3 ms·

> six months into the pandemic, Mozilla laid off the entire [Rust] team, killing its next-gen rendering engine, Servo.¶ (Much of Mozilla's revenue comes from Go

by cxr 3y ago

> six months into the pandemic, Mozilla laid off the entire [Rust] team, killing its next-gen rendering engine, Servo.¶ (Much of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google, of course. This couldn't be because Rust was, and is, outshining Google's GoLang? Surely not?) Really dumb aside that shouldn't have made it past the editor (not least of all because of the insane rendering of "GoLang"). > Mozilla also backs the development of the leading cross-platform messaging client, Thunderbird. This overstates Mozilla's involvement in Thunderbird. The relationship is basically ceremonial at this point. > in 1998, owner AOL promised to open source it[...]. Four years later, the open source version shipped. The way this is written makes it sound like there was a delay to fulfill the promise. In reality, it only took 2 months for Netscape to publish source code. It took another four years for them to decide to scrap the old code and undertake a rewrite that culminated in the release a 1.0 of a different product line which the author refers to here.

bitcurious 3y ago
“Golang” used to be a google-endrosed synonym for Go; the official domain was golang.org for a while.
- dralley 3y ago
  Yes but nobody capitalizes the L
  - wussboy 3y ago
    Sigh.
micimize 3y ago
Yeah I found it tough to keep reading after that golang line. What an absolutely unhinged thing to imply. While I maybe self-servingly agree that mozilla could stand to focus more on the power-user market segment, this article feels more like a low-effort ramble than any kind of real investigation into what the modern org's actual focus is vs what it should/could be.
- lproven 3y ago
  I was not implying it. I was attempting to rebut a common implication.
smarnach 3y ago
Thunderbird is maintained by a company that is fully owned by the Mozilla Foundation. How is that "ceremonial"?
- cxr 3y ago
  I can't answer that question without understanding why you think the relationship you're describing necessarily makes it one that isn't ceremonial (which is what you seem to be implying). You go first.
  - smarnach 3y ago
    I don't understand. If you think a fully owned subsidiary can have a "basically ceremonial" to the parent foundation, then what kind of relationship would be "not ceremonial"? For what it's worth, Firefox is also developed by a fully owned subsidiary of the Mozilla foundation. Do you also think the relationship between Firefox and Mozilla is "basically ceremonial"?
    - cxr 3y ago
      > If you think a fully owned subsidiary can have a "basically ceremonial" to the parent foundation, then what kind of relationship would be "not ceremonial"? One in which the latter's involvement with the former (including influence on and influence from) amounts to substantially more than letting one use the other's name. The relationship between Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation, for example, is not merely ceremonial. > For what it's worth, Firefox is also developed by a fully owned subsidiary of the Mozilla foundation. Do you also think the relationship between Firefox and Mozilla is "basically ceremonial"? No.
      - smarnach 3y ago
        I'm still not sure what you want to express. The CEO of MZLA technologies is appointed by, and reports to the Mozilla board of directors. Of course the Mozilla Foundation has influence on the Thunderbird project. Moreover, the employees of MZLA join Mozilla's yearly "all-hands", together with everyone else working for Mozilla. The progress of the Thunderbird project is reported at Mozilla monthly internal meetings. I have a hard time understanding what else you'd expect to call the relationship "not ceremonial". MZLA Technologies and the Mozilla Corporation are different, but their relationship to the foundation is rather similar.
lproven 3y ago
Article author here. > Really dumb aside that shouldn't have made it past the editor Why? It was 100% intentional and the reason I included it is that I have often seen this raised as an alleged reason for Mozilla not more aggressively competing with Google, notably here on HN. I don't believe it for a minute. That is specifically why I said "surely not". > (not least of all because of the insane rendering of "GoLang"). "golang" is one of its official names and that is because the bare word "go" is open to misinterpretation and is hard to Google. The caps were merely for emphasis, and also, interCaps help screen-reader users. > This overstates Mozilla's involvement in Thunderbird. The relationship is basically ceremonial at this point. [Citation needed] > The way this is written makes it sound like there was a delay to fulfill the promise. There was. > In reality, it only took 2 months for Netscape to publish source code. It took another four years for them to decide to scrap the old code and undertake a rewrite that culminated in the release a 1.0 of a different product line which the author refers to here. Arguably true but, I submit, tangential to the actual point. The decision to O/S it being the same time as the Netscape 5 rewrite was a deeply stupid idea, but also understandable. However, it was some 25 years ago now, so I didn't and don't think it merits more than a single-line passing mention and was not -- and is not -- worth this level of hair-splitting.
- cxr 3y ago
  I'm not going to bother responding in depth, since it's evident that that will be fruitless. This, for example, is a good indicator: > Arguably true but There's nothing arguable about it. It's simply "true".
  - lproven 3y ago
    [[Citation needed]] I mean this is ancient history and I really don't know why you are so bothered about it, but as I recall, Netscape was unwilling and unable to open the source code for 3.x or 4.x and so rather than spend all the time and effort to clean it up for publication, it chose to rewrite it. So, as I said: the reasoning was unfortunate but understandable.
    - 3y ago

by cxr 3y ago

bitcurious 3y ago

“Golang” used to be a google-endrosed synonym for Go; the official domain was golang.org for a while.

