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Government entities aren't any good at building almost anything, but that's why they contract work out to private companies. I wouldn't expect EU government em

Government entities aren't any good at building almost anything, but that's why they contract work out to private companies. I wouldn't expect EU government employees to work directly on FF, but rather for it to be contracted out to some EU company or companies. The reason for forking rather than throwing money at Mozilla is that Mozilla doesn't seem to be doing a great job of managing themselves. Maybe they need some competition. Also, Mozilla is an American company; the EU would naturally want to give money to an EU company that hires EU citizens to do such high-value, high-paid work, not send that money to the US. Plus, they can get a lot more software talent for their Euro in the EU (esp. eastern EU) than in America.

eru 4y ago
> Government entities aren't any good at building almost anything, but that's why they contract work out to private companies. I wouldn't expect EU government employees to work directly on FF, but rather for it to be contracted out to some EU company or companies. I skimmed over the issue here: my more precise point is that government entities generally aren't good at building things when they outsource the actual building, either. (Some people even go so far as claiming that outsourced government projects are worse than in-house ones.) > The reason for forking rather than throwing money at Mozilla is that Mozilla doesn't seem to be doing a great job of managing themselves. That might be true. Or perhaps they just have different priorities, and the EU can specifically pay them to do some work on EU priorities? > Also, Mozilla is an American company; the EU would naturally want to give money to an EU company that hires EU citizens to do such high-value, high-paid work, not send that money to the US. That's, alas, true from a political point of view. But not from a macroeconomic economic point of view, or just getting bang-for-your-buck. > Plus, they can get a lot more software talent for their Euro in the EU (esp. eastern EU) than in America. Mozilla can already hire from anywhere, too, can't they? In any case, I already mentioned in my comment that the EU can pay someone other than Mozilla. The point I wanted to make is that the EU should not fork Firefox, but rather try to get their favourite contributions upstreamed, if possible. In any case, I still think it would be a waste of taxpayer money for the EU to pick winners (ie award the project to someone). Instead they should focus on streamlining bureaucracies and regulation etc so that private entities (companies, or foundations or otherwise) that provide what people want (software or otherwise) can flourish in the EU.
- anotherhue 4y ago
  I don't feel that your comment respects the government funded origins of much of our technology. DARPA has quite an impact. Private companies tend to settle into local-maxima, it takes a lot of cash to explore outside those bounds, i.e. apollo, ITER. Regardless, control of the software and distribution channels that govern the effective online life of about a billion people is power, and if the shoe were on the other foot I'd bet there'd be USGov investment to rebalance it.
  - eru 4y ago
    The absolute impact of DARPA (nor sending a clown to the moon or ITER) doesn't say anything about whether the money was well spent. Opportunity costs are a thing. To bring up another example: in our timeline, government-funded militaries were an earlier driver of electronic computing. But IBM was hot on their heels. Similarly Konrad Zuse was starting to build computers in Germany. If there hadn't been a war to divert so many resources globally from the private sector into the militaries, these business driven efforts would have started the early computer age at about the same time (perhaps earlier even?). At no cost to the taxpayer.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Mozilla can already hire from anywhere, too, can't they? No, not that I'm aware of. Sure, they can hire someone from EU and fly them to the US to work, but I'm not aware of them having offices in the EU. Why would the EU want to pay for EU devs to be flown to the US and paid inflated US salaries, instead of just keeping that talent at home? >In any case, I already mentioned in my comment that the EU can pay someone other than Mozilla. The point I wanted to make is that the EU should not fork Firefox, but rather try to get their favourite contributions upstreamed, if possible. That's impossible. Any time you have a different entity working on a software project, it becomes forked. So either you just keep the internal fork and upstream as much as you can, and hope that the parent org takes these submissions, or you release your fork publicly if the parent org isn't cooperative enough. Either way, it's a fork. Quite simply, every time you clone a git repo, it's a fork. Anyway, sure, they should try to get their contributions upstreamed, but what if Mozilla is recalcitrant? The EU would be correct to release their own version for EU use. >In any case, I still think it would be a waste of taxpayer money for the EU to pick winners (ie award the project to someone). Instead they should focus on streamlining bureaucracies and regulation etc so that private entities (companies, or foundations or otherwise) that provide what people want (software or otherwise) can flourish in the EU. So, just let Google own the browser market? I don't see how this is useful or productive. Streamlining regulations isn't going to magically make it economically feasible for some start-up to somehow make money making a web browser.
fabrice_d 4y ago
They could contract Igalia, which already has experience contributing to Gecko and has their headquarter in Spain.

