7 ms·

> It sounds like they've set out to play Whac-A-Mole against the all the biggest AI companies in the world. That's exactly what they're doing with the biggest

by franga2000 4y ago

> It sounds like they've set out to play Whac-A-Mole against the all the biggest AI companies in the world. That's exactly what they're doing with the biggest ad trackers and browser vendors. A lot of Mozilla's "side-projects" are stupid and I also agree they should focus more on Firefox, but this one is pretty in line with their general mission of "we'll fight the big guys because, if we don't, nobody else will".

hospitalhusband 4y ago
Mozilla is almost entirely funded by half a billion dollars a year from Google. They are a vassal.
- pfisch 4y ago
  So was apple once.
  - kbd 4y ago
    I wonder how things would be different if Microsoft never gave them that life-line when they needed it.
    - exhilaration 4y ago
      I imagine that Apple would have been bought by HP or IBM and you can guess how that would have turned out.
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      Microsoft needed an OS competitor to have any viable antitrust defense.
      - Y-bar 4y ago
        ... one which they also made a nice little profit of. $150M in the non-voting stock they bought in 1997 turned into $550M in 2003 when they sold most of it.
        HeckFeck 4y ago
        Ouch. They must've wished that they kept that stock for a few more years.
        simondotau 4y ago
        If Microsoft had held onto it, their investment in Apple would have been more profitable than anything else Microsoft did in the past 20 years.
        swores 4y ago
        On the face of it that sounds like a burn on Microsoft, wisely found by studying the finances, but... by the nature of Apple being the best performing stock in the world for multiple years isn't the same true for most companies, that they could've made more money investing in Apple than in themselves? Heck, maybe investing hundreds of millions in Apple today would, in X years, be worth more money than spending marketing money / development budgets for new features for their own products; or worth more than investing in OpenAI and related products - but it's not exactly something anyone would suggest Microsoft should do (in terms of just becoming a shareholder, of course there could be collaborations without changing this point).
        simondotau 4y ago
        > isn't the same true for most companies Technically yes, but not really. It’s specifically valid to observe with regards to Microsoft because Microsoft did in actual fact hold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Apple stock for a decent stretch of time. Most companies did not. Microsoft chose to sell their Apple stock in 2003. This was entirely their choice. They didn't have to. They could have sold it in 2005 and made an additional billion dollars. They could have sold it in 2007 and made another ten billion dollars. They could have sold it today and made a hundred billion dollars.
    - rasz 4y ago
      Microsoft never gave them any lifeline. Microsoft was caught shipping stolen Apple Quicktime code and quietly settled with Apple to the tune of $150mil and shipping Apple versions of Office/IE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million." "Intel gave this code to Microsoft as part of a joint development program called Display Control Interface." "Canyon admitted that it had copied to Intel code developed for and assigned to Apple. In September 1994, Apple's software was distributed by Microsoft in its developer kits, and in Microsoft's Video for Windows version 1.1d."
      - whinenot 4y ago
        Fun fact: Steve borrowed my friend's cell phone for this call which became the cover photo.[0] [0]https://infostory.com/2013/08/18/steve-jobs-thank-you-bill-gates/ https://infostory.com/2013/08/18/steve-jobs-thank-you-bill-g...
      - nl 4y ago
        MS buying Apple stock involved a pretty complicated deal that also involved settling a number of court disputes between the two companies, Apple agreeing to ship Internet Explorer for Mac (rather than Netscape) and MS agreeing to ship Office for at least 5 more years. At the time and subsequently it was absolutely seen as a lifeline. For example: > Providing the biggest sign of hope yet for ailing Apple Computer, Microsoft today announced it was forging a new era of cooperation with its longtime rival that includes an investment of $150 million. [snip] News of the alliance sent Apple's stock up $7 a share, or 35 percent https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970806&slug=2553374 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970806&slug...
        scarface74 4y ago
        And “their new alliance” was to keep shipping Office for the Mac like they had done for the past decade…
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Well seeing that never happened… When Microsoft invested a paltry $250M in Apple, Apple had already secured a line of credit of $4 Billion. On top of that, Apple turned around a spent $100 million the same quarter to buy out PowerComputing’s Mac license. Apple lost way more than $150 million before they became profitable.
- franga2000 4y ago
  Your point being? The fact that it probably isn't sustainable doesn't negate all the good they do.
