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I can't think of any important things Mozilla has created since pushing Brendan Eich out 9 years ago. That's almost a decade and billions in revenue they've bur

I can't think of any important things Mozilla has created since pushing Brendan Eich out 9 years ago. That's almost a decade and billions in revenue they've burned through. There's now almost no programmers on the board or in senior leadership positions. The interim CEO they picked is an MBA who ran a business line at AirBnB. It seems like another case of MBAs taking over.

wolverine876 3y ago
Rust, for example. How many organizations the size of Mozilla create two revolutionary products in unrelated fields?
- depr 3y ago
  Didn't Netscape create Firefox?
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Netscape, on its deathbed (and I think due to Baker's efforts, in part), open-sourced the Netscape code. Mozilla was created by ex-Netscapers, developed that code, and released a few versions of a Mozilla browser, which followed Netscape's idea of integrating browser, mail client, webpage editor, other stuff (maybe IRC client?). Sometime later, a few Mozillians decided the web and Mozilla needed a simple, sleek, fast browser, and built Firefox.
    - toyg 3y ago
      Mozilla was created by Netscape itself, before its "deathbed". They were possibly the first "open-core" project of significant scale: they wanted to do a Big Rewrite (Netscape 4 code was unmanageable and crusty), and hoped that doing it as opensource would speed things up. The original Mozilla suite was supposed to be the experimental/rough version, which Netscape would then polish and sell as its own. Unfortunately, by the time this happened (and it did happen - Netscape released a few Mozilla-based versions), the browser market was entirely commoditized and there was no path to profitability for Netscape (which had been absorbed by AOL by then). The Big Rewrite took way longer than expected, and the open setup introduced even more development friction. The Mozilla suite never got anything else beyond browser/mail/editor. I think the AOL version shipped a bunch of extra bookmarks and that's it. They had already built some infrastructure for extensions and themes though, and that's effectively what Firefox took to extreme consequences: a skunkwork group of Mozilla devs stripped the suite down to the lone browser, and forced everything else to be an extension. That was Phoenix (rebirth and all that), which became Firebird (because people can't spell Phoenix, and the other surviving products could be aligned as Thunderbird and Sunbird), which became Firefox (because oops in IT there's a Firebird already, a database with angry lawyers).
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        That sounds more accurate to me. Sorry everyone, I should have made clear that my version might be off in a few details.
        archerx 3y ago
        You seem to have a very strange bias.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- azemetre 3y ago
  Didn’t the CEO literally fire the entire rust team, not start the team? I guess that’s a surplus good if you meant for all these highly skilled engineers taking their talents to other companies.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Did they? They helped Rust form it's own foundation and spun it off.
    - azemetre 3y ago
      Yes they did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143819
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        That doesn't match your prior statement.
        azemetre 3y ago
        Fair enough, I think a literal decimation is close enough.
- BrendanEich 3y ago
  I was executive sponsor of Rust, which Graydon Hoare was doing as a personal project while working with me on ES4. Rob Sayre, JS team manager, agreed Rust should be an official project, so Graydon went full time on Rust at Mozilla. This was in 2008. Later, others notably Niko Matsakis and Patrick Walton (apologies for leaving yet other folks’ names out) took Rust to 1.0. Mitchell didn’t know what Rust was until I explained it, wasn’t CEO when we made it an official project, but was CEO for this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-language-rust-mozilla-job-cuts-have-hit-us-badly-but-heres-how-well-survive/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-language-rust-mozi...
  - bakchodi 3y ago
    Holy shit, this is actually Eich. Comment deserves more attention Huge fan, you were pushed out unfairly - it's wild that you were fired for donating money to a vote that passed. It was a normal and popular opinion at the time.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    Brendan, I'm a big fan of a lot of your work, but I really think it's a poor look commenting in this thread at all. Most folks on HN are well aware of Mitchell's record, and those that aren't...well it's willful ignorance on their part.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - cwaffles 3y ago
      Why is this a poor look? I was not aware of Brendan's involvement with Rust, nor the effect of the firings on the Rust team.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        You are only getting Brendan's story, and why is Brendan going out of his way to attack Mitchell Baker? It strongly implies some powerful drive besides sharing information.
jacooper 3y ago
Compare that to what Eich achieved with brave in that period.
- jononor 3y ago
  I am a bit unsure how to interpret this... Has he achieved a lot, or nog so much, comparatively?
  - warkdarrior 3y ago
    He managed to do a lot of things with Brave, compared to how much Firefox changed. That's a fact irrespective of one likes Brave or not.
  - jacooper 3y ago
    He achieved a lot. Launched a new browser with full privacy protections by default, an independent search engine, a private LLM service and more while Mozilla just rebranded things from others.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- wolverine876 3y ago
  It's not a competition. Who are you or I to judge?
  - jacooper 3y ago
    If anything, it shows how Mozilla with it's resources are just wasting money, brave was bootstraped with a much smaller team and capital, yet they defended privacy in a way Firefox never could.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > they defended privacy in a way Firefox never could I have some familiarity with Brave. They use Chromium (or some components of it?) which is probably more secure from attackers. It has some built-in privacy, but how is it better than Firefox's?

