3 ms·

Wowz just like Star Wars! Heckin updoots xD Sorry, I can't take Mozilla seriously when they're doing anything other than Firefox or Thunderbird. Enough of th

Wowz just like Star Wars! Heckin updoots xD Sorry, I can't take Mozilla seriously when they're doing anything other than Firefox or Thunderbird. Enough of this crap. Dressing it up with juvenile capeshit references doesn't help.

wolvoleo 9mo ago
Yes please let them focus on making Firefox economically sustainable without Google. Then worry about all the fluffy dogood stuff
- dralley 9mo ago
  The problem is that there is no way to make Firefox economically sustainable without Google (or some other search provider, but google won that war comprehensively). Browsers are fully commoditized and subsidized. Funding the browser with a combination of outside revenue sources and search deals is the way everyone does it.
  - wolvoleo 9mo ago
    It can, they just need to approach it not like a big corporation with a multi million dollar a year CEO but as a grassroots project. If something like KDE can build a whole desktop on a shoestring budget with some donations, Firefox can too. And I'd gladly donate to it. Problem is I can't because you can only donate to the foundation. And I don't want to fund their dogood distractions, just firefox. Besides, the search deal will end one way or another. Either Firefox will lose so much marketshare that Google no longer bothers, or the DoJ will finally ban the search deals. Relying on it is ultra stupid.
    - dralley 9mo ago
      With all due respect a web browser is much more complicated than a desktop environment. Firefox is like 30 million lines of code, much of which is active attack surface. A high performance JIT JavaScript engine alone might be more complex than KDE. Random people can fix UI bugs and contribute to simple desktop apps in a way that they likely cannot in general do with the deep internals of a browser.
      - wolvoleo 9mo ago
        KDE includes a web browser. Which spawned Safari in fact.
        peaseagee 9mo ago
        And Chrome!
        pseudalopex 9mo ago
        KDE removed KHTML and KJS. Falkon is a QtWebEngine wrapper.
        wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Yeah but they did make it. They just dropped maintaining it because it wasn't really being used.
        pseudalopex 9mo ago
        KHTML and KJS weren't really being used because KDE couldn't keep them useful.
      - ori_b 9mo ago
        With all due respect, that's all the more reason to put all the resources they can behind browser development, rather than scattering it across unrelated projects.
      - rascul 9mo ago
        KDE has already created a browser engine, a browser, and a JavaScript engine.
        pseudalopex 9mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46814523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46814523
    - pseudalopex 9mo ago
      I like KDE. But their small funding hurts development.
      - wolvoleo 9mo ago
        How so? I think it's pretty perfect as it is.
  - j-bos 9mo ago
    > Mozilla is focused on deploying its roughly $1.4 billion worth of reserves to support “mission driven” organizations, according to a new report. Back of the envelope math says that's worth 50-70 million dollars a year, taking into account inflation. A cracked developer is worth 1/2 a million per year, both of Mozilla's core offerings are OSS so benefit from free code contributions. Is that not enough for a dozen highly paid software engineers, a well paid CEO and infra? This is ignoring future donations.
    - bjord 9mo ago
      what is the math you're doing, exactly? also, I don't think a dozen devs is enough to support a competitive browser anyway, companies are far(!) from just devs
    - mrandish 9mo ago
      > Back of the envelope math says... It sounds like you haven't looked into Mozilla Foundation's history regarding CEO salary, bonuses and overall use of funds.
  - bossyTeacher 9mo ago
    If it focused JUST on Firefox and appealed to the privacy conscious tech community which is relatively small but wealthy, they could make it sustainable via a combination of open source support and donaitons imo.
  - eesmith 9mo ago
    I think an important outside revenue source they haven't tapped is sovereign wealth funds from countries that want to ensure there's a way for its citizens to use domestic web sites without depending on an opaque binary blob. Of course this funding would come with some pretty big strings attached. Including perhaps "no AI in the core system."
- pseudalopex 9mo ago
  Investing in AI startups is their strategy to become sustainable without Google seemingly.

wolvoleo 9mo ago

Yes please let them focus on making Firefox economically sustainable without Google. Then worry about all the fluffy dogood stuff

dralley 9mo ago
The problem is that there is no way to make Firefox economically sustainable without Google (or some other search provider, but google won that war comprehensively). Browsers are fully commoditized and subsidized. Funding the browser with a combination of outside revenue sources and search deals is the way everyone does it.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  It can, they just need to approach it not like a big corporation with a multi million dollar a year CEO but as a grassroots project. If something like KDE can build a whole desktop on a shoestring budget with some donations, Firefox can too. And I'd gladly donate to it. Problem is I can't because you can only donate to the foundation. And I don't want to fund their dogood distractions, just firefox. Besides, the search deal will end one way or another. Either Firefox will lose so much marketshare that Google no longer bothers, or the DoJ will finally ban the search deals. Relying on it is ultra stupid.
  - dralley 9mo ago
    With all due respect a web browser is much more complicated than a desktop environment. Firefox is like 30 million lines of code, much of which is active attack surface. A high performance JIT JavaScript engine alone might be more complex than KDE. Random people can fix UI bugs and contribute to simple desktop apps in a way that they likely cannot in general do with the deep internals of a browser.
    - wolvoleo 9mo ago
      KDE includes a web browser. Which spawned Safari in fact.
      - peaseagee 9mo ago
        And Chrome!
      - pseudalopex 9mo ago
        KDE removed KHTML and KJS. Falkon is a QtWebEngine wrapper.
        wolvoleo 9mo ago
        Yeah but they did make it. They just dropped maintaining it because it wasn't really being used.
        pseudalopex 9mo ago
        KHTML and KJS weren't really being used because KDE couldn't keep them useful.
    - ori_b 9mo ago
      With all due respect, that's all the more reason to put all the resources they can behind browser development, rather than scattering it across unrelated projects.
    - rascul 9mo ago
      KDE has already created a browser engine, a browser, and a JavaScript engine.
      - pseudalopex 9mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46814523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46814523
  - pseudalopex 9mo ago
    I like KDE. But their small funding hurts development.
    - wolvoleo 9mo ago
      How so? I think it's pretty perfect as it is.
- j-bos 9mo ago
  > Mozilla is focused on deploying its roughly $1.4 billion worth of reserves to support “mission driven” organizations, according to a new report. Back of the envelope math says that's worth 50-70 million dollars a year, taking into account inflation. A cracked developer is worth 1/2 a million per year, both of Mozilla's core offerings are OSS so benefit from free code contributions. Is that not enough for a dozen highly paid software engineers, a well paid CEO and infra? This is ignoring future donations.
  - bjord 9mo ago
    what is the math you're doing, exactly? also, I don't think a dozen devs is enough to support a competitive browser anyway, companies are far(!) from just devs
  - mrandish 9mo ago
    > Back of the envelope math says... It sounds like you haven't looked into Mozilla Foundation's history regarding CEO salary, bonuses and overall use of funds.
- bossyTeacher 9mo ago
  If it focused JUST on Firefox and appealed to the privacy conscious tech community which is relatively small but wealthy, they could make it sustainable via a combination of open source support and donaitons imo.
- eesmith 9mo ago
  I think an important outside revenue source they haven't tapped is sovereign wealth funds from countries that want to ensure there's a way for its citizens to use domestic web sites without depending on an opaque binary blob. Of course this funding would come with some pretty big strings attached. Including perhaps "no AI in the core system."
pseudalopex 9mo ago
Investing in AI startups is their strategy to become sustainable without Google seemingly.