3 ms·

Here's an idea on how to turn this ship in the right direction: get Musk interested in funding a project which will fork the code base, clean up the cruft - poc

Here's an idea on how to turn this ship in the right direction: get Musk interested in funding a project which will fork the code base, clean up the cruft - pocket etc. - and relaunch Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox. That is what a Phoenix is supposed to do after all, when the time has come to die it will burn to ashes from which it arises all new and fresh. Why Musk? The choice seems clear as are the tangents to his other activities. He is one of the few "tech zillionaires" who does not kowtow to the demands of the censorious identity politics crowd which has instantly turned him from one of the darlings of "progressives" to "undesired person #1". He seems to have the drive to keep that crowd from dominating the 'net. Having all major browsers - Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox - under the control of that same crowd in one way or another is not conducive to the diversity of opinion on the 'net, the only type of diversity which really matters and yet the one type of diversity which is shunned by the aforementioned I.P. crowd. What is needed is developers ("developers, developers, developers!" [1]), funding and mindshare. The latter is probably fairly easy to get given that there are many who are more than tired of all that identity politicking. Funding should not be that hard to arrange either given the way money is being thrown around. Developers who are versed in the Gecko code base and are willing to work for a project which explicitly states to be politically neutral - as in 'does not push any narrative' - is more of a question. If there is anyone here who works/worked at Mozilla who can shine a light on that it would be helpful. Do those who work/worked there actually support Baker's push towards politicising the Mozilla project while the flagship product - Firefox - is heading towards oblivion? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33grif58qO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33grif58qO8

the_third_wave 3y ago
To the downvoters: tell us what you think instead of trying to get an opinion contrary to your own greyed out. Is it just that I mention undesirable person #1 which caught your ire, is it that you do not think a fork would be a good idea, is it because you do not agree that Mozilla has been abused by Baker? Discuss, do not just click that down-vote button.
- kemotep 3y ago
  People are probably turned off to the comment because of all the complaining about “identity politics”. There also exists several forks of Firefox already. Suggesting the nth idealogical fork that will be funded out of the kindness of a billionaire’s heart doesn’t sound productive. Why not donate to Librewolf? Why must Musk actually have any involvement besides funding?
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    The "complaining about identity politics" is part of the core reason for creating a non-politicised fork which can take over where Firefox left at a ~32% market share, i.e. it can attempt to regain part of the market lost to Chrome and its many descendants. The reason for Musk to get involved (apart from funding) is to make sure the project remains politically neutral as that would be one of selling points when compared to the rest of the field. It would mean that this fork - let's call it Techiya, Hebrew for 'resurrection' and thus a fitting name for this project - explicitly stays out of the political quagmire which has swallowed Mozilla and deeply affects the way companies like Google (Chrome), Microsoft (Edge) and Apple (Safari) (re)act. It would focus on creating a competitive browser which can host a fully functional content blocker, which does not send oodles of tracking information to some mothership, which does not waste time promoting things like "racial justice" [1] but focuses on its core task of developing a solid alternative to the current Blink/Webkit-based almost-monoculture. Leave the politicking to others, not everything needs to be politicised. Librewolf and Palemoon and Waterfox and the Tor Browser and the other Firefox forks do not have enough impact to survive by themselves without Firefox itself. They are projects focused on specific aspects - privacy, XPCOM/XUL extensions, plugins etc. If Firefox goes down so do these projects - maybe apart from Palemoon but that is only because that project already depends on a lot of older code which is no longer supported by Mozilla to enable it to run pre-Quantum extensions and plugins. What I'm philosophising about is a project which can take over where Mozilla left off, focused on creating and maintaining a viable alternative to the current Blink/WebKit hegemony and intent on gaining a sizeable market share. [1 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozilla-racial-justice-commitments-one-year-in/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozilla-racia...

the_third_wave 3y ago

To the downvoters: tell us what you think instead of trying to get an opinion contrary to your own greyed out. Is it just that I mention undesirable person #1 which caught your ire, is it that you do not think a fork would be a good idea, is it because you do not agree that Mozilla has been abused by Baker? Discuss, do not just click that down-vote button.

kemotep 3y ago
People are probably turned off to the comment because of all the complaining about “identity politics”. There also exists several forks of Firefox already. Suggesting the nth idealogical fork that will be funded out of the kindness of a billionaire’s heart doesn’t sound productive. Why not donate to Librewolf? Why must Musk actually have any involvement besides funding?
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  The "complaining about identity politics" is part of the core reason for creating a non-politicised fork which can take over where Firefox left at a ~32% market share, i.e. it can attempt to regain part of the market lost to Chrome and its many descendants. The reason for Musk to get involved (apart from funding) is to make sure the project remains politically neutral as that would be one of selling points when compared to the rest of the field. It would mean that this fork - let's call it Techiya, Hebrew for 'resurrection' and thus a fitting name for this project - explicitly stays out of the political quagmire which has swallowed Mozilla and deeply affects the way companies like Google (Chrome), Microsoft (Edge) and Apple (Safari) (re)act. It would focus on creating a competitive browser which can host a fully functional content blocker, which does not send oodles of tracking information to some mothership, which does not waste time promoting things like "racial justice" [1] but focuses on its core task of developing a solid alternative to the current Blink/Webkit-based almost-monoculture. Leave the politicking to others, not everything needs to be politicised. Librewolf and Palemoon and Waterfox and the Tor Browser and the other Firefox forks do not have enough impact to survive by themselves without Firefox itself. They are projects focused on specific aspects - privacy, XPCOM/XUL extensions, plugins etc. If Firefox goes down so do these projects - maybe apart from Palemoon but that is only because that project already depends on a lot of older code which is no longer supported by Mozilla to enable it to run pre-Quantum extensions and plugins. What I'm philosophising about is a project which can take over where Mozilla left off, focused on creating and maintaining a viable alternative to the current Blink/WebKit hegemony and intent on gaining a sizeable market share. [1 https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozilla-racial-justice-commitments-one-year-in/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozilla-racia...