7 ms·

I feel like Mozilla is going to join the annals of history with the likes of Xerox in the category of "Companies that created the technology of the future and c

I feel like Mozilla is going to join the annals of history with the likes of Xerox in the category of "Companies that created the technology of the future and casually tossed it to the wayside for competitors to scoop up" with Rust and Servo. It's mind-boggling that for a company so often seemingly playing catch-up with Google, Mozilla actually leapfrogged Google in the browser development space for a time, and then...decided it wasn't worth pursuing any further.

godshatter 1y ago
If Mozilla decides to dump Gecko, then it's time for a hard fork and an abandonment of Mozilla. Maybe it's time now. edit: I mean dumping Gecko for Chromium, not Servo.
- goku12 1y ago
  Honestly, dumping gecko would be a suicide for Firefox. Much of Firefox's minuscule userbase consists of knowledgeable nerds who are holdouts from the Blink monoculture.
  - dralley 1y ago
    So start replacing bits of Blink with Rust, instead of bits of Gecko. Maybe their primary addressable market is nerds, but I guarantee more people quit using Firefox because of websites not working correctly or Google's marketing than because of any of the things that HN loves to complain about.
  - sbstp 1y ago
    Using WebKit (even JavaScriptCore) and working with Apple wouldn't be the worst thing to my eyes as a Firefox/FOSS user. Duopoly isn't great but it's better than a monopoly.
  - zavec 1y ago
    My main concern is manifest v3, I would be incredibly annoyed if I had to switch to a browser that broke ublock.
    - goku12 1y ago
      I think they're trying to switch to MV3 without removing the features that let uBO and the others work.
nicce 1y ago
It is difficult to get people to pay for it. People happily pay for 10€ beer but asked ”friends” about how to bypass WhatsApp’s 0,99 lifetime licenses.
- skinkestek 1y ago
  Some did. Some like me lined up eagerly to pay the $1 yearly license and would have been happy to pay for my family too.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  And it's impossible to get people to pay for it when you give them no way to pay for it.
  - CivBase 1y ago
    You can donate, but who's going to pay $10 for beer when the same stuff is being given away for free?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
      No, you can't. You can donate to the Mozilla Foundation, but you cannot donate to the Mozilla Corporation to actually fund Firefox development.
      - LtdJorge 1y ago
        Exactly. You can donate to a bunch of management people with multiple million dollars compensation that are running the company into the ground.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - AuthAuth 1y ago
      I'm sure there are plenty of people who will pay for it even though its being given away for free. Maybe not enough to replace the income from google but its worth a shot trying a fund raising drive.
calibas 1y ago
> It's mind-boggling that for a company so often seemingly playing catch-up with Google, Mozilla actually leapfrogged Google in the browser development space for a time, and then...decided it wasn't worth pursuing any further. Google has been Mozilla's main source of revenue since around 2006. For Mozilla to exist, all they have to do is keep Google happy. It's kind of a nice deal for Mozilla, despite being a huge conflict of interest.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rollcat 1y ago
  And it's an even better deal for Google. "But look, Chrome is not a monopoly." If I was Google, I'd do something to set Mozilla back on that track. But oh well, Google these days is even more dysfunctional. They're about to lose search.
  - AceJohnny2 1y ago
    Remember that time Microsoft bankrolled a floundering Apple to able to "But look, Windows is not a monopoly" https://thisdayintechhistory.com/08/06/apple-and-microsoft-call-truce/ https://thisdayintechhistory.com/08/06/apple-and-microsoft-c...
    - jahnu 1y ago
      And MSFT are still second biggest company in the world by market cap. If Apple hadn’t regrown maybe MS would have been broken up.
criticalfault 1y ago
This is only fair. Mozilla doesn't deserve to survive. New players deserve our support, like servo and ladybird. Even with an enormous budget from Google (500M, I think per year) they managed to ruin everything, including Firefox, the thing bringing them those 500M. To me it looks as if Baker is an undercover person put there to sabotage Mozilla. Tldr: funded by Google, made absolutely everything in her power to run it into the ground
- mariusor 1y ago
  Unlike historical examples like Stephen Elop that moved from Microsoft to Nokia and buried their mobile division only to return to Microsoft, Mitchell Baker was with Mozilla since the start.
- bornfreddy 1y ago
