4 ms·

Won't this kill Firefox if Google gets told it cant pay browsers to put it as default? That would suck.

by concordDance 3y ago

voytec 3y ago
It would kill Mitchell Baker's salary. The browser would survive - as Firefox or forks.
- summerlight 3y ago
  And all other Mozilla engineer's salary as well? Developing a modern browser is a very expensive business nowadays.
littlestymaar 3y ago
It would kill the Mozilla Corporation in its current form and hopefully get us Baker's head (as least metaphorically if nothing else) but it will not necessarily be the end of the browser itself.
- advisedwang 3y ago
  Who else will pay salaries to maintain Firefox? Firefox can't survive on community contributions alone.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    Wikipedia having a higher turnover than Mozilla from contribution alone is a counter-example. And if Google is being split, then Chrome will also need to find a monetization strategy, opening the perspective for Mozilla.
    - Karunamon 3y ago
      The bar to contribute to a software project of any size is many times higher than the bar to contribute to Wikipedia. If you were speaking monetarily, Wikipedia has a gargantuan user count and good will to match, where Mozilla has spent the last few years squandering both of those.
      - littlestymaar 3y ago
        I'm not talking about code contribution here, but about money. Wikipedia raises every year from donation more than what Mozilla gets from its pact with the devil. I agree with you though that Mozilla has spent most of its good will, and that a donation-based model would have been much easier to pull-off a few years back than it is now.
wffurr 3y ago
Mozilla will have to find another revenue source and cut budgets to focus on the browser and maybe not all the other things they are doing.
bogwog 3y ago
Even if it kills Firefox, it would be a net positive to the web overall, and may even lead to new browsers that aren't just Chromium forks. Google is raking in billions of dollars per year illegally. If the court rules that way and forces a break up, then those many billions of dollars will be up for grabs, and (potentially many) new competitors will fight for them. There's no way to predict what that will look like, but we will see a lot of innovation. (EDIT: and for the record, I am a happy Firefox user)
layer8 3y ago
My impression is that the actually useful work on Firefox would only require a tiny fraction of the money that Mozilla currently receives from Google.
Eumenes 3y ago
Mozilla is nearly a subsidiary of Google at this point, and exists primarily to push Alphabet's social agenda ('organizing' and 'activism' account for 4x more expenditures than software).
lolinder 3y ago
If Firefox in its current form can't exist without Google's support, then Firefox in its current form is a useless vassal of Google anyway. We can't have our one hope for an independent web be entirely dependent on the organization bent on owning the web completely! If their lifeline to Google is cut, maybe Mozilla will finally take us up on our offer and make it possible to pay for Firefox directly, rather than throwing money at Mozilla and simply hoping that it doesn't get misspent on nonsense side projects.
- Loocid 3y ago
  >then Firefox in its current form is a useless vassal of Google anyway. Other than Google being the default search engine how are they a vassal of Google?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    I said: > If Firefox in its current form can't exist without Google's support, then ... If Firefox only exists by the grace of Google, then Firefox cannot be an effective barrier to Google's dominion. If it's truly wholly dependent on Google, then it can only stand up to Google for as long as Google wills it. I'm not saying Firefox is wholly dependent, I'm just saying that if it is, then it's already useless as a barrier to Google's ambitions and we'd be better off stripped of the illusion that it's part of the solution. If Google is prevented from paying for continued search dominance, then we either learn that Firefox was never dependent on that revenue, or we learn that Firefox as presently constituted was never going to be able to stop Chrome and we need to make major changes.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    The implication of GP was that the Mozilla foundation couldn’t survive without the financial support of google. If that’s true, they’re a vassal of google because google can now effectively wield its financial dominance to veto any change they don’t like. For example, support our new Secure Enclave or we’ll pull financial support and crush your support on websites at the same time. Really this is already an incredibly bad look in the sense of Firefox kinda being “controlled opposition” to the chrome dominance of the web, a dummy competitor literally funded by google to avoid accusations of monopoly. See, there’s Firefox! And safari, who we just levered out of the market by getting the EU to force sideloading.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Won't this kill Firefox if Google gets told it cant pay browsers to put it as default? That would suck.

