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I saw a talk in 2009ish by John Lilly, the CEO at the time. Someone asked him a snarky question about Chrome, and I loved his reply. He said this was the world

I saw a talk in 2009ish by John Lilly, the CEO at the time. Someone asked him a snarky question about Chrome, and I loved his reply. He said this was the world Mozilla was fighting for; where people had their choice of standards-compliant browsers. Mozilla did something amazing... it took a problem the average person didn't care about or understand (an open, accessible web) and paired it with phenomenal usability. That's their zone of genius. I really wish Mozilla would do the same thing for privacy, data and user identity. Right now, Firefox is the only competitive browser not owned by a gigantic corporation. I really wish they'd spearhead a safe way to bring identity to the browser level, with a focus on keeping people safe and private. They sorta tried with Persona, but it never went anywhere. Password managers are almost impossible to use for the average person, and Mozilla is in a unique position where they aren't a b̵i̵l̵l̵i̵o̵n̵ trillion dollar company (or having to raise VC money to build it). They could charge for a (headless?) email server that focuses on privacy, and pair it with an open standard for authenticating in the browser based on (any) email. We could get one-click logins across the web. People still trust Mozilla (despite them doing their best to squander their reputation with releases like this). They could genuinely fix one of the largest problems on the open web, because they're one of the few companies without a prohibitive conflict of interest in the space. Or do something else! I don't really care. But the world definitely doesn't need another Mastodon instance with the Mozilla logo, any more than it needed a cheap phone with the Mozilla logo or an IoT platform with the Mozilla logo.