wolverine876 3y ago

Rust, for example. How many organizations the size of Mozilla create two revolutionary products in unrelated fields?

depr 3y ago
Didn't Netscape create Firefox?
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Netscape, on its deathbed (and I think due to Baker's efforts, in part), open-sourced the Netscape code. Mozilla was created by ex-Netscapers, developed that code, and released a few versions of a Mozilla browser, which followed Netscape's idea of integrating browser, mail client, webpage editor, other stuff (maybe IRC client?). Sometime later, a few Mozillians decided the web and Mozilla needed a simple, sleek, fast browser, and built Firefox.
  - toyg 3y ago
    Mozilla was created by Netscape itself, before its "deathbed". They were possibly the first "open-core" project of significant scale: they wanted to do a Big Rewrite (Netscape 4 code was unmanageable and crusty), and hoped that doing it as opensource would speed things up. The original Mozilla suite was supposed to be the experimental/rough version, which Netscape would then polish and sell as its own. Unfortunately, by the time this happened (and it did happen - Netscape released a few Mozilla-based versions), the browser market was entirely commoditized and there was no path to profitability for Netscape (which had been absorbed by AOL by then). The Big Rewrite took way longer than expected, and the open setup introduced even more development friction. The Mozilla suite never got anything else beyond browser/mail/editor. I think the AOL version shipped a bunch of extra bookmarks and that's it. They had already built some infrastructure for extensions and themes though, and that's effectively what Firefox took to extreme consequences: a skunkwork group of Mozilla devs stripped the suite down to the lone browser, and forced everything else to be an extension. That was Phoenix (rebirth and all that), which became Firebird (because people can't spell Phoenix, and the other surviving products could be aligned as Thunderbird and Sunbird), which became Firefox (because oops in IT there's a Firebird already, a database with angry lawyers).
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      That sounds more accurate to me. Sorry everyone, I should have made clear that my version might be off in a few details.
      - archerx 3y ago
        You seem to have a very strange bias.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
azemetre 3y ago
Didn’t the CEO literally fire the entire rust team, not start the team? I guess that’s a surplus good if you meant for all these highly skilled engineers taking their talents to other companies.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Did they? They helped Rust form it's own foundation and spun it off.
  - azemetre 3y ago
    Yes they did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24143819
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      That doesn't match your prior statement.
      - azemetre 3y ago
        Fair enough, I think a literal decimation is close enough.
BrendanEich 3y ago
I was executive sponsor of Rust, which Graydon Hoare was doing as a personal project while working with me on ES4. Rob Sayre, JS team manager, agreed Rust should be an official project, so Graydon went full time on Rust at Mozilla. This was in 2008. Later, others notably Niko Matsakis and Patrick Walton (apologies for leaving yet other folks’ names out) took Rust to 1.0. Mitchell didn’t know what Rust was until I explained it, wasn’t CEO when we made it an official project, but was CEO for this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-language-rust-mozilla-job-cuts-have-hit-us-badly-but-heres-how-well-survive/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-language-rust-mozi...
- bakchodi 3y ago
  Holy shit, this is actually Eich. Comment deserves more attention Huge fan, you were pushed out unfairly - it's wild that you were fired for donating money to a vote that passed. It was a normal and popular opinion at the time.
- COGlory 3y ago
  Brendan, I'm a big fan of a lot of your work, but I really think it's a poor look commenting in this thread at all. Most folks on HN are well aware of Mitchell's record, and those that aren't...well it's willful ignorance on their part.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cwaffles 3y ago
    Why is this a poor look? I was not aware of Brendan's involvement with Rust, nor the effect of the firings on the Rust team.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      You are only getting Brendan's story, and why is Brendan going out of his way to attack Mitchell Baker? It strongly implies some powerful drive besides sharing information.

jacooper 3y ago

Compare that to what Eich achieved with brave in that period.

jononor 3y ago
I am a bit unsure how to interpret this... Has he achieved a lot, or nog so much, comparatively?
- warkdarrior 3y ago
  He managed to do a lot of things with Brave, compared to how much Firefox changed. That's a fact irrespective of one likes Brave or not.
- jacooper 3y ago
  He achieved a lot. Launched a new browser with full privacy protections by default, an independent search engine, a private LLM service and more while Mozilla just rebranded things from others.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
wolverine876 3y ago
It's not a competition. Who are you or I to judge?
- jacooper 3y ago
  If anything, it shows how Mozilla with it's resources are just wasting money, brave was bootstraped with a much smaller team and capital, yet they defended privacy in a way Firefox never could.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > they defended privacy in a way Firefox never could I have some familiarity with Brave. They use Chromium (or some components of it?) which is probably more secure from attackers. It has some built-in privacy, but how is it better than Firefox's?