4 ms·

Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox. These other projects sound more like hobby-projects, at best something to do in someone's spare time.

Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox. These other projects sound more like hobby-projects, at best something to do in someone's spare time. Governance is the job of the foundation. Thunderbird has been spun off. So why does Mozilla need 750 employees? Correct me if I'm being naive, but that seems like 10 or even 20 times the number of employees they ought to have.

trhway 1y ago
>mainly about Firefox. just couple hours ago loaded new Rasp Pi 5, and between Chromium and FF I of course chose FF (first time i built it, ie. Mozilla, back then in 99, and i really don't like Chrome and the ilk). The FF didn't took a bunch of keyboard keys while for every other application i used there the keyboard works just fine. Didn't have time or intention to troubleshoot, just switched to Chromium. Pity. Just another illustrative FF loss vs. Chrome in that downhill ride of FF losses under the stewardship of Mozilla, whether it is the company or foundation, doesn't seem to matter.
- wobfan 1y ago
  What does this have to do with anything here? File a bug report, or try to find out the problem yourself. Or ask in a Forum. Or, as you did, switch browsers, if all of that is not worth the time for you.
mort96 1y ago
Do you think Google has fewer than 750 people dedicated to their browser? Not just developers but supporting positions like managers, HR, product managers, designers, etc etc. I mean Google has almost 200 000 employees, if even 0.5% of Google's employees are involved with Chrome in some way they have more manpower dedicated to Chrome than the foundation's 750 employees. Or does the Foundation not employ Firefox developers? The relationship between the Corporation and the Foundation isn't entirely clear to me.
- ta1243 1y ago
  For 750 people I would expect something like 600 developers (qa etc) and 150 support staff, maybe as low as 500 developers, 100 for tech support, and 150 support (lawyers, accountants etc) I don't know how many people who have say "commented on a pull request in the last 12 months" that mozilla employs. Maybe it is hundereds.
  - mort96 1y ago
    I agree, I would hope that most of those 750 people are developers or development-adjacent people. And I'm guessing it's not. But if most of those 750 people are non-developers, the problem isn't that there are 750 people, but that the ratio is off.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    According to the Github mirror 63 users made at least one commit to main in the last 30 days. Dunno if they squash patches though.
whywhywhywhy 1y ago
> Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox I'd be shocked if the executives spent more than 30 minutes a month thinking about Firefox instead of shilling VPN subs. > So why does Mozilla need 750 employees? Because it's not a browser company, it's a "non-profit" that happens to also own the codebase of a browser.
- bradley13 1y ago
  Exactly not. The non-profit is the foundation. Mozilla-the-company is owned by the foundation, and has the job of making products. Specifically Firefox. All of the activism, all of the politics belong in the foundation, not in the company. Which is the reason for my question: WTF is the company doing with 750 employees? They need to run a website, they need to coordinate with Google, they need to maintain their code (and coordinate pull-requests). That sounds like 30-40 people to me, not 750.
  - oblio 1y ago
    A browser is big, let's not underestimate that. Chrome probably has hundreds of developers. But Chrome has to integrate with a million things. A top notch browser looks like it would need just a few low hundreds of developers.
  - jalapeno_a 1y ago
    Every non-profit wants to be culture activists so they don’t have to actually deliver anything but press releases and blog posts.
  - chneu 1y ago
    Like the Wikipedia foundation. Wikipedia itself is easily funded for perpetuity. The foundation needs millions every year to continue their philanthropy.
  - irvinfly 1y ago
    Google could have much more than 750 on their whole chrome team. That’s why all other browser company is doing things on top of webkit/blink/chromium. Browser, layout engine, js engine, the standard, is just that complicated.
theandrewbailey 1y ago
> "Mozilla isn’t your typical tech brand; it’s a trailblazing, activist organization in both its mission and its approach" If you take a look at everything Mozilla does, it feels like Firefox itself is a side project that they do. In their most recent rebrand, Firefox was mentioned exactly once.[0] It's like they want to do anything else other than make a browser. But the problem is that I only expected them to do one thing: make Firefox. I can't be the only one. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-of-tech/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-o...