eru 4y ago

> Government entities aren't any good at building almost anything, but that's why they contract work out to private companies. I wouldn't expect EU government employees to work directly on FF, but rather for it to be contracted out to some EU company or companies. I skimmed over the issue here: my more precise point is that government entities generally aren't good at building things when they outsource the actual building, either. (Some people even go so far as claiming that outsourced government projects are worse than in-house ones.) > The reason for forking rather than throwing money at Mozilla is that Mozilla doesn't seem to be doing a great job of managing themselves. That might be true. Or perhaps they just have different priorities, and the EU can specifically pay them to do some work on EU priorities? > Also, Mozilla is an American company; the EU would naturally want to give money to an EU company that hires EU citizens to do such high-value, high-paid work, not send that money to the US. That's, alas, true from a political point of view. But not from a macroeconomic economic point of view, or just getting bang-for-your-buck. > Plus, they can get a lot more software talent for their Euro in the EU (esp. eastern EU) than in America. Mozilla can already hire from anywhere, too, can't they? In any case, I already mentioned in my comment that the EU can pay someone other than Mozilla. The point I wanted to make is that the EU should not fork Firefox, but rather try to get their favourite contributions upstreamed, if possible. In any case, I still think it would be a waste of taxpayer money for the EU to pick winners (ie award the project to someone). Instead they should focus on streamlining bureaucracies and regulation etc so that private entities (companies, or foundations or otherwise) that provide what people want (software or otherwise) can flourish in the EU.

anotherhue 4y ago
I don't feel that your comment respects the government funded origins of much of our technology. DARPA has quite an impact. Private companies tend to settle into local-maxima, it takes a lot of cash to explore outside those bounds, i.e. apollo, ITER. Regardless, control of the software and distribution channels that govern the effective online life of about a billion people is power, and if the shoe were on the other foot I'd bet there'd be USGov investment to rebalance it.
- eru 4y ago
  The absolute impact of DARPA (nor sending a clown to the moon or ITER) doesn't say anything about whether the money was well spent. Opportunity costs are a thing. To bring up another example: in our timeline, government-funded militaries were an earlier driver of electronic computing. But IBM was hot on their heels. Similarly Konrad Zuse was starting to build computers in Germany. If there hadn't been a war to divert so many resources globally from the private sector into the militaries, these business driven efforts would have started the early computer age at about the same time (perhaps earlier even?). At no cost to the taxpayer.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Mozilla can already hire from anywhere, too, can't they? No, not that I'm aware of. Sure, they can hire someone from EU and fly them to the US to work, but I'm not aware of them having offices in the EU. Why would the EU want to pay for EU devs to be flown to the US and paid inflated US salaries, instead of just keeping that talent at home? >In any case, I already mentioned in my comment that the EU can pay someone other than Mozilla. The point I wanted to make is that the EU should not fork Firefox, but rather try to get their favourite contributions upstreamed, if possible. That's impossible. Any time you have a different entity working on a software project, it becomes forked. So either you just keep the internal fork and upstream as much as you can, and hope that the parent org takes these submissions, or you release your fork publicly if the parent org isn't cooperative enough. Either way, it's a fork. Quite simply, every time you clone a git repo, it's a fork. Anyway, sure, they should try to get their contributions upstreamed, but what if Mozilla is recalcitrant? The EU would be correct to release their own version for EU use. >In any case, I still think it would be a waste of taxpayer money for the EU to pick winners (ie award the project to someone). Instead they should focus on streamlining bureaucracies and regulation etc so that private entities (companies, or foundations or otherwise) that provide what people want (software or otherwise) can flourish in the EU. So, just let Google own the browser market? I don't see how this is useful or productive. Streamlining regulations isn't going to magically make it economically feasible for some start-up to somehow make money making a web browser.

fabrice_d 4y ago

They could contract Igalia, which already has experience contributing to Gecko and has their headquarter in Spain.