wmf 3y ago
It would be amazing if Mozilla picked up Sandstorm and ran with it.
Nition 3y ago
> They could charge for a (headless?) email server that focuses on privacy, and pair it with an open standard for authenticating in the browser based on (any) email. They even have an email client already (Thunderbird).
- gkoberger 3y ago
  Sorta! It's no longer a Mozilla Corporation product, although it's still owned by the Mozilla Foundation (it spun off as MZLA). But that being said, yes, I agree! (Thunderbird isn't great, though, and there's no iPhone version. I'd much rather be able to, for example, use Superhuman or Spark or something. Right now, I give Google all my data, and don't even use the GMail interface.) Source: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
none_to_remain 3y ago
Mozilla is a billion dollar corporation Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2021/article/angela-and-eric/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2021/a...
- jordigh 3y ago
  The corporation part is kind of a legal hack, though. It's a corporation owned by a foundation and it answers only to that foundation. It has no inherent profit motive, no shareholders. Basically, this happened because search was an accident. By incorporating Google search as the default, Mozilla suddenly found a revenue source it did not expect. It created the corporation in order to better handle the influx of money without losing the nonprofit status. So, while it has a lot of money, it's really at its heart a foundation, not a corporation.
  - none_to_remain 3y ago
    While one is called Mozilla Foundation and one is called Mozilla Corporation, they are both corporations. You can see the Mozilla Foundation's articles of incorporation: "The name of the corporation is Mozilla Foundation" https://www-archive.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/mf-articles-of-incorporation.pdf https://www-archive.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/mf-arti...
    - jordigh 3y ago
      I'm not sure what that means, but it's a 501(c)(3). Here is the foundation's annual report, for example: > Established in July 2003, Mozilla Foundation (the Foundation) is a California not-for-profit corporation that exists to improve and protect the internet as a public resource by working with thousands of volunteers to 1) keep the internet a universal open platform and 2) promote continued innovation on the internet. The Foundation supports the development of open- source, standards-compliant, free internet applications useable free of charge to hundreds of millions of users. It also a) develops foundational technologies that can be used to build the values of openness and interoperability into the internet; and b) fuels the movement for an open internet through educational work that connects open internet leaders with each other and mobilizes grassroot activities around the world. The Foundation is headquartered in San Francisco, California. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-2021-fs-final-1010.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-202... I don't think the word "corporation" in "non-profit corporation" means much of anything as long as it has its non-profit status.
richdougherty 3y ago
I'd love them to fund an Android variant or replacement for Android services. Mobile is the other main platform apart from web.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  They did, back in 2012ish. It was called FirefoxOS, and it wasn't well recieved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
  - wmf 3y ago
    IMO FirefoxOS wasn't well received partly because it wasn't Android-based. Ultimately I wouldn't try to do a mobile OS without ~$10B in marketing/ecosystem funding.
    - richdougherty 3y ago
      Agreed, it needs to be Android based - the other option would be to implement iOS APIs, but Android would be a lot easier. An analogy would be if you make a browser, to use standard HTML and HTTP, not try to invent your own thing.
  - botanical 3y ago
    Its fork, KaiOS, is widely successful (but Proprietary). They should have stuck with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS
- wishfish 3y ago
  I'd love to see this too. Would love it if it was an OS that scaled well from desktop to mobile (at least tablet) sizes. I'm a big fan of the basic idea behind Chrome OS. Not so much a fan of giving Google my info. Would be nice to have a real alternative in this niche.
frandroid 3y ago
> (despite them doing their best to squander their reputation with releases like this) ...how?
anon25783 3y ago
> I really wish they'd spearhead a safe way to bring identity to the browser level, Why? I don't want companies on the internet to know who I am, or that I am even a single unique person.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  Agreed! You’d click login, and a list of your email addresses / identities would pop up and you could pick one. No product would ever know the identities were connected; not even Mozilla (since it’s at the browser level).
natrius 3y ago
Too many of the identity and data problems are network effect problems, and ad revenue is the best business model that has been discovered for tackling those problems. The business model is incompatible with openness and user sovereignty: the dollars go to the platforms with the most users, and the other platforms die. We can't get the Mozilla we want until they discover a network effect business model that's actually compatible with empowered users. Until each user gets to steer every advertising dollar on the internet where they want them to be spent, there's plenty of room for innovation.
spankalee 3y ago
Rather than focusing mostly on client-side software, I wish Mozilla would bet more into SaaS services like hosted email, and docs. I think a lot of people would prefer Mozilla over other options and it would be amazing to be able to use (and contribute to) open source SaaS apps, but hosted by an organization like Mozilla. It could provide another revenue stream for them. I love the sibling comment about Sandstorm too.
nwiswell 3y ago
> People still trust Mozilla (despite them doing their best to squander their reputation with releases like this). I absolutely, completely disagree. I wish social media websites were controlled by foundations in the same way Wikipedia is. Maybe it's too late, but it's worth trying. Stuff like this improves their reputation with me, not the opposite.
- gkoberger 3y ago
  Me too! But you need more than a fork of a fork for that to happen. The problem isn't the idea; it's that all they did was throw their logo on it and swap out auth.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Vinnl 3y ago
    Are you assuming it's never going to be changed again? Or should it have been a private project until all other plans are implemented?
  - astiela 3y ago
    They have actually contributed a bunch of code upstream to mastodon
- hiyer 3y ago
  Control by foundations is no guarantee of neutrality - Wikipedia's left wing bias is very evident.
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    So is reality though
    - throwawayfruit 3y ago
      Reality only has a left wing bias for left wing people. For right wingers it has a right wing bias
dugite-code 3y ago
> Password managers are almost impossible to use for the average person Hardly my mother and Partner both quickly picked up and understood Keepass with little prompting beyond me opening it for them and telling them it's a file on their computer just like a word document. If anything they have always had issues with browser password saving methods simply because it's trying to be "too smart" i.e. auto filling and suggesting passwords based on the url and only showing the username, which is always the same email address so that's less than helpful.
mook 3y ago
Unfortunately Mozilla seems too afraid of giving up control. As far as I know, up to the point Persona went away the official deployment instructions were still "don't host your own copy, use Mozilla's, because it might change", effectively making the thing moot (still centralized). And for password management, bug 1344788 is still open so it's not possible for password managers to integrate with Firefox properly, and they have to do hacks that involve running scripts on the untrusted page instead…
Timshel 3y ago
I don't understand this post. Social network are one of the largest problem of the internet right now. A reputable host for the decentralized web is really good and cheap.
JeremyNT 3y ago
> Or do something else! I don't really care. But the world definitely doesn't need another Mastodon instance with the Mozilla logo, any more than it needed a cheap phone with the Mozilla logo or an IoT platform with the Mozilla logo. Strongly disagree here. One of the big issues with Mastodon right now is one of trust. How do you trust that the people running the instance you happened to choose are going to be good stewards of it? I've already read about drama behind people running instances and instances shutting down, and I've never created an account on any instance for this reason. Mozilla though is a real organisation with actual money, staff, and that reputation you mention. I just signed up for the waitlist and am hopeful that Mozilla will follow through here.

