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The sheer volume of sidequest projects they've put resources into that were clearly self-indulgence projects from internal staff, that had no obvious market nee

by weego 1y ago

The sheer volume of sidequest projects they've put resources into that were clearly self-indulgence projects from internal staff, that had no obvious market need or target user-base put me off years ago. They're kept in existence as a cost of doing business for the likes of Google, purely to ward off browser monopoly claims, and absolutely do not deserve to be taken seriously, or be given private funding.

pca006132 1y ago
I feel like these are stuff that the C-suite needs for justifying their pay. If it is "boring browser development", it will show that they are doing nothing, redundant, and cannot have bonuses and salary raise.
- Traubenfuchs 1y ago
  I‘d argue you don‘t need a C-suite to develop firefox and that‘s the root of the problem.
  - wafflemaker 1y ago
    So a foundation model instead, like discussed in: [Open Source Security] Open Source Foundations with Kelley Misata of Suricata #openSourceSecurity https://podcastaddict.com/open-source-security/episode/193380285 https://podcastaddict.com/open-source-security/episode/19338... via @PodcastAddict I'm genuinely curious, no experience in any of that.
    - josephg 1y ago
      Yep. Also worth reading: Reinventing Organisations by Laloux. Incredible book - absolute book of the year for me. They talk about the history of organisations and how organisations can be run differently & better. And they research companies who are trying this stuff out today, and talk about what they do. The modern CEO idea is pretty silly on the face of it. We take the - ideally - smartest person at a company, divorce them from grounded reality, then burden them with all the hardest decisions your company has to face. All while disempowering the people on the ground who do all the actual work. In many ways it’s a pretty stupid way to run a company. There’s plenty of other options. Just the other week the economist did an interview with the CEO of Supercell, a Nordic video game company. They have the same idea - the ceo in many ways doesn’t run the company, which frees him up to do actually useful work. And it lets the team leads take initiative and lead. Much better model in my opinion.
DangerousPie 1y ago
They have cut back on those a lot now, haven't they?
nabakin 1y ago
They're trying to diversify their revenue so it doesn't all come from Google. All these 'self-indulgent projects' are attempts to actually make enough money to compete with a multi-trillion dollar company's resources because they know they can't compete long-term.
- ricardobeat 1y ago
  The parent is referring to things like Coop (social media), SkyWriter (IDE), Persona, Solo (website builder), “data futures”, Servo [1], “big blue button”, most of them have little to no potential for revenue. Meanwhile you can’t really have more than a few YouTube tabs open in FF otherwise it starts freezing, and it’s been behind Safari in adding new features for a while. [1] including Servo here since it seems to have had no real roadmap to become integrated into FF, making it more of a vanity project - it’s already thirteen years old at this point
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    > including Servo here since it seems to have had no real roadmap to become integrated into FF They integrated at least a couple of components from Servo into Firefox before they cancelled it, so I don't think that's fair. > it’s already thirteen years old at this point Mozilla only developed it for 8 years.
  - godelski 1y ago
    > The parent is referring to things like The person you're responding to is also referring these things. Failing to make revenue is different from not trying to make revenue. > you can’t really have more than a few YouTube tabs open in FF otherwise it starts freezing I have a bad habit of opening lots of tabs. It can get to several hundred, with dozens specifically pointing to YouTube. I've never had this issue. Firefox sleeps tabs after inactivity and they've done this for some time now. Eats your swap and might need to reload it you go a month without touching it, but no freezing. Both on Linux and OSX. > it’s been behind Safari in adding new features for a while. What features? I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, it's just that ime Safari is the least feature rich browser out there. I don't use it much so I can miss things, but I'm legitimately curious
blindriver 1y ago
Because they are a non-profit, they have to spend their money every year. That’s why Mozilla is/was over employed and following all these projects that die, because they need these engineers to work on something. My friend worked at Mozilla 15 years ago, arguably during their golden years and he said it was a joke how much money they wasted because they had to spend it.
- dontTREATonme 1y ago
  That’s not how NFPs work. I’m on the board of a NFP, we absolutely are able to save money year to year. The big difference between us and a regular corp is we don’t have shareholders or paid board members.
  - blindriver 1y ago
    I wasn’t clear. Mozilla was making > 400M from the Google deal. They needed to spend most of the money otherwise why would they be a nonprofit. So they would spent the vast majority of it on boondoggles, lots of all-hands in expensive locations, $400k salaries etc.
    - dontTREATonme 1y ago
      There are many NFPs with multi-billion dollar endowments, I don’t really understand this line of reasoning…
kelnos 1y ago
Charitably, I'd like to believe that all these side quests were in search of actual, real, substantial, alternative revenue streams, in order to reduce dependency on Google. The problem, of course, is that all of these side projects just flat out failed. Maybe they were self-indulgence projects or maybe they were pursued in earnest, but either way, they failed.

by weego 1y ago

pca006132 1y ago

I feel like these are stuff that the C-suite needs for justifying their pay. If it is "boring browser development", it will show that they are doing nothing, redundant, and cannot have bonuses and salary raise.

