 6y ago

>So yes Firefox was always enough. Leadership at Mozilla doesn't get it. that is why founder started brave.

toastal 6y ago
We've all been curious how Brave would have panned out as a Firefox for instead of Chromium
- clankyclanker 6y ago
  Is there any background on that decision? I'd use Brave at the drop of a hat if it didn't involve giving yet more market-share to Google-based browsers.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Chrome only sites[1] and DRM module licensing[2]. [1] https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/959909542246019072 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/959909542246019072 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22062636
AshWolfy 6y ago
yeah and we see how poorly that turned out

giancarlostoro 6y ago

> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. This is the meat of my problem with Firefox as it stands. I've not stopped using Firefox since the mid 2000's but come on, you need something more than just checks from Google. Charge me for a commercial version of FireFox that includes a VPN subscription and funds its development. Just do it ten years ago. Honestly, if they're not going to embrace Rust and Servo becomes completely usable I may just jump ship eventually. My hope for Servo is that it becomes 100% Rust as much as sustainably possible (I understand for codecs and some things recreating them in Rust might be overkill when there's standardized libraries just use them), even the JS engine.

wussboy 6y ago
This most common thing I write on HN is that I can’t believe I can’t pay to use Firefox. “How will we ever earn money here at Mozilla? All we have is this world class web browser that provides massive value to millions of people, but we refuse to directly monetize. Oh whatever will we do?”
- vkou 6y ago
  Charging money for the browser will quickly push them down to single-digit marketshare, and will make "works on Chrome, ship it" the only correct way to develop for the web. If you want to pay for using their browser, you could always donate to them.
  - leeoniya 6y ago
    the donations never went to firefox. it was dispersed to many of their other misguided and failed revenue gen efforts. they redirected a ton of servo engineers to focus on VR/Magic leap, ffs.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      Both of those projects were part of MoCo, not MoFo, and so your donations would not have gone to them either.

echelon 6y ago

Mozilla business model : 1. Ask that the DOJ strips Chrome from Google. You can't make the browser, search, and ad platform. Monopoly power. Google needs to exit Chrome right now. 2. Ask the DOJ to force vendors like Apple to allow other browser engines. They can't lock down all "code execution" on generic computers they sell. 3. Integrate Ad Blocking in Firefox. 4. Collect money from advertisers willing to make non-invasive ads that want to be seen. Brave's business model, but with much more badass tech. After revenue comes back, make a mail service.

toastal 6y ago
What isn’t bad ass about Brave’s Basic Attention Token initiative? At least it theory users and content creators get better compensated for their work/attention?
- dralley 6y ago
  https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/tomscott-tweet-20181221.png https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/wp-content/uploads/2019...

lordnaikon 6y ago

> Ditching Rust ... have i missed something?

gilrain 6y ago
They laid off their Rust and Servo developers.
- dralley 6y ago
  They did lay off their Servo developers, and a few of their Rust developers. They did not lay of all of their Rust developers, or even most of them. WebRender and Stylo are now integral parts of Firefox, and are actively maintained by teams of people, and a lot of new code continues being written in Rust. The Servo DOM and HTML engine is massively complex - far moreso than Stylo or WebRender - and nowhere near ready for production use. Mozilla decided that rewriting the remaining parts (read: vast majority) of Firefox slowly, in-place, would be a better path forwards than maintaining two massively complex browser engines in parallel and trying to swap it out completely.
dralley 6y ago
No, you haven't, because it's not happening.

jrochkind1 6y ago

kaios is "doing well" in the sense that it is on a lot of phones. It's execution is not actually very good, if "doing well" means quality. I was actually avoiding getting a smartphone for a while, but the rise of kaios-powered phones, at least the ones in the US, drove me to smartphones. Contrary to the promise of firefoxOS/kaiOS, there was no kind of "app store" or other way to install custom apps, it just had the usual featurephone features. What there was, was a phone where every keypress had like 750ms-2000ms of latency until it had an effect on screen, making it almost unusable. It ruined feature phones, at least for now. I tried a couple. It's a pretty terrible product on every US phone using it I have seen; whatever led to it being on those phones, it was not quality. It may be that KaiOS phones available in other countries (always the target market) are better, and an improvement from what came before. (But why are phones available in the US using it for such awfulness worse than what came before?) I would like to think if Mozilla had stayed involved, it would be better. The business question of course is how the current (Chinese?) company behind KaiOS found enough runway to get it to market when Mozilla did not. Lowered standards/expectations might be part of it though. But it may not at all, I have no idea the story behind what happened. This thread has people giving their reasons for why FirefoxOS failed... but most of their reasons fail to explain why someone else could somehow take the open source IP behind Firefox OS and have a succesful company which succesfully got it onto phones. What was the difference?

