5 ms·

Hopefully they'll replace them with people who'll make firefox better.

by b59831 2y ago

shiroiushi 2y ago
I doubt it. This company seems to have major structural problems, and cutting some stuff here and there isn't going to fix it. Its expenses are huge, and it pays its executives obscene amounts of money, and meanwhile they've been wasting tons of money on stuff like Pocket, AI crap, and now they're pissing off supporters by getting into ads. I think what we really need is for a new company to get started in some other country, where the cost of living and the cost of executive salaries is much, much cheaper. Have that company fork the Firefox codebase, and then only concentrate on Firefox (Newfox? Betterfox?) browser development and maintenance, and nothing else. They could work more like Wikipedia, just taking donations and building up an endowment with that to fund themselves, and keeping their operations very lean so they don't need that much money to begin with.
- bawolff 2y ago
  What they should have done was build an endowment when they were getting crazy google money. It obviously wasn't going to last forever.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Yes, definitely. It would have been easy back then to build an endowment if they hadn't blown money on so much BS and prepared for a future where they wouldn't have all that money coming in. I think it's too late for them now, and I don't see how they can possibly trim things down into a lean, efficient organization, especially not in the US. That's why I think someone in a cheaper country needs to fork the thing and take over Firefox development. This will probably have to wait until Mozilla is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy though.
    - neilv 2y ago
      Why haven't some EU and/or Latin American countries funded a Web browser in a meaningful way, in an effort to be less under the thumb of US tech companies? They could fork Firefox or Chromium, poach some current developers, hire some more, and assert a strong presence on standards.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        >Why haven't some EU and/or Latin American countries funded a Web browser in a meaningful way, in an effort to be less under the thumb of US tech companies? As with many things, it's just like Dark Helmet said in Spaceballs: "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Not to say that the US (or Mozilla or Google) is evil and the EU and LATAM are good (LATAM in particular is a really screwed up place, with a few exceptions that aren't as broken like Chile), but while the US obviously has its problems and does really stupid stuff (see the current election), other places do incredibly stupid stuff too (see Germany disarming, shutting down all its nuclear power and trying to make itself dependent on Russian fossil fuel energy). Honestly, I think the main reason the US is still doing as well as it is (see the strength of the USD) is because everyone else is so busy shooting themselves in the foot with a shotgun. So yes, I totally agree: theoretically it should be pretty simple to just fork Firefox (or Chromium, though I think the former is a much better choice so we don't the whole web dependent on a single browser engine, if for no other reason), poach some current devs, hire some new ones locally, and then become the new "open standard". But good luck getting some national government (or even a group of them, like with the EU) having some vision and backing such a move.
        emmelaich 2y ago
        Not sure that'd even work. The best developers would get paid a lot more by working for a for-profit company, probably US-based. It's just too tempting.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        Maybe, but if you actually want to poach people, you have to make large pay offers to get them to jump ship. So instead of just paying the prevailing rate for SWEs in $country, they need to actually look at how much those devs are making in the US and match that. Sure, it'll be expensive, but if it's only a handful of key people, it doesn't matter.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- briantakita 2y ago
  Either they need to do drastic cuts & focus on fundamentals. Or a fork with less funding entanglements can. Or an alternative project like LadyBird can.
Loughla 2y ago
What's wrong with Firefox? It's my daily browser and works great. What am I missing?
- bluGill 2y ago
  The managemant behind firefox does not care about web browsers. They carre about their vision of social justice and the browser is just a tool to get funds for that.
  - Loughla 2y ago
    That doesn't really have anything to do with how it works though. I was looking more into its actual operation as a browser.
    - briantakita 2y ago
      I use FF as well. I think the problem is lack of focus on core workflows. This is a problem with all major browsers. For example, why is the address bar so tiny on high resolution screens? One would think this is an easy fix that would improve the UX for many people. Yet years go by with unresolved issues in the trackers.
      - tpxl 2y ago
        > For example, why is the address bar so tiny on high resolution screens Because in the year of our lord 2024, we for some reason still don't know how big a pixel is. Making a textbox 1cm tall should be trivial, but is for some reason either impossible or never done.
        briantakita 2y ago
        I would be happy to be able to adjust the font size. It's almost as if these orgs don't use their product...or the effort to make this small change would require a major re-architecture.
        2y ago

Hopefully they'll replace them with people who'll make firefox better.

by b59831 2y ago

Hopefully they'll replace them with people who'll make firefox better.

