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The Mozilla Manifesto
- lukifer 13y agoI can't say enough good things about Mozilla and their values. After becoming disillusioned with Apple over the last five years, Mozilla feels like one of the last remaining forces attempting to stave off a computing world of digital fiefdoms (in addition to Automattic and Canonical).
- stephenr 13y agoYou lost me when you listed automattic and canonical in a positive, non-douchebag light
- derefr 13y agoThe nice thing about open-source: Canonical's self-interested advancements of Ubuntu have made the OS quite a bit better. By "the OS", I am referring, of course, to Debian. :) I think (perhaps-douchebaggy) self-interest is perfectly fine when it has positive externalities in the world. You're free to avoid the drama of the Ubuntu project itself, while continuing to reap the rewards on the rest of the ecosystem from its existence.
- mikegioia 13y agoSeriously, people often forget there's Debian underneath Ubuntu. Any advancements towards Debian, by Canonical or anyone else, are a great thing.
- stephenr 13y agoOnly if those "advancements" make it back into Debian.
- bpodgursky 13y agoWhy? It's great either way. If improvements to Ubuntu help get people into linux, and they choose to stay on Ubuntu rather than move to Debian, how is that not a win?
- stephenr 13y agoA win for who? My name is not RMS, I do not eat my own toe jam and have a superiority complex that compels me to dictate to others what they should do. I couldn't care less if someone else uses Linux. I care about Debian being a stable and secure OS for the servers I manage.
- cpeterso 13y agoAre Canonical's code changes not open source? Backporting those changes is not necessarily their responsibility.
- pekk 13y agoWhat is Debian missing and why is it Ubuntu's fault that it isn't in Debian?
- shmerl 13y agoI'm not sure if Ubuntu made Debian much better than it is. Sure, there are some contributions, but they usually go other way around - Debian benefits Ubuntu. Especially with latest developments of Ubuntu moving away from the rest of the Linux world (Mir, Unity and etc.). I.e. all the Ubuntu specific things aren't benefiting the rest, only Ubuntu. A related joke: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/108/8/0/i_can__t_configure_debian_by_carnine9-d4wkixt.png http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/108/8/0/i_can__t_conf...
- bad_user 13y agoDecisions like supporting and moving to Mir, Unity, etc... have been technical. You can't say they are douche-bags because of that. And on Ubuntu moving away from the rest of the Linux world, do you know what's the most popular OS that uses a Linux kernel and that will probably be the most popular OS period? It's Android. And besides the backing of Google, which definitely helped its popularity, given that other big companies tried variations of Linux on phones, you've got to wonder, aren't there technical reasons too for Android's popularity? And of course there are. Android maintains binary backwards compatibility. And Android simply skipped on all the X.org / GTK+ / Gnome / Qt / KDE cluster fuck. People complain about Android fragmentation, however compared to Linux on desktops, development for Android feels like you're in heaven.
- Fice 13y agoI would rather list Red Hat than Canonical.
- u2328 13y agoI'm glad somebody brought up Red Hat. I can't believe Canonical is mentioned in a similar context as Mozilla and Red Hat is forgotten. If we were talking about Google or Amazon, however...
- jimbosis 13y agoCan you be more specific as to your grievances, especially with Automattic?
- dkuntz2 13y agoI'm mostly peeved with the whole theme licensing issue that's popped up recently. Mostly the idea that if you don't do things their way, you're doing it wrong (and can be banned from speaking at a WordCamp).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- stephenr 13y agoMy problem with Automattic is Wordpress.
- PommeDeTerre 13y agoValues listed on a web page are one thing. Actions are another. I haven't been impressed with their actions over the past few years. Just look at Firefox. Instead of striving to provide a lean, practical, extensible browser, all they've managed to do is copy Chrome as of late. The UI changes have not been for the better. The release schedule changes were very painful, and the version number inflation is pointless. While its performance and memory usage is marginally better these days, it has still been years without any significant improvement. It's not surprising that users are moving away from it to other browsers. Then there's Thunderbird. Aside from Firefox, this was one of their only other pieces of useful software. Yet they've dropped their support for it to a minimal level. What's worse, while neglecting their software that people actually use on a daily basis, they've embarked on pointless efforts like FirefoxOS and Persona. We don't need another mobile OS, especially one that's essentially crippled to only supporting development using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS (which, of course, are already available on Android and iOS, not to mention the other mobile OSes that are already widely available). Persona is clearly not gaining any traction. The only encouraging thing out of them has been Rust. But even that seems to be rather loosely associated with them, and appears to be regarded as quite experimental. I know, I know. I'm not paying for their software, so they don't have any obligation to me, etc., etc.. I'm merely not convinced that their actions really correspond to the principles in their manifesto very well.
- emilsedgh 13y agoMozilla's value and goal is pushing for open web. Not creating the best browser. Creating a kickass browser was the way the reached their goal. We do need another mobile OS because current ones do not respect our freedom. Even if they are technically sufficient, user friendly and usable. So I dont care if Mozilla is copying Chrome or not. I just wish they stay in the same path AND be strong and influencial as they currently are.