  Yup, wouldn't be the first one [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
- jazzypants 1y ago
  I'm not sure about that. Baker was one of the first Netscape employees, she literally helped found the Mozilla foundation, and she served as the first president of it. I'm not saying she has done a good job, but a lot of the early Netscape people like Brendan Eich have done nothing but sing her praises.
  - criticalfault 1y ago
    If we take a look at the results, I'm not convinced she is a good guy just because she was there at the beginning. There is a chart with her salary going up and Firefox usage going down. Looks like an X. If anything, how come she didn't make it a success on the very limited market? Even if she wasn't a bad actor in the beginning, she could have changed her opinion and be seduced by the money. Just for comparison: a few people made a completely new engine in a few years. Task often thought as impossible (they had 200k USD for the start). Mozilla started servo, then when they saw its going well, decided to abandon it? So what was Mozilla spending the money on? Many have requested the ability to donate for Firefox development, but it was never allowed: they (she?) wanted to distribute the donation money on things they thought were important? For years they made decisions that the uses hated. How else to explain this?
dimal 1y ago
Mozilla is over. They put all their eggs in the Google basket, and soon they’ll lose that. They have no viable path forward. Servo and Ladybird are the future. I’m astounded by how quickly Ladybird is proceeding, with far fewer people than Mozilla. It’s been inspiring to see what that project is doing.
GuB-42 1y ago
Mozilla is nothing like Xerox, if anything Google is the new Xerox: they have way too much money so they throw it at R&D side projects without a business plan. The big one for Google is transformer models, they basically invented LLMs only to play catchup with OpenAI later. Mozilla successes have always been focused on the web browser, from the very beginning. Even the name reflects that: "Mozilla" stands for "Mosaic killer", Mosaic was the leading web browser at the time. They beat Mosaic with Netscape, they beat IE with Firefox, beating Chrome was their mission, and Rust and Servo were their weapons. It is sad that they dropped the ball. Like Xerox (and Google), Mozilla tried doing some side projects, but unlike Xerox, they didn't have money to burn from their quasi-monopolies, and I can't think of anything particularly innovative coming from Mozilla that isn't a browser. I don't consider Rust to be a side project, it is a programming language for writing a browser, that it is useful for projects other than a web browser is a happy side effect.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  > […] and I can't think of anything particularly innovative coming from Mozilla that isn't a browser. I don't consider Rust to be a side project, it is a programming language for writing a browser, that it is useful for projects other than a web browser is a happy side effect. I’m sure Rust started out as something intended to help with their browser work. But it became a general purpose programming language pretty early, right? I think it is… working pretty hard to find a reason to not include Rust as a innovative, non-browser piece of tech. Anyway, I don’t really think it detracts from your broader point to count Rust as a separate thing from the browser.
  - Already__Taken 1y ago
    > But it became a general purpose programming language pretty early, right? IMO what we've seen learnt from ChromeOS and later their stab at firefox OS is the merit in treating the browser as the system. For that there was a lot of wisdom in making rust that capable. Seeing oxide make their stack is incredibly validating.
  - PinkMilkshake 1y ago
dralley 1y ago
Servo would not have been some dramatic revolution in browser technology. It would have done the same thing browser engines currently do, but maybe a little faster and with a couple less security issues per year. It's dishonest to compare that to "the technology of the future", especially when nobody chooses their browser based on whether a page loads in 82ms or 70ms. They mostly choose browsers based on familiarity and marketing and what's preinstalled. Chrome is fast enough for most people that they're not gonna switch just because their dweeb nephew mentioned some other browser might be marginally faster. And they didn't toss Rust aside either. New bits of Firefox continue to be written in Rust to this day. That was actually the primary reason Servo was dropped - the bits of the browser engine that could be replaced with Servo bits easily had already been replaced. Rewriting Gecko slowly was deemed more practical than committing to 5+ years of parallel development and hoping that by the end it would be possible to replace millions of lines of Gecko code in one fell swoop.