I doubt it. This company seems to have major structural problems, and cutting some stuff here and there isn't going to fix it. Its expenses are huge, and it pays its executives obscene amounts of money, and meanwhile they've been wasting tons of money on stuff like Pocket, AI crap, and now they're pissing off supporters by getting into ads. I think what we really need is for a new company to get started in some other country, where the cost of living and the cost of executive salaries is much, much cheaper. Have that company fork the Firefox codebase, and then only concentrate on Firefox (Newfox? Betterfox?) browser development and maintenance, and nothing else. They could work more like Wikipedia, just taking donations and building up an endowment with that to fund themselves, and keeping their operations very lean so they don't need that much money to begin with.

bawolff 2y ago
What they should have done was build an endowment when they were getting crazy google money. It obviously wasn't going to last forever.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Yes, definitely. It would have been easy back then to build an endowment if they hadn't blown money on so much BS and prepared for a future where they wouldn't have all that money coming in. I think it's too late for them now, and I don't see how they can possibly trim things down into a lean, efficient organization, especially not in the US. That's why I think someone in a cheaper country needs to fork the thing and take over Firefox development. This will probably have to wait until Mozilla is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy though.
  - neilv 2y ago
    Why haven't some EU and/or Latin American countries funded a Web browser in a meaningful way, in an effort to be less under the thumb of US tech companies? They could fork Firefox or Chromium, poach some current developers, hire some more, and assert a strong presence on standards.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >Why haven't some EU and/or Latin American countries funded a Web browser in a meaningful way, in an effort to be less under the thumb of US tech companies? As with many things, it's just like Dark Helmet said in Spaceballs: "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Not to say that the US (or Mozilla or Google) is evil and the EU and LATAM are good (LATAM in particular is a really screwed up place, with a few exceptions that aren't as broken like Chile), but while the US obviously has its problems and does really stupid stuff (see the current election), other places do incredibly stupid stuff too (see Germany disarming, shutting down all its nuclear power and trying to make itself dependent on Russian fossil fuel energy). Honestly, I think the main reason the US is still doing as well as it is (see the strength of the USD) is because everyone else is so busy shooting themselves in the foot with a shotgun. So yes, I totally agree: theoretically it should be pretty simple to just fork Firefox (or Chromium, though I think the former is a much better choice so we don't the whole web dependent on a single browser engine, if for no other reason), poach some current devs, hire some new ones locally, and then become the new "open standard". But good luck getting some national government (or even a group of them, like with the EU) having some vision and backing such a move.
      - emmelaich 2y ago
        Not sure that'd even work. The best developers would get paid a lot more by working for a for-profit company, probably US-based. It's just too tempting.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        Maybe, but if you actually want to poach people, you have to make large pay offers to get them to jump ship. So instead of just paying the prevailing rate for SWEs in $country, they need to actually look at how much those devs are making in the US and match that. Sure, it'll be expensive, but if it's only a handful of key people, it doesn't matter.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
briantakita 2y ago
Either they need to do drastic cuts & focus on fundamentals. Or a fork with less funding entanglements can. Or an alternative project like LadyBird can.

Loughla 2y ago

What's wrong with Firefox? It's my daily browser and works great. What am I missing?

bluGill 2y ago
The managemant behind firefox does not care about web browsers. They carre about their vision of social justice and the browser is just a tool to get funds for that.
- Loughla 2y ago
  That doesn't really have anything to do with how it works though. I was looking more into its actual operation as a browser.
  - briantakita 2y ago
    I use FF as well. I think the problem is lack of focus on core workflows. This is a problem with all major browsers. For example, why is the address bar so tiny on high resolution screens? One would think this is an easy fix that would improve the UX for many people. Yet years go by with unresolved issues in the trackers.
    - tpxl 2y ago
      > For example, why is the address bar so tiny on high resolution screens Because in the year of our lord 2024, we for some reason still don't know how big a pixel is. Making a textbox 1cm tall should be trivial, but is for some reason either impossible or never done.
      - briantakita 2y ago
        I would be happy to be able to adjust the font size. It's almost as if these orgs don't use their product...or the effort to make this small change would require a major re-architecture.
      - 2y ago