voytec 3y ago

It would kill Mitchell Baker's salary. The browser would survive - as Firefox or forks.

summerlight 3y ago
And all other Mozilla engineer's salary as well? Developing a modern browser is a very expensive business nowadays.

littlestymaar 3y ago

It would kill the Mozilla Corporation in its current form and hopefully get us Baker's head (as least metaphorically if nothing else) but it will not necessarily be the end of the browser itself.

advisedwang 3y ago
Who else will pay salaries to maintain Firefox? Firefox can't survive on community contributions alone.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Wikipedia having a higher turnover than Mozilla from contribution alone is a counter-example. And if Google is being split, then Chrome will also need to find a monetization strategy, opening the perspective for Mozilla.
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    The bar to contribute to a software project of any size is many times higher than the bar to contribute to Wikipedia. If you were speaking monetarily, Wikipedia has a gargantuan user count and good will to match, where Mozilla has spent the last few years squandering both of those.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      I'm not talking about code contribution here, but about money. Wikipedia raises every year from donation more than what Mozilla gets from its pact with the devil. I agree with you though that Mozilla has spent most of its good will, and that a donation-based model would have been much easier to pull-off a few years back than it is now.

wffurr 3y ago

Mozilla will have to find another revenue source and cut budgets to focus on the browser and maybe not all the other things they are doing.

bogwog 3y ago

Even if it kills Firefox, it would be a net positive to the web overall, and may even lead to new browsers that aren't just Chromium forks. Google is raking in billions of dollars per year illegally. If the court rules that way and forces a break up, then those many billions of dollars will be up for grabs, and (potentially many) new competitors will fight for them. There's no way to predict what that will look like, but we will see a lot of innovation. (EDIT: and for the record, I am a happy Firefox user)

layer8 3y ago

My impression is that the actually useful work on Firefox would only require a tiny fraction of the money that Mozilla currently receives from Google.

Eumenes 3y ago

Mozilla is nearly a subsidiary of Google at this point, and exists primarily to push Alphabet's social agenda ('organizing' and 'activism' account for 4x more expenditures than software).

lolinder 3y ago

If Firefox in its current form can't exist without Google's support, then Firefox in its current form is a useless vassal of Google anyway. We can't have our one hope for an independent web be entirely dependent on the organization bent on owning the web completely! If their lifeline to Google is cut, maybe Mozilla will finally take us up on our offer and make it possible to pay for Firefox directly, rather than throwing money at Mozilla and simply hoping that it doesn't get misspent on nonsense side projects.

Loocid 3y ago
>then Firefox in its current form is a useless vassal of Google anyway. Other than Google being the default search engine how are they a vassal of Google?
- lolinder 3y ago
  I said: > If Firefox in its current form can't exist without Google's support, then ... If Firefox only exists by the grace of Google, then Firefox cannot be an effective barrier to Google's dominion. If it's truly wholly dependent on Google, then it can only stand up to Google for as long as Google wills it. I'm not saying Firefox is wholly dependent, I'm just saying that if it is, then it's already useless as a barrier to Google's ambitions and we'd be better off stripped of the illusion that it's part of the solution. If Google is prevented from paying for continued search dominance, then we either learn that Firefox was never dependent on that revenue, or we learn that Firefox as presently constituted was never going to be able to stop Chrome and we need to make major changes.
- paulmd 3y ago
  The implication of GP was that the Mozilla foundation couldn’t survive without the financial support of google. If that’s true, they’re a vassal of google because google can now effectively wield its financial dominance to veto any change they don’t like. For example, support our new Secure Enclave or we’ll pull financial support and crush your support on websites at the same time. Really this is already an incredibly bad look in the sense of Firefox kinda being “controlled opposition” to the chrome dominance of the web, a dummy competitor literally funded by google to avoid accusations of monopoly. See, there’s Firefox! And safari, who we just levered out of the market by getting the EU to force sideloading.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]