wmf 3y ago

It would be amazing if Mozilla picked up Sandstorm and ran with it.

Nition 3y ago

> They could charge for a (headless?) email server that focuses on privacy, and pair it with an open standard for authenticating in the browser based on (any) email. They even have an email client already (Thunderbird).

gkoberger 3y ago
Sorta! It's no longer a Mozilla Corporation product, although it's still owned by the Mozilla Foundation (it spun off as MZLA). But that being said, yes, I agree! (Thunderbird isn't great, though, and there's no iPhone version. I'd much rather be able to, for example, use Superhuman or Spark or something. Right now, I give Google all my data, and don't even use the GMail interface.) Source: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/

none_to_remain 3y ago

Mozilla is a billion dollar corporation Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2021/article/angela-and-eric/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2021/a...

jordigh 3y ago
The corporation part is kind of a legal hack, though. It's a corporation owned by a foundation and it answers only to that foundation. It has no inherent profit motive, no shareholders. Basically, this happened because search was an accident. By incorporating Google search as the default, Mozilla suddenly found a revenue source it did not expect. It created the corporation in order to better handle the influx of money without losing the nonprofit status. So, while it has a lot of money, it's really at its heart a foundation, not a corporation.
- none_to_remain 3y ago
  While one is called Mozilla Foundation and one is called Mozilla Corporation, they are both corporations. You can see the Mozilla Foundation's articles of incorporation: "The name of the corporation is Mozilla Foundation" https://www-archive.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/mf-articles-of-incorporation.pdf https://www-archive.mozilla.org/foundation/documents/mf-arti...
  - jordigh 3y ago
    I'm not sure what that means, but it's a 501(c)(3). Here is the foundation's annual report, for example: > Established in July 2003, Mozilla Foundation (the Foundation) is a California not-for-profit corporation that exists to improve and protect the internet as a public resource by working with thousands of volunteers to 1) keep the internet a universal open platform and 2) promote continued innovation on the internet. The Foundation supports the development of open- source, standards-compliant, free internet applications useable free of charge to hundreds of millions of users. It also a) develops foundational technologies that can be used to build the values of openness and interoperability into the internet; and b) fuels the movement for an open internet through educational work that connects open internet leaders with each other and mobilizes grassroot activities around the world. The Foundation is headquartered in San Francisco, California. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-2021-fs-final-1010.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-202... I don't think the word "corporation" in "non-profit corporation" means much of anything as long as it has its non-profit status.

richdougherty 3y ago

I'd love them to fund an Android variant or replacement for Android services. Mobile is the other main platform apart from web.

gkoberger 3y ago
They did, back in 2012ish. It was called FirefoxOS, and it wasn't well recieved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
- wmf 3y ago
  IMO FirefoxOS wasn't well received partly because it wasn't Android-based. Ultimately I wouldn't try to do a mobile OS without ~$10B in marketing/ecosystem funding.
  - richdougherty 3y ago
    Agreed, it needs to be Android based - the other option would be to implement iOS APIs, but Android would be a lot easier. An analogy would be if you make a browser, to use standard HTML and HTTP, not try to invent your own thing.
- botanical 3y ago
  Its fork, KaiOS, is widely successful (but Proprietary). They should have stuck with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS
wishfish 3y ago
I'd love to see this too. Would love it if it was an OS that scaled well from desktop to mobile (at least tablet) sizes. I'm a big fan of the basic idea behind Chrome OS. Not so much a fan of giving Google my info. Would be nice to have a real alternative in this niche.

