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They likely view the idea off competing with Chrome - a key chess piece of the company keeping Mozilla around merely as a pet to ward of regulators - as impossi

They likely view the idea off competing with Chrome - a key chess piece of the company keeping Mozilla around merely as a pet to ward of regulators - as impossible if not counterproductive to their mid-term survival at this point. Which is to say, at some point they might become annoying enough for Google to not want to pay them anymore, and then Mozilla would cease to exist shortly thereafter. So with that in mind, Firefox as a dedicated separate browser with its own engine is an albatross around their neck. A source of significant ongoing investment and cost for comparatively little return. For the Mozilla "mission" and the CEO's personal goals and purpose, a simple rebadged chromium fork skinned up with open-web platitudes is a far better idea in the long term.

phpisthebest 3y ago
No absolutely not... That would be the worst thing for the web. Blink is objectively bad in the first place, and we need more than just chromiumum skins in the market. I wish they would finish and move to Servo. I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. Everyone consolidating down to Blink and Chromium is about the worst thing that could happen to anyone that desires an open Web
- macspoofing 3y ago
  >I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. But that would have required them to invest in R&D to match performance but also to make their rendering engine easily embeddable (with a corresponding investment in documentation and outreach).
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    I believe that was a goal of servo, however it was starved for resources (just like the documentation project) in favor of foolish endeavors like Pocket, VPN Services, FireFox OS, and of course there many missteps in the world of Political Social Activism.
    - lern_too_spel 3y ago
      FirefoxOS was Brendan's project. Also, why don't you consider preventing gay people from marrying to be "Political Social Activism?" Why do you want to force Mozilla to have a leader who is a religious fundamentalist culture warrior?
      - chrisco255 3y ago
        Brendan's personal political donations were his own business unless he made it some organizational goal or priority for Mozilla, which he never did.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Brendan's personal political donations were his own business Eh, a CEO is a quasi-public figure. Those weren't his personal business entirely. (Consider a gay employee at Mozilla or partner.) That said, the solution was chastisement and a public apology. Not termination.
        xcv123 3y ago
        > the solution was chastisement and a public apology Not all gays are in favor of gay marriage. The solution was to let him have his political opinions, and simply agree to disagree, like adults.
        pasttense01 3y ago
        There was no evidence that Brendan discriminated against gay employees at Mozilla.
        pseudalopex 3y ago
        Conduct outside of work is considered for many jobs. And even Eich acknowledged he hurt people.
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
  - VancouverMan 3y ago
    > This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. Years ago, Gecko had at least some support for being embedded within native applications. This was apparently discontinued around 2011, though: https://web.archive.org/web/20110403052816/http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-kills-embedding-support-for-Gecko-layout-engine-Update-1218990.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110403052816/http://www.h-onli... https://web.archive.org/web/20210723183100/https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N8wo https://web.archive.org/web/20210723183100/https://groups.go... At that time, there were a number of browsers with native UIs that used Gecko, and software to help embed Gecko in other apps, such as: Camino: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_(web_browser) K-Meleon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon Galeon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galeon gtkmozembed: https://web.archive.org/web/20110505053545/http://www.mozilla.org/unix/gtk-embedding.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110505053545/http://www.mozill... JavaXPCOM: https://web.archive.org/web/20100626110814/https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaXPCOM https://web.archive.org/web/20100626110814/https://developer... There was also XULRunner, too: https://web.archive.org/web/20161201115812/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Mozilla/XULRunner https://web.archive.org/web/20161201115812/https://developer... Mozilla and Gecko had a staggering amount of potential back then, but it was squandered away, unfortunately.
    - soundnote 3y ago
      There was a XULRunner-based media player too, I used it for a good while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(software)
- nozzlegear 3y ago
  There's always money in ~~the banana stand~~. Er, webkit.
- ImJamal 3y ago
  >Blink is objectively bad in the first place Do you mind explaining this statement?
- soundnote 3y ago
  Brave actually started out as a Gecko-based project - they were using some Gecko-based Electron equivalent, if memory serves. It was such a PITA to work with that they switched to a Chromium base.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Right. What would be lost if they used Chromium as well? Sure, there would be a lack of competition but at this point the browser is the fuel of the internet. We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil. The browser - sans Google Chrome's "spyware" - is a commodity. I'd rather see Mozilla focus on privacy, etc. My dream is for them to add a privacy-centric email product, a robust enough office suit (e.g., Google Docs) and then a bundle with those and Relay and their VPN.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  There would still be competition among high level features for the browsers which I feel is more important for users. Reduced competiton on things like performance I don't think will be so bad as either someone will optimized it benefiting everyone, or things that are not hyper optimized will become insignificant as computers get more powerful.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil We do? Actually, this is a great analogy. We have grades of gasoline because there is a trade-off between anti-knocking and cost. Monoculturing the grade approximates the diversity of requirements worse than honing in on a few points on the curve. As with browser engines, there is a limit to this diversity since each additional grade imposes novel fixed costs in production, distribution and combustion. But I’d be surprised if something as varied as browser engines optimally solves for a single solution.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >We have grades of gasoline because there is a trade-off between anti-knocking and cost. Similarly Chromium can be configured in many different way, see chrome://flags. It's open source and has a modular design so even further customization is possible. Different configurations can make different trade offs to appeal more to certain user's needs.
- johannes1234321 3y ago
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
The only reason Google funds them is so they can use Firefox to counter antitrust accusations.
sydbarrett74 3y ago
She's always struck me as a 'style over substance' kind of person, so in this light I guess she's doing a fabulous job, as others in this thread have said.

