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Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocacy division
- pjmlp 2y agoAll they had to do was to focus on doing the best browser, and email client.
- mmooss 2y agoWhy would that define their mission? It never has; they've always been a leading adovcate for freedom, privacy, and openness on the Internet.
- minimaxir 2y agoUnfortunately in the world of OSS, neither of those are enough to pay the bills unless you have a lucrative partnership (i.e. Google paying to be the default search engine in Firefox, which is now no longer the case).
- mossTechnician 2y agoIf Mozilla cares about their pocketbook, they could reevaluate how much they are spending on their CEO and AI companies. The victims of their monetary incompetence are always their own employees. I'd say Mozilla is just another company now, but even the average for-profit will lower the CEO salary if the company underperforms.
- pjmlp 2y agoFully agree, that is why I usually put money on the software I care about, it isn't about using stuff from others freely while expecting to be paid myself. However, there is the whole issue about the money that they were spending on CEO salary, the related bonus, and all the activities about who knows what, instead of Firefox and Thunderbird.
- mardifoufs 2y agoDoes advocacy pay better?
- type0 2y agoMozilla management had friends that needed the money so they created those jobs, in my mind they should have donated it to EFF instead.
- Ferret7446 2y agoAdvocacy doesn't pay at all, it's a 100% money pit. (You might wonder why they spent so much money on it. A lot of people wondered that, and apparently Mozilla itself has now wondered about it too.)
- mmooss 2y agoThey aren't a business trying to maximize profit. The idea of being a non-profit is to invest in things that are important but not profitable. Should all non-profits drop everything that's ... not profitable? > A lot of people wondered that It seems pretty obvious why they would do it, and it has been widely admired. I hadn't heard comments like yours until the pile-on in on this page.
- getcrunk 2y agoI would gladly pay $2-$5 a month without thinking for ff/tb if they committed to open accounting with user voting and a ruling council headed by devs and technical thought leaders. I think at least 1-10 million other people would too! The empowered userbase would then direct Mozilla to make other solutions for their most pressing needs (maybe search or email or anti tracking) instead of the lame ideas they have wasted resources on
- kbrosnan 2y agoThat is more or less how Thunderbird works. Donations fund a development. Members of the community elect the Thunderbird Council. It would take a huge rework of MoCo (Firefox, Sync, VPN, etc) to function in that way.
- lenkite 2y agoWe will see if this statement is valid or not depending on how Ladybird works out.
- lancesells 2y agoI don't know why they chase other products when they could take both of those and have some sort of premium additions to charge for. I pay for my mail clients, my calendar clients, and would pay for a browser with extra features / extensions. Focus on the things people are using and not on becoming a VPN provider. That said I like, and use, Firefox for all of my work related tasks. And I have nothing against them having "too many employees". A non-profit providing jobs is not a bad thing and feels like the best of both worlds.
- b3ing 2y agoNot surprising as the CEO and board prevented the should=be-CEO from having the position because that person was recovering from cancer treatment.
- Onavo 2y agoHe should go start a competitor. I have a company name suggestion for him, maybe he can call it "Courage", it's a very cool hipster name for a browser startup.
- alach11 2y agoThis is largely in anticipation of the devastating drop in revenue if Google can no longer pay them to be the default search engine. That's where they get 86% of their revenue [0]. [0] https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-potential-loser-google-antitrust-search-ruling/ https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-poten...
- eigenspace 2y agoWouldn't that affect their for-profit company arm, not the non-profit Mozilla Foundation? Or does the for-profit arm fund the non-profit?
- riedel 2y ago>Revenue consists of the following: x Royalties - Mozilla provides the Firefox web browser, which is a free and open- source web browser initially developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Corporation. Mozilla incorporates search engines of its customers as a default status or an optional status available in the Firefox web browser. Mozilla generally receives royalties at a certain percentage of revenues earned by its customers through their search engines incorporated in the Firefox web browser. [0] https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://stateof.mozilla.org/ Based on the audit numbers I a bit puzzled about the reported amount of staff. Maybe I am reading it completely wrong
- deburo 2y ago> ruled that the tech giant has illegally maintained a monopoly through the billions of dollars in annual payments it makes to partners Wow. Are they serious? that’s illegal?
- dangobanned 2y ago[flagged]
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoThe fascinating thing about Brave is how fanatical their fanbase is.
- jeroenhd 2y agoBrave, the people that took Chromium and shoved it full of cryptocurrency ads and a few other open source projects? You can have whatever preference you want, but I don't believe there's that much of a difference between Firefox and Blockchain Firefox, other than that Firefox actually maintains its own engine at least.
- andrewinardeer 2y agoThey opened up Mozilla VPN to Australians overnight. 50% off opening special so only AUD7.50 per month on the annual plan...
- TheRealPomax 2y agoLots of people confusing the Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit that "steers" the Mozilla mission, with the Mozilla Corporation, which is the for-profit that makes Firefox. They're two different organizations: the Foundation has literally nothing to do with Firefox. The Foundation is a tiny org that until yesterday I'd have described as "working on living the Mozilla manifesto through advocacy and programs". How it's going to stay relevant without its advocacy staff is a complete mystery to me.
- nulbyte 2y agoThe Foundation has lots to do with Firefox; it literally owns the corporation that develops it. That said, agreed, I'm not sure what's left for the foundation to do without advocacy staff.
- m55au 2y agoExactly, I would even say the foundation has not only lots, but everything to do with Firefox. I don't understand how there are so many "ackshually" guys in this thread. It is all the same thing, Mozilla, and the separation is and has always been only a technicality, nothing more. It is exactly the same as saying The Walt Disney Company has nothing to do with Disney+.
- TheRealPomax 2y agoMaybe looks at someone's bio? I worked there for a decade, so I'm pretty confident when I say "no, it has literally nothing to do with Firefox". They are two completely different orgs with different execs, different boards, working on completely different things. The Foundation has no say over what happens on the corp side.
- thayne 2y agoI wouldn't call getting the profits from the corporation (whether through dividends or "royalties"), and having the power to choose the board of directors as "nothing". And the stated purpose of the corporation is to further the "public benefit" of the foundation. Sure they are separate organizations, but they are at least a little related.
- mmooss 2y agoHow sad. Who will pickup the baton for the advocacy that Mozilla is abandoning, Internet Archive may have to forfeit ... Why are all these projects having problems at the same time, as the economy booms? > “Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus — and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won’t get us to the next peak,” wrote Syed What is topsy-turvy for Mozilla?
- _xiaz 2y agoI'd say the electronic frontier foundation is the best candidate. They have been exclusively doing advocacy since forever