- pentagrama 4y ago
  I can compare it in a way when Rage Against the Machine signed with a major label conscious that the tradeoff was worth it. >"Evil Empire" entered the Billboard charts at No. 1, which reflects the broad audience the band has built. "I personally never thought that we'd ever sell a single record," Morello recalls, but it looks as if signing with Epic has worked. "True, we are a major-label band," he concedes. "But we're using the mechanism of the record label to spread revolutionary propaganda." [1] [1] RAGE: CO-OPTING THE MACHINE (1996) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/16/rage-co-opting-the-machine/1e785c16-da5e-4630-b1d6-3ff37843c4e5/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/16/...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
lucideer 4y ago
> we'll fight the big guys I'd be more convinced of this if they weren't actively collaborating with the big guys.
- sockaddr 4y ago
  But their marketing copy has a bunch of differently colored corporate Memphis people doing happy and fun things, surely they have our best interest at heart!
- franga2000 4y ago
  "Actively collaborating" meaning doing the bare minimum to keep Google paying while actively fighting the bad things Google does everywhere else? This is the rich philanthropists debate all over again. Yea, sure, they got rich from participating in the system, but they're using a big chunk of that wealth to fight its consequences. Sure as hell beats the alternative, where the only people willing to fight are the ones without the resources to do it. I'd honestly rather see Firefox development be funded by selling NFTs and mining crypto, than not funded at all. Volunteer/donation-driven FOSS is great, but it has never been able to compete with for-profit products and it sure as hell couldn't compete with Google here.
  - dirkragnarok 4y ago
    Mozilla is working with Facebook now: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...
TechBro8615 4y ago
Didn't Rust originate as a Mozilla side project? Or maybe I'm misremembering and they were just one of the early adopters of it in Servo.
- thayne 4y ago
  Rust is different though, because its purpose was to make Firefox more secure. So the ultimate goal was to improve the browser. Maybe there is some way this acquisition leads to a better browser, but I don't see it.
- bitdivision 4y ago
  > Software developer Graydon Hoare created Rust as a personal project while working at Mozilla Research in 2006. Mozilla officially sponsored the project in 2009 According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language)
- GuB-42 4y ago
  The idea is that Rust is to Firefox what C is to Unix. It is a general purpose language, but one that is specifically designed to address the kind of problem you have when writing a web browser. It was a Mozilla side project, but with Servo, totally in line with its mission of making a good web browser. I'd even say it was a necessary long term plan. Chrome was the better, more modern browser, and Firefox needed fundamental improvements like these to compete. If anything, I think they should have spent more energy on Rust and Servo, not less.
NayamAmarshe 4y ago
> "we'll fight the big guys because, if we don't, nobody else will". Smoke and mirrors more like it. They collaborate with Facebook and Google all the time. 80%-90% of their revenue comes from Google. Fighting the 'big guys' for real would mean shutting shop and never to be seen again.
- franga2000 4y ago
  wtf are y'all on about?? Do you really think we'd be better off with Chromium becoming the one and only web engine, with Google singlehandedly deciding what web features are implemented and how? Has Google ever mentioned anything about privacy? (privacy from hackers doesn't count, that's security) Do you think Apple, with the joke of a browser that is Safari and basically zero stake in the web, would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox? Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with? The only reason Firefox has been able to survive this long after Chrome's launch is Mozilla's historic importance. A new player could never dream to compete with Google - even Microsoft failed! If Mozilla folds, who else do you think will be able to compete with Google? Stallman himself?? This is the real world and compromises must be made.
  - NayamAmarshe 3y ago
    > Do you really think we'd be better off with Chromium becoming the one and only web engine, with Google singlehandedly deciding what web features are implemented and how? What makes you think they're not doing that now and Mozilla's existence even matters in this case? Funny enough, they're only keeping Mozilla alive to avoid any antitrust cases. > would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox? Flawed argument. If Google all of a sudden stops funding Mozilla, do you think that they're going to continue development of the browser? Firefox has steadily been losing market share for years, the writing is on the walls. The fact that Mozilla's existence itself depends on Big-Tech is one huge irony. It's like saying, “I'm against meat eating... Oh hey, my hamburger is here!”. > Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with? Literally Brave.