frandroid 3y ago

> (despite them doing their best to squander their reputation with releases like this) ...how?

anon25783 3y ago

> I really wish they'd spearhead a safe way to bring identity to the browser level, Why? I don't want companies on the internet to know who I am, or that I am even a single unique person.

gkoberger 3y ago
Agreed! You’d click login, and a list of your email addresses / identities would pop up and you could pick one. No product would ever know the identities were connected; not even Mozilla (since it’s at the browser level).

natrius 3y ago

Too many of the identity and data problems are network effect problems, and ad revenue is the best business model that has been discovered for tackling those problems. The business model is incompatible with openness and user sovereignty: the dollars go to the platforms with the most users, and the other platforms die. We can't get the Mozilla we want until they discover a network effect business model that's actually compatible with empowered users. Until each user gets to steer every advertising dollar on the internet where they want them to be spent, there's plenty of room for innovation.

spankalee 3y ago

Rather than focusing mostly on client-side software, I wish Mozilla would bet more into SaaS services like hosted email, and docs. I think a lot of people would prefer Mozilla over other options and it would be amazing to be able to use (and contribute to) open source SaaS apps, but hosted by an organization like Mozilla. It could provide another revenue stream for them. I love the sibling comment about Sandstorm too.

nwiswell 3y ago

> People still trust Mozilla (despite them doing their best to squander their reputation with releases like this). I absolutely, completely disagree. I wish social media websites were controlled by foundations in the same way Wikipedia is. Maybe it's too late, but it's worth trying. Stuff like this improves their reputation with me, not the opposite.

gkoberger 3y ago
Me too! But you need more than a fork of a fork for that to happen. The problem isn't the idea; it's that all they did was throw their logo on it and swap out auth.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Vinnl 3y ago
  Are you assuming it's never going to be changed again? Or should it have been a private project until all other plans are implemented?
- astiela 3y ago
  They have actually contributed a bunch of code upstream to mastodon
hiyer 3y ago
Control by foundations is no guarantee of neutrality - Wikipedia's left wing bias is very evident.
- hughesjj 3y ago
  So is reality though
  - throwawayfruit 3y ago
    Reality only has a left wing bias for left wing people. For right wingers it has a right wing bias

dugite-code 3y ago

> Password managers are almost impossible to use for the average person Hardly my mother and Partner both quickly picked up and understood Keepass with little prompting beyond me opening it for them and telling them it's a file on their computer just like a word document. If anything they have always had issues with browser password saving methods simply because it's trying to be "too smart" i.e. auto filling and suggesting passwords based on the url and only showing the username, which is always the same email address so that's less than helpful.

mook 3y ago

Unfortunately Mozilla seems too afraid of giving up control. As far as I know, up to the point Persona went away the official deployment instructions were still "don't host your own copy, use Mozilla's, because it might change", effectively making the thing moot (still centralized). And for password management, bug 1344788 is still open so it's not possible for password managers to integrate with Firefox properly, and they have to do hacks that involve running scripts on the untrusted page instead…

Timshel 3y ago

I don't understand this post. Social network are one of the largest problem of the internet right now. A reputable host for the decentralized web is really good and cheap.

JeremyNT 3y ago

> Or do something else! I don't really care. But the world definitely doesn't need another Mastodon instance with the Mozilla logo, any more than it needed a cheap phone with the Mozilla logo or an IoT platform with the Mozilla logo. Strongly disagree here. One of the big issues with Mastodon right now is one of trust. How do you trust that the people running the instance you happened to choose are going to be good stewards of it? I've already read about drama behind people running instances and instances shutting down, and I've never created an account on any instance for this reason. Mozilla though is a real organisation with actual money, staff, and that reputation you mention. I just signed up for the waitlist and am hopeful that Mozilla will follow through here.