Traubenfuchs 1y ago
I‘d argue you don‘t need a C-suite to develop firefox and that‘s the root of the problem.
- wafflemaker 1y ago
  So a foundation model instead, like discussed in: [Open Source Security] Open Source Foundations with Kelley Misata of Suricata #openSourceSecurity https://podcastaddict.com/open-source-security/episode/193380285 https://podcastaddict.com/open-source-security/episode/19338... via @PodcastAddict I'm genuinely curious, no experience in any of that.
  - josephg 1y ago
    Yep. Also worth reading: Reinventing Organisations by Laloux. Incredible book - absolute book of the year for me. They talk about the history of organisations and how organisations can be run differently & better. And they research companies who are trying this stuff out today, and talk about what they do. The modern CEO idea is pretty silly on the face of it. We take the - ideally - smartest person at a company, divorce them from grounded reality, then burden them with all the hardest decisions your company has to face. All while disempowering the people on the ground who do all the actual work. In many ways it’s a pretty stupid way to run a company. There’s plenty of other options. Just the other week the economist did an interview with the CEO of Supercell, a Nordic video game company. They have the same idea - the ceo in many ways doesn’t run the company, which frees him up to do actually useful work. And it lets the team leads take initiative and lead. Much better model in my opinion.

DangerousPie 1y ago

They have cut back on those a lot now, haven't they?

nabakin 1y ago

They're trying to diversify their revenue so it doesn't all come from Google. All these 'self-indulgent projects' are attempts to actually make enough money to compete with a multi-trillion dollar company's resources because they know they can't compete long-term.

ricardobeat 1y ago
The parent is referring to things like Coop (social media), SkyWriter (IDE), Persona, Solo (website builder), “data futures”, Servo [1], “big blue button”, most of them have little to no potential for revenue. Meanwhile you can’t really have more than a few YouTube tabs open in FF otherwise it starts freezing, and it’s been behind Safari in adding new features for a while. [1] including Servo here since it seems to have had no real roadmap to become integrated into FF, making it more of a vanity project - it’s already thirteen years old at this point
- IshKebab 1y ago
  > including Servo here since it seems to have had no real roadmap to become integrated into FF They integrated at least a couple of components from Servo into Firefox before they cancelled it, so I don't think that's fair. > it’s already thirteen years old at this point Mozilla only developed it for 8 years.
- godelski 1y ago
  > The parent is referring to things like The person you're responding to is also referring these things. Failing to make revenue is different from not trying to make revenue. > you can’t really have more than a few YouTube tabs open in FF otherwise it starts freezing I have a bad habit of opening lots of tabs. It can get to several hundred, with dozens specifically pointing to YouTube. I've never had this issue. Firefox sleeps tabs after inactivity and they've done this for some time now. Eats your swap and might need to reload it you go a month without touching it, but no freezing. Both on Linux and OSX. > it’s been behind Safari in adding new features for a while. What features? I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, it's just that ime Safari is the least feature rich browser out there. I don't use it much so I can miss things, but I'm legitimately curious

blindriver 1y ago

Because they are a non-profit, they have to spend their money every year. That’s why Mozilla is/was over employed and following all these projects that die, because they need these engineers to work on something. My friend worked at Mozilla 15 years ago, arguably during their golden years and he said it was a joke how much money they wasted because they had to spend it.

dontTREATonme 1y ago
That’s not how NFPs work. I’m on the board of a NFP, we absolutely are able to save money year to year. The big difference between us and a regular corp is we don’t have shareholders or paid board members.
- blindriver 1y ago
  I wasn’t clear. Mozilla was making > 400M from the Google deal. They needed to spend most of the money otherwise why would they be a nonprofit. So they would spent the vast majority of it on boondoggles, lots of all-hands in expensive locations, $400k salaries etc.
  - dontTREATonme 1y ago
    There are many NFPs with multi-billion dollar endowments, I don’t really understand this line of reasoning…

kelnos 1y ago

Charitably, I'd like to believe that all these side quests were in search of actual, real, substantial, alternative revenue streams, in order to reduce dependency on Google. The problem, of course, is that all of these side projects just flat out failed. Maybe they were self-indulgence projects or maybe they were pursued in earnest, but either way, they failed.