trhway 1y ago

>mainly about Firefox. just couple hours ago loaded new Rasp Pi 5, and between Chromium and FF I of course chose FF (first time i built it, ie. Mozilla, back then in 99, and i really don't like Chrome and the ilk). The FF didn't took a bunch of keyboard keys while for every other application i used there the keyboard works just fine. Didn't have time or intention to troubleshoot, just switched to Chromium. Pity. Just another illustrative FF loss vs. Chrome in that downhill ride of FF losses under the stewardship of Mozilla, whether it is the company or foundation, doesn't seem to matter.

wobfan 1y ago
What does this have to do with anything here? File a bug report, or try to find out the problem yourself. Or ask in a Forum. Or, as you did, switch browsers, if all of that is not worth the time for you.

mort96 1y ago

Do you think Google has fewer than 750 people dedicated to their browser? Not just developers but supporting positions like managers, HR, product managers, designers, etc etc. I mean Google has almost 200 000 employees, if even 0.5% of Google's employees are involved with Chrome in some way they have more manpower dedicated to Chrome than the foundation's 750 employees. Or does the Foundation not employ Firefox developers? The relationship between the Corporation and the Foundation isn't entirely clear to me.

ta1243 1y ago
For 750 people I would expect something like 600 developers (qa etc) and 150 support staff, maybe as low as 500 developers, 100 for tech support, and 150 support (lawyers, accountants etc) I don't know how many people who have say "commented on a pull request in the last 12 months" that mozilla employs. Maybe it is hundereds.
- mort96 1y ago
  I agree, I would hope that most of those 750 people are developers or development-adjacent people. And I'm guessing it's not. But if most of those 750 people are non-developers, the problem isn't that there are 750 people, but that the ratio is off.
- rightbyte 1y ago
  According to the Github mirror 63 users made at least one commit to main in the last 30 days. Dunno if they squash patches though.

whywhywhywhy 1y ago

> Mozilla-the-company is, in the end, mainly about Firefox I'd be shocked if the executives spent more than 30 minutes a month thinking about Firefox instead of shilling VPN subs. > So why does Mozilla need 750 employees? Because it's not a browser company, it's a "non-profit" that happens to also own the codebase of a browser.

bradley13 1y ago
Exactly not. The non-profit is the foundation. Mozilla-the-company is owned by the foundation, and has the job of making products. Specifically Firefox. All of the activism, all of the politics belong in the foundation, not in the company. Which is the reason for my question: WTF is the company doing with 750 employees? They need to run a website, they need to coordinate with Google, they need to maintain their code (and coordinate pull-requests). That sounds like 30-40 people to me, not 750.
- oblio 1y ago
  A browser is big, let's not underestimate that. Chrome probably has hundreds of developers. But Chrome has to integrate with a million things. A top notch browser looks like it would need just a few low hundreds of developers.
- jalapeno_a 1y ago
  Every non-profit wants to be culture activists so they don’t have to actually deliver anything but press releases and blog posts.
- chneu 1y ago
  Like the Wikipedia foundation. Wikipedia itself is easily funded for perpetuity. The foundation needs millions every year to continue their philanthropy.
- irvinfly 1y ago
  Google could have much more than 750 on their whole chrome team. That’s why all other browser company is doing things on top of webkit/blink/chromium. Browser, layout engine, js engine, the standard, is just that complicated.

theandrewbailey 1y ago

> "Mozilla isn’t your typical tech brand; it’s a trailblazing, activist organization in both its mission and its approach" If you take a look at everything Mozilla does, it feels like Firefox itself is a side project that they do. In their most recent rebrand, Firefox was mentioned exactly once.[0] It's like they want to do anything else other than make a browser. But the problem is that I only expected them to do one thing: make Firefox. I can't be the only one. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-of-tech/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-o...