godshatter 1y ago

If Mozilla decides to dump Gecko, then it's time for a hard fork and an abandonment of Mozilla. Maybe it's time now. edit: I mean dumping Gecko for Chromium, not Servo.

goku12 1y ago
Honestly, dumping gecko would be a suicide for Firefox. Much of Firefox's minuscule userbase consists of knowledgeable nerds who are holdouts from the Blink monoculture.
- dralley 1y ago
  So start replacing bits of Blink with Rust, instead of bits of Gecko. Maybe their primary addressable market is nerds, but I guarantee more people quit using Firefox because of websites not working correctly or Google's marketing than because of any of the things that HN loves to complain about.
- sbstp 1y ago
  Using WebKit (even JavaScriptCore) and working with Apple wouldn't be the worst thing to my eyes as a Firefox/FOSS user. Duopoly isn't great but it's better than a monopoly.
- zavec 1y ago
  My main concern is manifest v3, I would be incredibly annoyed if I had to switch to a browser that broke ublock.
  - goku12 1y ago
    I think they're trying to switch to MV3 without removing the features that let uBO and the others work.

nicce 1y ago

It is difficult to get people to pay for it. People happily pay for 10€ beer but asked ”friends” about how to bypass WhatsApp’s 0,99 lifetime licenses.

skinkestek 1y ago
Some did. Some like me lined up eagerly to pay the $1 yearly license and would have been happy to pay for my family too.
yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
And it's impossible to get people to pay for it when you give them no way to pay for it.
- CivBase 1y ago
  You can donate, but who's going to pay $10 for beer when the same stuff is being given away for free?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    No, you can't. You can donate to the Mozilla Foundation, but you cannot donate to the Mozilla Corporation to actually fund Firefox development.
    - LtdJorge 1y ago
      Exactly. You can donate to a bunch of management people with multiple million dollars compensation that are running the company into the ground.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - AuthAuth 1y ago
    I'm sure there are plenty of people who will pay for it even though its being given away for free. Maybe not enough to replace the income from google but its worth a shot trying a fund raising drive.

calibas 1y ago

> It's mind-boggling that for a company so often seemingly playing catch-up with Google, Mozilla actually leapfrogged Google in the browser development space for a time, and then...decided it wasn't worth pursuing any further. Google has been Mozilla's main source of revenue since around 2006. For Mozilla to exist, all they have to do is keep Google happy. It's kind of a nice deal for Mozilla, despite being a huge conflict of interest.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rollcat 1y ago
And it's an even better deal for Google. "But look, Chrome is not a monopoly." If I was Google, I'd do something to set Mozilla back on that track. But oh well, Google these days is even more dysfunctional. They're about to lose search.
- AceJohnny2 1y ago
  Remember that time Microsoft bankrolled a floundering Apple to able to "But look, Windows is not a monopoly" https://thisdayintechhistory.com/08/06/apple-and-microsoft-call-truce/ https://thisdayintechhistory.com/08/06/apple-and-microsoft-c...
  - jahnu 1y ago
    And MSFT are still second biggest company in the world by market cap. If Apple hadn’t regrown maybe MS would have been broken up.

