It's fine for us hackers to use the right tool for the job, but the business of end-user platforms tends to be dominated by a few players, with strong network e

It's fine for us hackers to use the right tool for the job, but the business of end-user platforms tends to be dominated by a few players, with strong network effects. Microsoft wants people to use Windows for everything, and has succeeded at that on PCs for a long time. Apple wants people to use iOS for almost everything and Mac for the rest, and with iOS at least, they've been quite successful. Google wants people to be highly dependent on Google services; Android and Chrome are means to this end, and Android in particular is firmly under Google's control despite technically being open-source. proponents of software freedom and people's freedom in the online world want people to use free software as much as possible, especially at the platform level. Note that this desire, unlike the ones listed in the previous paragraph, is altruistic, not self-interested. So far, work on free-software platforms for end-users has focused on GNU/Linux desktop environments. Unfortunately, efforts in this area were always fragmented, and are becoming more so. But we already have another platform that has serious market-share among end-users and mind-share among developers, and is not owned or controlled by any single player. That's the Web platform. This is why Mozilla is pushing the Web platform to rival the proprietary platforms that are currently dominant. It's a means to accomplish lofty goals that are undeniably worthwhile on a global scale. We need to keep the end goals in mind and recognize that the best way to reach these goals in the near future and given the constraints of an imperfect world might be something as displeasing to us hackers as the Web platform. As for Google's money, why is that a problem? If Mozilla can maintain a mutually beneficial agreement with Google, such that Mozilla is able to reach its goals while Google also gets what it wants without harming users, then it's all good.