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I agree with your topline goal, but I am surprised by the way you think about it. Most of what you recommend has no obvious connection to firefox-the-program.

I agree with your topline goal, but I am surprised by the way you think about it. Most of what you recommend has no obvious connection to firefox-the-program. Like... > - Donate the major money drains that aren't Firefox to the Apache Foundation or another worthy custodian > - Fire all inessential staff that don't want to work on Firefox. > - Get a CEO/upper management that are in it for the passion, not the money, and cut their salaries (bonuses tied directly to increase in Firefox market share). > - Make sure that all donations from now on are redirected to things that support Firefox development and nothing else, period. All of these are good suggestions if the problem is that Firefox is running out of money or has too few resources. But that's not my impression at all! Google's strategy with Chrome demonstrates how valuable it is to develop other compelling services that use cutting-edge standards supported by your browser. Google does it in a way where they freeze out other compatible browsers, but Mozilla does not have to. I would say that the number one thing that Mozilla can do to support the web is to make web standards meaningful again - and the best way to do that is to develop things aside from web browsers to demonstrate the value of those standards. > We as a community, cannot afford to let Firefox languish until the only browsers in the world are Chromium derivatives. I don't think Mozilla having non-Firefox projects harms Firefox. I think there is every reason to believe that a healthy Mozilla has Firefox at the center, with many other ongoing projects.

selfhoster11 5y ago
My impression is that Mozilla is too focused on basically everything that isn't Firefox - to me, it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it. They are lacking for attention, and not money, which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox. Anyone else can do funny extensions or VPN or what have you got, but browser-making is Mozilla's core competency that no one in the FOSS ecosystem has mastered to the extent they did. It seems evident to me that if they made Firefox into a power user browser again, somehow, then power users would flock to it again and bring in some of their peers and family, putting it back in a safe 10-15% range of market share where it can't be picked off or ignored by Google. And I know that power users are leaving en masse - I stuck with them through thick and thin for nearly 15 years, and I'm finally getting ready to leave if the situation doesn't improve. > I think there is every reason to believe that a healthy Mozilla has Firefox at the center Neither Mozilla not Firefox are healthy, in my assessment. And this is exactly because they are getting sidetracked instead of centering on Firefox.
- aeturnum 5y ago
  > it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it In my experience many things come to be in horrifying shape because of focus as well, so I don't agree with your logic. > which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox. I mean, 4 / 6 of the products on their product pages have Firefox in the name[1]? Really begs the question on what you mean by "doesn't serve firefox." I guess you mean you don't like the VPN or Pocket? > if they made Firefox into a power user browser again, somehow, then power users would flock to it again and bring in some of their peers and family I think maybe the reason we have different views on this is that we might view the user base differently. I'm not sure how you mean "power users" - it's a fuzzy term - but I suggest we start at the number of people in the worldwide IT industry[2]. Probably not all super users, but likely more technically savvy. It seems there are about 55,000,000 of us, but that's in an internet user population of 4.66 billion[3]. That puts the power user population at about 1.4% of the people represented in the market share statistics. So if global relevance is your goal, I'm not sure that the power users are gonna do it. Even if Firefox dominated the market they would need to bring a lot of friends and family along to get the people needed to push Firefox up ~6%. The web is just way, way bigger than it used to be and is serving way more people. I totally agree that Firefox is failing to find a convincing foothold in the modern web, but I'm unconvinced that appealing to power users would benefit the browser or the web more than any other group. I also think that, if Firefox caters to a particular demographic with unusually deep expertise, that they risk moving the browser in a direction that's less appealing to users who lack that deep expertise. [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/ [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126677/it-employment-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126677/it-employment-wo... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-populatio...
- kaba0 5y ago
  > My impression is that Mozilla is too focused on basically everything that isn't Firefox - to me, it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it. I really don’t think that most of us would have any meaningful knowledge on this without having first hand experience, so I don’t think these opinions are of any use.

selfhoster11 5y ago

My impression is that Mozilla is too focused on basically everything that isn't Firefox - to me, it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it. They are lacking for attention, and not money, which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox. Anyone else can do funny extensions or VPN or what have you got, but browser-making is Mozilla's core competency that no one in the FOSS ecosystem has mastered to the extent they did. It seems evident to me that if they made Firefox into a power user browser again, somehow, then power users would flock to it again and bring in some of their peers and family, putting it back in a safe 10-15% range of market share where it can't be picked off or ignored by Google. And I know that power users are leaving en masse - I stuck with them through thick and thin for nearly 15 years, and I'm finally getting ready to leave if the situation doesn't improve. > I think there is every reason to believe that a healthy Mozilla has Firefox at the center Neither Mozilla not Firefox are healthy, in my assessment. And this is exactly because they are getting sidetracked instead of centering on Firefox.

aeturnum 5y ago
> it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it In my experience many things come to be in horrifying shape because of focus as well, so I don't agree with your logic. > which is why they should jettison everything that isn't Firefox or doesn't serve Firefox. I mean, 4 / 6 of the products on their product pages have Firefox in the name[1]? Really begs the question on what you mean by "doesn't serve firefox." I guess you mean you don't like the VPN or Pocket? > if they made Firefox into a power user browser again, somehow, then power users would flock to it again and bring in some of their peers and family I think maybe the reason we have different views on this is that we might view the user base differently. I'm not sure how you mean "power users" - it's a fuzzy term - but I suggest we start at the number of people in the worldwide IT industry[2]. Probably not all super users, but likely more technically savvy. It seems there are about 55,000,000 of us, but that's in an internet user population of 4.66 billion[3]. That puts the power user population at about 1.4% of the people represented in the market share statistics. So if global relevance is your goal, I'm not sure that the power users are gonna do it. Even if Firefox dominated the market they would need to bring a lot of friends and family along to get the people needed to push Firefox up ~6%. The web is just way, way bigger than it used to be and is serving way more people. I totally agree that Firefox is failing to find a convincing foothold in the modern web, but I'm unconvinced that appealing to power users would benefit the browser or the web more than any other group. I also think that, if Firefox caters to a particular demographic with unusually deep expertise, that they risk moving the browser in a direction that's less appealing to users who lack that deep expertise. [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/ [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126677/it-employment-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1126677/it-employment-wo... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-populatio...
kaba0 5y ago
> My impression is that Mozilla is too focused on basically everything that isn't Firefox - to me, it's axiomatic that Firefox wouldn't be in such a horrifying shape if they were focused on it. I really don’t think that most of us would have any meaningful knowledge on this without having first hand experience, so I don’t think these opinions are of any use.