- PommeDeTerre 13y agoLike I said earlier, it's pretty clear that the path they're following now is diminishing their influence. This page lists a variety of measures of browser usage share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Notice that over the past several years, in each data set, that Firefox's usage has dropped off, or at best not grown. People are leaving Firefox because it's not improving, and because it is actually getting worse in many ways for many people. If we're going to get the Chrome experience even when using Firefox, but done in an inferior fashion, we may as well just use Chrome. I expect we'd see a similar, if not more severe, drop off in Thunderbird's usage numbers. I've personally moved to a different client within the past year, and I know several other people who have, too. There's nothing compelling about FirefoxOS compared to Android, iOS, or the incumbents. Average people will not switch to it. Without these people, it won't gain traction, and Mozilla will still have limited to no influence in the mobile space. And the same goes for Persona. It has been around for a few years now, but average people aren't using it, nor does it look like there's any reason they'd want to. "Openness" may be a noble goal, but I think they had much more influence when they were producing software that people liked to use because it worked well. The move away from this has corresponded to a decrease in their influence, and much greater influence for Google, Apple, Microsoft and even Opera.
- twelvechairs 13y agoThey say 'internet' rather than 'web' but Mozilla's recent direction seems very heavily web-only oriented to me (FirefoxOS, Persona and basically concluding Thunderbird). Are they actively working on anything serious which is not web-based? (Not to put them down. I love Mozilla and what they have done for all of us. Just curious as to their direction)
- dbaupp 13y agoRust?
- twelvechairs 13y agoGood point. But its not strictly 'internet' is it?
- jabbernotty 13y agoRust seems more like a tool, a means to an end, rather than a product.
- st3fan 13y agoThe web is the universal language that the internet speaks. Whatever you do, the web is likely the output channel.
- WayneDB 13y agoIncorrect. TCP/IP is the universal language that the Internet speaks. HTTP merely rides on top of it...just like SMTP, FTP, SSH, IMAP, DHCP, POP3, IRC and BitTorrent. Take a look here - http://www.sandvine.com/downloads/documents/Phenomena_2H_2012/Sandvine_Global_Internet_Phenomena_Report_2H_2012.pdf http://www.sandvine.com/downloads/documents/Phenomena_2H_201... "Web browsing" is only one piece of the pie - far from universal.
- dkuntz2 13y agoIncorrect. IP is the universal language that the Internet speaks. Technically.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoMan alive, Mozilla just inspires me I am stealing this and the Turing oath to go as part of my own company's values background I am especially glad they focused on the public good side of the Internet and did not get mired in privacy debates This is going in front of as many UK council leaders as will listen at the LGA conference July Thanks guys
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ndesaulniers 13y agoComments like this make me proud to work there. :'-)
- Derbasti 13y agoMozilla is plain awesome. Just donated some money to them.
- callahad 13y agoAs someone with the good fortune to work for Mozilla full-time, thank you.
- shmerl 13y agoMozilla is one of the bright stars in the computing industry. There should be some, we have enough dark empires like MS and Apple.
- TannerF 13y agoThe video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2udd765yVMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2udd765yVMc ) gives me goosebumps every time I watch it... Mozilla is simply amazing.
- thansharp 13y agoThere is one issue people haven't glossed over. Mozilla derives over 85% of their revenue from Google (by making google the default search engine). So a lot of their development involves getting funding from google. The problem with this is that you cannot fight for open standards (against google, it looks like of late) when you derive most of your funding from your adversary. You need an independent revenue stream, like Red Hat. Firefox can probably offer non-tracking services to corporations that have doubts over google's data policies. PS : I am a fan of Firefox, but it has been crashing way too often of late. Only the fact of me being a power web user (I have more than 70 tabs open on average) has kept me a continued Firefox user.
- martius 13y agoGoogle is not what I would call an adversary. Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and others are willing to go in the same direction, they don't share the same priorities and it's all about negociations and stuff. When Mozilla and Google renewed their partnership, I heard that Bing was ready to pay Mozilla a bigger check than Google was, yet they choose to stick with Google because they thought it was a better option for the user. If it's true, I think we can trust them about the way they earn money and use it. On the other hand, as far as I understand, Firefox OS is built with partners from the industry, which probably means that development costs are shared, and not only supported by Google's money. Last but not least, we probably have a lot of different experiences with firefox, but my setup does not crash every so often...
- mikeratcliffe 13y agoIf your Firefox crashes sometimes then go to about:support and click reset (it should be near the top right of the page). You should probably also go to http://www.mozilla.com/plugincheck/ http://www.mozilla.com/plugincheck/ to update your addons. Maybe you have an extension that is causing your crashes ... I suspect something that is not used by very many people. As a side not I am proud to work for Mozilla. The first thing we ask before doing anything is "Will this make the internet a better place?" ... too many companies do not live their missions or, at least, don't live up to them.
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- rimantas 13y ago> The Internet is an integral part of modern life—a key > component in education, communication, collaboration, > business, entertainment and society as a whole. This is true. Alas, too many forget, that "internet" is not the same as "web" and think that everything internet is should be made of HTML, CSS and ECMAScript, instead of thinking of internet as the net of interconnected devices.
- ethanaustinite 13y agoLets see how their values align with accepting bitcoin donations.