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That was my first thought. A few days ago JWZ had a great take on where Mozilla is today: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/ https://www.j

That was my first thought. A few days ago JWZ had a great take on where Mozilla is today: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozillas-original-sin/

matthewn 2y ago
Any link to there from here will only get you JWZ's take on HN.
- lizknope 2y ago
  That's kind of hilarious. I guess he's using the HTTP "referer" tag
  - neilv 2y ago
    There are a bunch of settings in Firefox that affect this (if you don't mind occasionally breaking a Web site in a way no one will bother to diagnose): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Referrer https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Referrer
    - hinkley 2y ago
      Just copy the url and paste it into a new tab.
      - neilv 2y ago
        That works for viewing a particular page. Why people might want to adjust the `Referer` behavior of the browser is that it leaks more information than you might think.
    - lizknope 2y ago
      They spelled it "correctly" there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer Etymology The misspelling of referrer was introduced in the original proposal by computer scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker to incorporate the "Referer" header field into the HTTP specification.[7][8] The misspelling was set in stone by the time (May 1996) of its incorporation into the Request for Comments standards document RFC 1945[9] (which 'reflects common usage of the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.0"' at that time); document co-author Roy Fielding remarked in March 1995 that "neither one (referer or referrer) is understood by" the standard Unix spell checker of the period.[10] "Referer" has since become a widely used spelling in the industry when discussing HTTP referrers; usage of the misspelling is not universal, though, as the correct spelling "referrer" is used in some web specifications such as the Referrer-Policy HTTP header or the Document Object Model.[3]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- asveikau 2y ago
  I think his bitterness and open hostility are not well received on HN and simar places, but I find it absolutely refreshing. He's often right too.
- yborg 2y ago
  His blog is linked to his Mastodon account: @jwz@mastodon.social
- tom_ 2y ago
  Clicking that specific link does work - at least, at time of writing!
hinkley 2y ago
I don’t think the dumbest thing Mozilla did was take money from Google. It was spending the fucking money. Foundations like some cancer groups and the arts have an endowment. Each year they build up their war chest by seeking new funding, but a lot of the money they spend each year is the interest payments on their giant piles of cash. Mozilla could have run in perpetuity on the money Google gave them, but instead they decided to branch out into boondoggles and dipping their hands into the cookie jar.
- pavon 2y ago
  The Google search deal started at around $50 million a year and has grown to a bit over $500 million a year. Let's estimate $5 billion total. It is typical to take 5% out of an endowment each year today, which means they would be have an income of $250 million a year if they had invested the money instead of spending it. Not bad! On the other hand, the Google money accounted for around 85% of their income over the years, so if they hadn't been spending it they would have been operating on around 20% of the income for many years while the endowment grew, and likely would not have been able to keep up with competing browsers. Also, for as much crap as she gets, Mitchell Baker invested over 20% of the Google money Mozilla received during her tenure, far more than was invested by prior CEOs. And before anyone brings it up, all that "woke activist" spending comes from donations, not Google money, which the IRS prohibits them from spending on browser development.
Kwpolska 2y ago
It's a very butthurt take about Mozilla agreeing to DRM in browsers. I prefer to watch Netflix or other streaming services in my browser, using its native features, not Flash, not Silverlight, not some native app not available for Linux.
- shiomiru 2y ago
  Surely you don't think DRM is necessary for streaming services to work... My reading is that jwz thinks there was a possible future where DRM is dropped because it's as useless & impractical to enforce as cryptography export restrictions had been. Mozilla could have contributed to this future by not implementing DRM, but instead supported the outcome we got: DRM is ubiquitous, browsers that don't support it are disadvantaged significantly, and an anti-DRM streaming service (similar to GOG) no longer has any real advantage over DRM-enabled services. It is possible that no DRM in Mozilla would have resulted in the same outcome we arrived at - Mozilla gave in, so we'll never know. But what does Mozilla even exist for if it's unwilling to stick to its principles?
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    DRM is necessary for streaming services which want to carry movies made by the big studios. They love their DRM. If Mozilla refused to implement DRM in Firefox, Netflix would have just said “you need Silverlight, Chrome, or the native Netflix app to watch movies”, plain and simple.
    - rchaud 2y ago
      ...and there would be nothing wrong with that. As late as 2011, Silverlight was needed to stream Netflix on Chrome. It's not like FF is a major browser that needs DRM to compete against Edge/Chrome. Its market share is in the single digits regardless.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    > It is possible that no DRM in Mozilla would have resulted in the same outcome we arrived at - Mozilla gave in, so we'll never know. But what does Mozilla even exist for if it's unwilling to stick to its principles? If DRM weren't added to Mozilla and Firefox, then they would have continued to languish in marketshare on Windows/Mac and only would have hurt open source users on Linux/FreeBSD/etc. The long-term gains of Firefox gaining marketshare (shaking up the IE monopoly and allowing web technologies to break stagnation) were worth the short term loss of "principals" on DRM. At least, IMO.