dralley 3y ago
Yes but nobody capitalizes the L
- wussboy 3y ago
  Sigh.

micimize 3y ago

Yeah I found it tough to keep reading after that golang line. What an absolutely unhinged thing to imply. While I maybe self-servingly agree that mozilla could stand to focus more on the power-user market segment, this article feels more like a low-effort ramble than any kind of real investigation into what the modern org's actual focus is vs what it should/could be.

lproven 3y ago
I was not implying it. I was attempting to rebut a common implication.

smarnach 3y ago

Thunderbird is maintained by a company that is fully owned by the Mozilla Foundation. How is that "ceremonial"?

cxr 3y ago
I can't answer that question without understanding why you think the relationship you're describing necessarily makes it one that isn't ceremonial (which is what you seem to be implying). You go first.
- smarnach 3y ago
  I don't understand. If you think a fully owned subsidiary can have a "basically ceremonial" to the parent foundation, then what kind of relationship would be "not ceremonial"? For what it's worth, Firefox is also developed by a fully owned subsidiary of the Mozilla foundation. Do you also think the relationship between Firefox and Mozilla is "basically ceremonial"?
  - cxr 3y ago
    > If you think a fully owned subsidiary can have a "basically ceremonial" to the parent foundation, then what kind of relationship would be "not ceremonial"? One in which the latter's involvement with the former (including influence on and influence from) amounts to substantially more than letting one use the other's name. The relationship between Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation, for example, is not merely ceremonial. > For what it's worth, Firefox is also developed by a fully owned subsidiary of the Mozilla foundation. Do you also think the relationship between Firefox and Mozilla is "basically ceremonial"? No.
    - smarnach 3y ago
      I'm still not sure what you want to express. The CEO of MZLA technologies is appointed by, and reports to the Mozilla board of directors. Of course the Mozilla Foundation has influence on the Thunderbird project. Moreover, the employees of MZLA join Mozilla's yearly "all-hands", together with everyone else working for Mozilla. The progress of the Thunderbird project is reported at Mozilla monthly internal meetings. I have a hard time understanding what else you'd expect to call the relationship "not ceremonial". MZLA Technologies and the Mozilla Corporation are different, but their relationship to the foundation is rather similar.

lproven 3y ago

Article author here. > Really dumb aside that shouldn't have made it past the editor Why? It was 100% intentional and the reason I included it is that I have often seen this raised as an alleged reason for Mozilla not more aggressively competing with Google, notably here on HN. I don't believe it for a minute. That is specifically why I said "surely not". > (not least of all because of the insane rendering of "GoLang"). "golang" is one of its official names and that is because the bare word "go" is open to misinterpretation and is hard to Google. The caps were merely for emphasis, and also, interCaps help screen-reader users. > This overstates Mozilla's involvement in Thunderbird. The relationship is basically ceremonial at this point. [Citation needed] > The way this is written makes it sound like there was a delay to fulfill the promise. There was. > In reality, it only took 2 months for Netscape to publish source code. It took another four years for them to decide to scrap the old code and undertake a rewrite that culminated in the release a 1.0 of a different product line which the author refers to here. Arguably true but, I submit, tangential to the actual point. The decision to O/S it being the same time as the Netscape 5 rewrite was a deeply stupid idea, but also understandable. However, it was some 25 years ago now, so I didn't and don't think it merits more than a single-line passing mention and was not -- and is not -- worth this level of hair-splitting.

cxr 3y ago
I'm not going to bother responding in depth, since it's evident that that will be fruitless. This, for example, is a good indicator: > Arguably true but There's nothing arguable about it. It's simply "true".
- lproven 3y ago
  [[Citation needed]] I mean this is ancient history and I really don't know why you are so bothered about it, but as I recall, Netscape was unwilling and unable to open the source code for 3.x or 4.x and so rather than spend all the time and effort to clean it up for publication, it chose to rewrite it. So, as I said: the reasoning was unfortunate but understandable.
  - 3y ago