Uninen 6y ago

> Mozilla doesn't have a real sustainable business model right now. I've said this many times and I'm going to repeat it again; I wish Mozilla would offer me a way to purchase a monthly subscription for Firefox. I want to support the open Web and I want to support FireFox development (but not any n+1 random Mozilla products / experiments) and I hate that they don't offer this.

pldr1234 6y ago
I actually love this concept. Though would Mozilla grant some type of premium version of Firefox or premium support for your subscription monies?
twblalock 6y ago
You can donate to the foundation. I'm not sure why that would turn out any different -- even if you paid a subscription for Firefox directly, what would prevent Mozilla from using that money for their other products? The problem with optional subscriptions is that most people will never opt-in. If subscriptions are made mandatory, the general public will be driven to one of the other major browsers.
- dralley 6y ago
  The difference is that the Foundation legally cannot spend their tax-free money paying the salaries of employees of a for-profit entity, to develop a product that pulls in significant revenue. It's a matter of "can't", not "won't". Subscription revenue would go to Mozilla Corp directly and therefore has no restrictions, because it's taxed as income. It at least has the possibility of being spent on Firefox development even if it actually goes to Rust maintainence or whatever else.
  - thayne 6y ago
    However, money can go the other way. Paying a subscription might end up just sending at least some of the money to the Foundation, rather than Firefox (or even Rust) development.
6y ago

twblalock 6y ago

Even if Firefox does well on feature phones like you suggest they should, how would that give Mozilla a source of revenue other than the money from Google's search deal?

dralley 6y ago

>Ditching Rust as a core component of the future of Firefox is also a demonstration that Mozilla isn't a tech focused corp anymore. Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory saftely and maintainability and firing Rust devs was terribly short sighted. Ugh, this is nonsense. Mozilla has not "ditched Rust as a core component of a tech focused corp". Mozilla has ditched the idea of developing entire components of Firefox in a silo for 5-8 years, and then spending 3 years trying to integrate that component back into the browser, the entire time trying to keep both components maintained and up-to-date with ridiculously fast changing web standards. They want to continue using Rust, but it will be done more piecemeal and in-place, rather than trying to keep two entirely separate browser engines maintained and standards-compliant for the next 5+ years.

thayne 6y ago
They did however ditch a lot of resources they were putting into Rust, and in particular making Rust a great language for making a secure browser.
- addicted 6y ago
  Largely because Rust has grown massively and Mozilla isn’t even close to its biggest sponsor at this point. Azure, AWS, Google Cloud are all major Rust sponsors at this point. It doesn’t make sense for Mozilla to remain a major sponsor for a product that almost certainly can and will exist, and likely flourish even more, as a more independent project. At this point Mozilla’s ownership of Rust would likely only cost resources and serve to limit the growth and development of rust.

zelly 6y ago

> Ditching Rust as a core component of the future of Firefox is also a demonstration that Mozilla isn't a tech focused corp anymore. Rust is going to yield a lot of result when it comes to security, memory saftely and maintainability and firing Rust devs was terribly short sighted. Mozilla was tired of getting smoked by Chrome, which actually invested in browser development using what the tools they already had ("engineering"), as opposed to subsidizing PhDs on programming language theory. Now it's too little too late. They've passed the point where they could catch up on technical grounds, so they make appeals to morality to market their software. Yes, I agree it was bad leadership.

higerordermap 6y ago

I was using Firefox on both mobile and desktop for a significant period of time. I was little infuriated when they added pocket. Google meet does work well on chrome only. (Not firefox's fault completely) I didn't like how they suddenly changed layout on Android and made many extensions unusable. I didn't like Mozilla the corp / foundation's political alignments, a personal opinion and actually I don't even care about politics. But we Indians (much like South America I guess), have an aversion to SJW virtue-signalling politics because we have seen how it brings too-much right leaning parties into power. Why would a tech company get into politics at all unless it's about some virtue signalling execs pushing their agenda? They fired some actually talented programmers but kept the C-suite, with their non-technical CEO being paid big amounts despite company being in losing game. While I personally don't like some aspects of rust community, the language itself is solid and could be a differentiating point for firefox. As soon as I have seen their management take such decisions and their pushing of political agenda, I can't trust these people to maintain a browser well. No offense to engineers I was telling about Mozilla itself. So I somehow migrated to chrome. I miss UBO on mobile but bromite is good enough. Google is not much better They may not lose much from a middle-class Indian dude switching to other browser. But think about it. Bringing politics and favoring useless C suite execs is a great way to lose future donors. A company should not do politics. They say they do politics for open web, that's not what I am talking about. FSF has done much better than Mozilla foundation in this regard. Mozilla just favoured execs and their agendas before technology, and lost the market.