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It's infuriating how Mozilla dropped the ball with Rust. Rust is successful, and Mozilla could have been the guardian behind the language. They gave away thei

It's infuriating how Mozilla dropped the ball with Rust. Rust is successful, and Mozilla could have been the guardian behind the language. They gave away their biggest innovation in years. I installed Firefox on Windows Yesterday and walked through picking my culture-defining theme colors for the UI and then I made myself a stiff drink.

jeswin 4y ago
> Rust is successful, and Mozilla could have been the guardian behind the language. How does being the guardian behind the language help Mozilla in any way?
- thrwawy74 4y ago
  Google always had the ability to use Rust in any of its projects. However, I think Mozilla pissed away the biggest opportunity they had in a decade to lead something that will change an industry, and to influence (positively) the community around it. I certainly trust Mozilla over Google, though I'm still mad about that Mr. Robot extension. Google has all the resources and hundreds of engineers to throw at Rust. They will definitely have undue influence on the language and its community now that it's in Chrome. I just hope it doesn't wind up looking like Kotlin.
  - yosef123 4y ago
    Like Kotlin? Can you please elaborate?
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    Mozilla just doesn't make any money. If it was any other company, they would just not exist in this situation.
- huggingmouth 4y ago
  Relevancy, mindshare and attracting talent.
allisdust 4y ago
I think its the best of both worlds. Mozilla gets to focus on Firefox while other companies contribute and grow the rust eco system. Having no real sponsor makes companies see Rust as less of a threat and more of an opportunity. Similar to Linux.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  If only they were actually focusing on Firefox, and not some other feel good activities.
AceJohnny2 4y ago
I really don't see how it could have gone any differently. Mozilla is struggling. Firefox's market share is less than 3%, in the "also ran" category. Employing all the people in the Silicon Valley to maintain Rust is hugely expensive without an obvious return on financial investment. By opening Rust up to the community, they ensured its popularity and longevity beyond what more corporate-focused languages (Go, Swift, or C#) can achieve. Relinquishing control is exactly what Rust needed to help its popularity. Certainly not having a bunch of engineers employed specifically to develop and maintain Rust hurts, but Mozilla simply cannot afford it.
- toyg 4y ago
  It's SUN/Java all over again. Successful programming languages tend to be bad for business: they generate support costs but little or no measurable income. The only way to make them profitable is to use them as a lock-in tool for your platform (VB, .Net, SQL dialects...), but Mozilla never had anything to lock people in.
- insanitybit 4y ago
  > Relinquishing control is exactly what Rust needed to help its popularity. Maybe? But that's not why they did it. In the same year that their CEO took another massive payout they laid off tons of staff "because covid", an excuse that was obviously nonsense at the time but especially looks like nonsense when you realize that tech absolutely exploded during covid with record high valuations. Mozilla absolutely could have afforded it. Easily. Mozilla's CEO is an absolutely disaster and the company is never going to be able to recover from it.
Dalewyn 4y ago
This isn't to say Google becoming the guardian is appealing; plenty of nose-holding to be had there too. But considering the absolute ineptitude and even hostility Mozilla has shown towards users over the past 1~2 decades, I'm glad they aren't the guardians to anything anymore. Everything Mozilla touches dies an undeserving death, so I hope they continue to spiral further down into irrelevance and an eventual dissolution.
est31 4y ago
It's sad that Mozilla's layoffs were that extensive, but it also gave more resilience to the language I think. There isn't a single stakeholder any more. Instead it's distributed among a bunch of big tech companies. Which brings its own issues, but it's not the end of the world. Mozilla has also never really controlled Rust's development, it was their policy to treat it independently. The big tech companies also don't control it now. This might change in the future due to a weakened core team creating a vacuum that might be filled by the foundation, but the current status is that Rust is quite independent.
xtanx 4y ago
No, they dropped the ball with servo. They should have continued developing it.

jeswin 4y ago

> Rust is successful, and Mozilla could have been the guardian behind the language. How does being the guardian behind the language help Mozilla in any way?

thrwawy74 4y ago
Google always had the ability to use Rust in any of its projects. However, I think Mozilla pissed away the biggest opportunity they had in a decade to lead something that will change an industry, and to influence (positively) the community around it. I certainly trust Mozilla over Google, though I'm still mad about that Mr. Robot extension. Google has all the resources and hundreds of engineers to throw at Rust. They will definitely have undue influence on the language and its community now that it's in Chrome. I just hope it doesn't wind up looking like Kotlin.
- yosef123 4y ago
  Like Kotlin? Can you please elaborate?
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Mozilla just doesn't make any money. If it was any other company, they would just not exist in this situation.
huggingmouth 4y ago
Relevancy, mindshare and attracting talent.

allisdust 4y ago

I think its the best of both worlds. Mozilla gets to focus on Firefox while other companies contribute and grow the rust eco system. Having no real sponsor makes companies see Rust as less of a threat and more of an opportunity. Similar to Linux.

pjmlp 4y ago
If only they were actually focusing on Firefox, and not some other feel good activities.

AceJohnny2 4y ago

I really don't see how it could have gone any differently. Mozilla is struggling. Firefox's market share is less than 3%, in the "also ran" category. Employing all the people in the Silicon Valley to maintain Rust is hugely expensive without an obvious return on financial investment. By opening Rust up to the community, they ensured its popularity and longevity beyond what more corporate-focused languages (Go, Swift, or C#) can achieve. Relinquishing control is exactly what Rust needed to help its popularity. Certainly not having a bunch of engineers employed specifically to develop and maintain Rust hurts, but Mozilla simply cannot afford it.

toyg 4y ago
It's SUN/Java all over again. Successful programming languages tend to be bad for business: they generate support costs but little or no measurable income. The only way to make them profitable is to use them as a lock-in tool for your platform (VB, .Net, SQL dialects...), but Mozilla never had anything to lock people in.
insanitybit 4y ago
> Relinquishing control is exactly what Rust needed to help its popularity. Maybe? But that's not why they did it. In the same year that their CEO took another massive payout they laid off tons of staff "because covid", an excuse that was obviously nonsense at the time but especially looks like nonsense when you realize that tech absolutely exploded during covid with record high valuations. Mozilla absolutely could have afforded it. Easily. Mozilla's CEO is an absolutely disaster and the company is never going to be able to recover from it.

Dalewyn 4y ago

This isn't to say Google becoming the guardian is appealing; plenty of nose-holding to be had there too. But considering the absolute ineptitude and even hostility Mozilla has shown towards users over the past 1~2 decades, I'm glad they aren't the guardians to anything anymore. Everything Mozilla touches dies an undeserving death, so I hope they continue to spiral further down into irrelevance and an eventual dissolution.

est31 4y ago

It's sad that Mozilla's layoffs were that extensive, but it also gave more resilience to the language I think. There isn't a single stakeholder any more. Instead it's distributed among a bunch of big tech companies. Which brings its own issues, but it's not the end of the world. Mozilla has also never really controlled Rust's development, it was their policy to treat it independently. The big tech companies also don't control it now. This might change in the future due to a weakened core team creating a vacuum that might be filled by the foundation, but the current status is that Rust is quite independent.

xtanx 4y ago

No, they dropped the ball with servo. They should have continued developing it.