phpisthebest 3y ago

No absolutely not... That would be the worst thing for the web. Blink is objectively bad in the first place, and we need more than just chromiumum skins in the market. I wish they would finish and move to Servo. I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. Everyone consolidating down to Blink and Chromium is about the worst thing that could happen to anyone that desires an open Web

macspoofing 3y ago
>I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. But that would have required them to invest in R&D to match performance but also to make their rendering engine easily embeddable (with a corresponding investment in documentation and outreach).
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  I believe that was a goal of servo, however it was starved for resources (just like the documentation project) in favor of foolish endeavors like Pocket, VPN Services, FireFox OS, and of course there many missteps in the world of Political Social Activism.
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    FirefoxOS was Brendan's project. Also, why don't you consider preventing gay people from marrying to be "Political Social Activism?" Why do you want to force Mozilla to have a leader who is a religious fundamentalist culture warrior?
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      Brendan's personal political donations were his own business unless he made it some organizational goal or priority for Mozilla, which he never did.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Brendan's personal political donations were his own business Eh, a CEO is a quasi-public figure. Those weren't his personal business entirely. (Consider a gay employee at Mozilla or partner.) That said, the solution was chastisement and a public apology. Not termination.
        xcv123 3y ago
        > the solution was chastisement and a public apology Not all gays are in favor of gay marriage. The solution was to let him have his political opinions, and simply agree to disagree, like adults.
        pasttense01 3y ago
        There was no evidence that Brendan discriminated against gay employees at Mozilla.
        pseudalopex 3y ago
        Conduct outside of work is considered for many jobs. And even Eich acknowledged he hurt people.
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
- VancouverMan 3y ago
  > This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. Years ago, Gecko had at least some support for being embedded within native applications. This was apparently discontinued around 2011, though: https://web.archive.org/web/20110403052816/http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-kills-embedding-support-for-Gecko-layout-engine-Update-1218990.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110403052816/http://www.h-onli... https://web.archive.org/web/20210723183100/https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N8wo https://web.archive.org/web/20210723183100/https://groups.go... At that time, there were a number of browsers with native UIs that used Gecko, and software to help embed Gecko in other apps, such as: Camino: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_(web_browser) K-Meleon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon Galeon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galeon gtkmozembed: https://web.archive.org/web/20110505053545/http://www.mozilla.org/unix/gtk-embedding.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110505053545/http://www.mozill... JavaXPCOM: https://web.archive.org/web/20100626110814/https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaXPCOM https://web.archive.org/web/20100626110814/https://developer... There was also XULRunner, too: https://web.archive.org/web/20161201115812/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Mozilla/XULRunner https://web.archive.org/web/20161201115812/https://developer... Mozilla and Gecko had a staggering amount of potential back then, but it was squandered away, unfortunately.
  - soundnote 3y ago
    There was a XULRunner-based media player too, I used it for a good while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbird_(software)
nozzlegear 3y ago
There's always money in ~~the banana stand~~. Er, webkit.
ImJamal 3y ago
>Blink is objectively bad in the first place Do you mind explaining this statement?
soundnote 3y ago
Brave actually started out as a Gecko-based project - they were using some Gecko-based Electron equivalent, if memory serves. It was such a PITA to work with that they switched to a Chromium base.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Right. What would be lost if they used Chromium as well? Sure, there would be a lack of competition but at this point the browser is the fuel of the internet. We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil. The browser - sans Google Chrome's "spyware" - is a commodity. I'd rather see Mozilla focus on privacy, etc. My dream is for them to add a privacy-centric email product, a robust enough office suit (e.g., Google Docs) and then a bundle with those and Relay and their VPN.

charcircuit 3y ago
There would still be competition among high level features for the browsers which I feel is more important for users. Reduced competiton on things like performance I don't think will be so bad as either someone will optimized it benefiting everyone, or things that are not hyper optimized will become insignificant as computers get more powerful.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil We do? Actually, this is a great analogy. We have grades of gasoline because there is a trade-off between anti-knocking and cost. Monoculturing the grade approximates the diversity of requirements worse than honing in on a few points on the curve. As with browser engines, there is a limit to this diversity since each additional grade imposes novel fixed costs in production, distribution and combustion. But I’d be surprised if something as varied as browser engines optimally solves for a single solution.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >We have grades of gasoline because there is a trade-off between anti-knocking and cost. Similarly Chromium can be configured in many different way, see chrome://flags. It's open source and has a modular design so even further customization is possible. Different configurations can make different trade offs to appeal more to certain user's needs.
johannes1234321 3y ago

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago

The only reason Google funds them is so they can use Firefox to counter antitrust accusations.

sydbarrett74 3y ago

She's always struck me as a 'style over substance' kind of person, so in this light I guess she's doing a fabulous job, as others in this thread have said.