hospitalhusband 4y ago

Mozilla is almost entirely funded by half a billion dollars a year from Google. They are a vassal.

pfisch 4y ago
So was apple once.
- kbd 4y ago
  I wonder how things would be different if Microsoft never gave them that life-line when they needed it.
  - exhilaration 4y ago
    I imagine that Apple would have been bought by HP or IBM and you can guess how that would have turned out.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    Microsoft needed an OS competitor to have any viable antitrust defense.
    - Y-bar 4y ago
      ... one which they also made a nice little profit of. $150M in the non-voting stock they bought in 1997 turned into $550M in 2003 when they sold most of it.
      - HeckFeck 4y ago
        Ouch. They must've wished that they kept that stock for a few more years.
        simondotau 4y ago
        If Microsoft had held onto it, their investment in Apple would have been more profitable than anything else Microsoft did in the past 20 years.
        swores 4y ago
        On the face of it that sounds like a burn on Microsoft, wisely found by studying the finances, but... by the nature of Apple being the best performing stock in the world for multiple years isn't the same true for most companies, that they could've made more money investing in Apple than in themselves? Heck, maybe investing hundreds of millions in Apple today would, in X years, be worth more money than spending marketing money / development budgets for new features for their own products; or worth more than investing in OpenAI and related products - but it's not exactly something anyone would suggest Microsoft should do (in terms of just becoming a shareholder, of course there could be collaborations without changing this point).
        simondotau 4y ago
        > isn't the same true for most companies Technically yes, but not really. It’s specifically valid to observe with regards to Microsoft because Microsoft did in actual fact hold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Apple stock for a decent stretch of time. Most companies did not. Microsoft chose to sell their Apple stock in 2003. This was entirely their choice. They didn't have to. They could have sold it in 2005 and made an additional billion dollars. They could have sold it in 2007 and made another ten billion dollars. They could have sold it today and made a hundred billion dollars.
  - rasz 4y ago
    Microsoft never gave them any lifeline. Microsoft was caught shipping stolen Apple Quicktime code and quietly settled with Apple to the tune of $150mil and shipping Apple versions of Office/IE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/ https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million." "Intel gave this code to Microsoft as part of a joint development program called Display Control Interface." "Canyon admitted that it had copied to Intel code developed for and assigned to Apple. In September 1994, Apple's software was distributed by Microsoft in its developer kits, and in Microsoft's Video for Windows version 1.1d."
    - whinenot 4y ago
      Fun fact: Steve borrowed my friend's cell phone for this call which became the cover photo.[0] [0]https://infostory.com/2013/08/18/steve-jobs-thank-you-bill-gates/ https://infostory.com/2013/08/18/steve-jobs-thank-you-bill-g...
    - nl 4y ago
      MS buying Apple stock involved a pretty complicated deal that also involved settling a number of court disputes between the two companies, Apple agreeing to ship Internet Explorer for Mac (rather than Netscape) and MS agreeing to ship Office for at least 5 more years. At the time and subsequently it was absolutely seen as a lifeline. For example: > Providing the biggest sign of hope yet for ailing Apple Computer, Microsoft today announced it was forging a new era of cooperation with its longtime rival that includes an investment of $150 million. [snip] News of the alliance sent Apple's stock up $7 a share, or 35 percent https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970806&slug=2553374 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970806&slug...
      - scarface74 4y ago
        And “their new alliance” was to keep shipping Office for the Mac like they had done for the past decade…
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Well seeing that never happened… When Microsoft invested a paltry $250M in Apple, Apple had already secured a line of credit of $4 Billion. On top of that, Apple turned around a spent $100 million the same quarter to buy out PowerComputing’s Mac license. Apple lost way more than $150 million before they became profitable.
franga2000 4y ago
Your point being? The fact that it probably isn't sustainable doesn't negate all the good they do.
pentagrama 4y ago
I can compare it in a way when Rage Against the Machine signed with a major label conscious that the tradeoff was worth it. >"Evil Empire" entered the Billboard charts at No. 1, which reflects the broad audience the band has built. "I personally never thought that we'd ever sell a single record," Morello recalls, but it looks as if signing with Epic has worked. "True, we are a major-label band," he concedes. "But we're using the mechanism of the record label to spread revolutionary propaganda." [1] [1] RAGE: CO-OPTING THE MACHINE (1996) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/16/rage-co-opting-the-machine/1e785c16-da5e-4630-b1d6-3ff37843c4e5/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/08/16/...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