matthewn 2y ago

Any link to there from here will only get you JWZ's take on HN.

lizknope 2y ago
That's kind of hilarious. I guess he's using the HTTP "referer" tag
- neilv 2y ago
  There are a bunch of settings in Firefox that affect this (if you don't mind occasionally breaking a Web site in a way no one will bother to diagnose): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Referrer https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Referrer
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Just copy the url and paste it into a new tab.
    - neilv 2y ago
      That works for viewing a particular page. Why people might want to adjust the `Referer` behavior of the browser is that it leaks more information than you might think.
  - lizknope 2y ago
    They spelled it "correctly" there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer Etymology The misspelling of referrer was introduced in the original proposal by computer scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker to incorporate the "Referer" header field into the HTTP specification.[7][8] The misspelling was set in stone by the time (May 1996) of its incorporation into the Request for Comments standards document RFC 1945[9] (which 'reflects common usage of the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.0"' at that time); document co-author Roy Fielding remarked in March 1995 that "neither one (referer or referrer) is understood by" the standard Unix spell checker of the period.[10] "Referer" has since become a widely used spelling in the industry when discussing HTTP referrers; usage of the misspelling is not universal, though, as the correct spelling "referrer" is used in some web specifications such as the Referrer-Policy HTTP header or the Document Object Model.[3]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
asveikau 2y ago
I think his bitterness and open hostility are not well received on HN and simar places, but I find it absolutely refreshing. He's often right too.
yborg 2y ago
His blog is linked to his Mastodon account: @jwz@mastodon.social
tom_ 2y ago
Clicking that specific link does work - at least, at time of writing!

hinkley 2y ago

I don’t think the dumbest thing Mozilla did was take money from Google. It was spending the fucking money. Foundations like some cancer groups and the arts have an endowment. Each year they build up their war chest by seeking new funding, but a lot of the money they spend each year is the interest payments on their giant piles of cash. Mozilla could have run in perpetuity on the money Google gave them, but instead they decided to branch out into boondoggles and dipping their hands into the cookie jar.

pavon 2y ago
The Google search deal started at around $50 million a year and has grown to a bit over $500 million a year. Let's estimate $5 billion total. It is typical to take 5% out of an endowment each year today, which means they would be have an income of $250 million a year if they had invested the money instead of spending it. Not bad! On the other hand, the Google money accounted for around 85% of their income over the years, so if they hadn't been spending it they would have been operating on around 20% of the income for many years while the endowment grew, and likely would not have been able to keep up with competing browsers. Also, for as much crap as she gets, Mitchell Baker invested over 20% of the Google money Mozilla received during her tenure, far more than was invested by prior CEOs. And before anyone brings it up, all that "woke activist" spending comes from donations, not Google money, which the IRS prohibits them from spending on browser development.

Kwpolska 2y ago

It's a very butthurt take about Mozilla agreeing to DRM in browsers. I prefer to watch Netflix or other streaming services in my browser, using its native features, not Flash, not Silverlight, not some native app not available for Linux.

shiomiru 2y ago
Surely you don't think DRM is necessary for streaming services to work... My reading is that jwz thinks there was a possible future where DRM is dropped because it's as useless & impractical to enforce as cryptography export restrictions had been. Mozilla could have contributed to this future by not implementing DRM, but instead supported the outcome we got: DRM is ubiquitous, browsers that don't support it are disadvantaged significantly, and an anti-DRM streaming service (similar to GOG) no longer has any real advantage over DRM-enabled services. It is possible that no DRM in Mozilla would have resulted in the same outcome we arrived at - Mozilla gave in, so we'll never know. But what does Mozilla even exist for if it's unwilling to stick to its principles?
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  DRM is necessary for streaming services which want to carry movies made by the big studios. They love their DRM. If Mozilla refused to implement DRM in Firefox, Netflix would have just said “you need Silverlight, Chrome, or the native Netflix app to watch movies”, plain and simple.
  - rchaud 2y ago
    ...and there would be nothing wrong with that. As late as 2011, Silverlight was needed to stream Netflix on Chrome. It's not like FF is a major browser that needs DRM to compete against Edge/Chrome. Its market share is in the single digits regardless.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  > It is possible that no DRM in Mozilla would have resulted in the same outcome we arrived at - Mozilla gave in, so we'll never know. But what does Mozilla even exist for if it's unwilling to stick to its principles? If DRM weren't added to Mozilla and Firefox, then they would have continued to languish in marketshare on Windows/Mac and only would have hurt open source users on Linux/FreeBSD/etc. The long-term gains of Firefox gaining marketshare (shaking up the IE monopoly and allowing web technologies to break stagnation) were worth the short term loss of "principals" on DRM. At least, IMO.