criticalfault 1y ago

This is only fair. Mozilla doesn't deserve to survive. New players deserve our support, like servo and ladybird. Even with an enormous budget from Google (500M, I think per year) they managed to ruin everything, including Firefox, the thing bringing them those 500M. To me it looks as if Baker is an undercover person put there to sabotage Mozilla. Tldr: funded by Google, made absolutely everything in her power to run it into the ground

mariusor 1y ago
Unlike historical examples like Stephen Elop that moved from Microsoft to Nokia and buried their mobile division only to return to Microsoft, Mitchell Baker was with Mozilla since the start.
bornfreddy 1y ago
Yup, wouldn't be the first one [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
jazzypants 1y ago
I'm not sure about that. Baker was one of the first Netscape employees, she literally helped found the Mozilla foundation, and she served as the first president of it. I'm not saying she has done a good job, but a lot of the early Netscape people like Brendan Eich have done nothing but sing her praises.
- criticalfault 1y ago
  If we take a look at the results, I'm not convinced she is a good guy just because she was there at the beginning. There is a chart with her salary going up and Firefox usage going down. Looks like an X. If anything, how come she didn't make it a success on the very limited market? Even if she wasn't a bad actor in the beginning, she could have changed her opinion and be seduced by the money. Just for comparison: a few people made a completely new engine in a few years. Task often thought as impossible (they had 200k USD for the start). Mozilla started servo, then when they saw its going well, decided to abandon it? So what was Mozilla spending the money on? Many have requested the ability to donate for Firefox development, but it was never allowed: they (she?) wanted to distribute the donation money on things they thought were important? For years they made decisions that the uses hated. How else to explain this?

dimal 1y ago

Mozilla is over. They put all their eggs in the Google basket, and soon they’ll lose that. They have no viable path forward. Servo and Ladybird are the future. I’m astounded by how quickly Ladybird is proceeding, with far fewer people than Mozilla. It’s been inspiring to see what that project is doing.

GuB-42 1y ago

Mozilla is nothing like Xerox, if anything Google is the new Xerox: they have way too much money so they throw it at R&D side projects without a business plan. The big one for Google is transformer models, they basically invented LLMs only to play catchup with OpenAI later. Mozilla successes have always been focused on the web browser, from the very beginning. Even the name reflects that: "Mozilla" stands for "Mosaic killer", Mosaic was the leading web browser at the time. They beat Mosaic with Netscape, they beat IE with Firefox, beating Chrome was their mission, and Rust and Servo were their weapons. It is sad that they dropped the ball. Like Xerox (and Google), Mozilla tried doing some side projects, but unlike Xerox, they didn't have money to burn from their quasi-monopolies, and I can't think of anything particularly innovative coming from Mozilla that isn't a browser. I don't consider Rust to be a side project, it is a programming language for writing a browser, that it is useful for projects other than a web browser is a happy side effect.

bee_rider 1y ago
> […] and I can't think of anything particularly innovative coming from Mozilla that isn't a browser. I don't consider Rust to be a side project, it is a programming language for writing a browser, that it is useful for projects other than a web browser is a happy side effect. I’m sure Rust started out as something intended to help with their browser work. But it became a general purpose programming language pretty early, right? I think it is… working pretty hard to find a reason to not include Rust as a innovative, non-browser piece of tech. Anyway, I don’t really think it detracts from your broader point to count Rust as a separate thing from the browser.
- Already__Taken 1y ago
  > But it became a general purpose programming language pretty early, right? IMO what we've seen learnt from ChromeOS and later their stab at firefox OS is the merit in treating the browser as the system. For that there was a lot of wisdom in making rust that capable. Seeing oxide make their stack is incredibly validating.
- PinkMilkshake 1y ago

dralley 1y ago

Servo would not have been some dramatic revolution in browser technology. It would have done the same thing browser engines currently do, but maybe a little faster and with a couple less security issues per year. It's dishonest to compare that to "the technology of the future", especially when nobody chooses their browser based on whether a page loads in 82ms or 70ms. They mostly choose browsers based on familiarity and marketing and what's preinstalled. Chrome is fast enough for most people that they're not gonna switch just because their dweeb nephew mentioned some other browser might be marginally faster. And they didn't toss Rust aside either. New bits of Firefox continue to be written in Rust to this day. That was actually the primary reason Servo was dropped - the bits of the browser engine that could be replaced with Servo bits easily had already been replaced. Rewriting Gecko slowly was deemed more practical than committing to 5+ years of parallel development and hoping that by the end it would be possible to replace millions of lines of Gecko code in one fell swoop.