lucideer 4y ago

> we'll fight the big guys I'd be more convinced of this if they weren't actively collaborating with the big guys.

sockaddr 4y ago
But their marketing copy has a bunch of differently colored corporate Memphis people doing happy and fun things, surely they have our best interest at heart!
franga2000 4y ago
"Actively collaborating" meaning doing the bare minimum to keep Google paying while actively fighting the bad things Google does everywhere else? This is the rich philanthropists debate all over again. Yea, sure, they got rich from participating in the system, but they're using a big chunk of that wealth to fight its consequences. Sure as hell beats the alternative, where the only people willing to fight are the ones without the resources to do it. I'd honestly rather see Firefox development be funded by selling NFTs and mining crypto, than not funded at all. Volunteer/donation-driven FOSS is great, but it has never been able to compete with for-profit products and it sure as hell couldn't compete with Google here.
- dirkragnarok 4y ago
  Mozilla is working with Facebook now: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...

TechBro8615 4y ago

Didn't Rust originate as a Mozilla side project? Or maybe I'm misremembering and they were just one of the early adopters of it in Servo.

thayne 4y ago
Rust is different though, because its purpose was to make Firefox more secure. So the ultimate goal was to improve the browser. Maybe there is some way this acquisition leads to a better browser, but I don't see it.
bitdivision 4y ago
> Software developer Graydon Hoare created Rust as a personal project while working at Mozilla Research in 2006. Mozilla officially sponsored the project in 2009 According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language)
GuB-42 4y ago
The idea is that Rust is to Firefox what C is to Unix. It is a general purpose language, but one that is specifically designed to address the kind of problem you have when writing a web browser. It was a Mozilla side project, but with Servo, totally in line with its mission of making a good web browser. I'd even say it was a necessary long term plan. Chrome was the better, more modern browser, and Firefox needed fundamental improvements like these to compete. If anything, I think they should have spent more energy on Rust and Servo, not less.

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

> "we'll fight the big guys because, if we don't, nobody else will". Smoke and mirrors more like it. They collaborate with Facebook and Google all the time. 80%-90% of their revenue comes from Google. Fighting the 'big guys' for real would mean shutting shop and never to be seen again.

franga2000 4y ago
wtf are y'all on about?? Do you really think we'd be better off with Chromium becoming the one and only web engine, with Google singlehandedly deciding what web features are implemented and how? Has Google ever mentioned anything about privacy? (privacy from hackers doesn't count, that's security) Do you think Apple, with the joke of a browser that is Safari and basically zero stake in the web, would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox? Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with? The only reason Firefox has been able to survive this long after Chrome's launch is Mozilla's historic importance. A new player could never dream to compete with Google - even Microsoft failed! If Mozilla folds, who else do you think will be able to compete with Google? Stallman himself?? This is the real world and compromises must be made.
- NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  > Do you really think we'd be better off with Chromium becoming the one and only web engine, with Google singlehandedly deciding what web features are implemented and how? What makes you think they're not doing that now and Mozilla's existence even matters in this case? Funny enough, they're only keeping Mozilla alive to avoid any antitrust cases. > would be able to keep Google from turning the web into its own closed little sandbox? Flawed argument. If Google all of a sudden stops funding Mozilla, do you think that they're going to continue development of the browser? Firefox has steadily been losing market share for years, the writing is on the walls. The fact that Mozilla's existence itself depends on Big-Tech is one huge irony. It's like saying, “I'm against meat eating... Oh hey, my hamburger is here!”. > Who would say "if Chrome kills adblockers, switch to our browser" and be able to actually sustain it, not just keep their Chromium fork slightly out of date for as long as they can get away with? Literally Brave.