Mozilla Is Dead

This article has no substance, and the tweets it links to explicitly contradict it's core message. Maybe the author isn't aware of the difference between Servo and Gecko?

https://twitter.com/gcpascutto/status/1293519587967983616

> Fwiw, afaict, almost all Gecko / platform devs are unaffected (I'm pretty relieved about that, I started my day with a totally different feeling).

> These layoffs are still devastating personally, but if anything, Mozilla is not ditching Gecko.

and

> To combat some FUD: my Security and Hardening team working on Firefox also appears to have survived.

> I conclude that a secure Gecko is still considered key to achieving Mozilla's goals.

> I'm happy to still be here. We have key improvements in the pipeline that I want to ship.

If Mozilla focused on better technology, that would not solve its money problem. It currently depends on other companies (Google search, Pocket) to survive. This post does not make any suggestions how to make Mozilla profitable.

Indeed, Mozilla provides utilities, services and advocacy that provide value to many people and companies. We take that for granted somehow, and don't reward their efforts. We want everything for free and better and faster and with no ads.

I wish France or the EU provided funding for Mozilla to reduce the internet dominance of Google.

What kills me is that I was unaware of just how badly Mozilla was struggling. As an avid Firefox user, I would have paid a monthly subscription to help keep the Mozilla dream and values alive. A world with just Google/Chrome is too depressing.

The stupidity of actually killing the very core team of their very core product leaves me speechless. The managers behind that decision are so obviously inept that they should be unemployable in the future.

Well, its sort of true. Open source doesn't pay the bills and their projects Firefox and Rust are used for free and doesn't help them generate revenue other than getting a contract with a trillion dollar company against your privacy.

They have to stand on their own if they want to be true to their mission rather than taking in a privacy abusers money, or just admit it and drop that mission statement.

Reading the public docs shows Google contributes 90+% of Mozilla's revenue, basically it has been keeping Mozilla alive so that it can avoid antitrust allegations. But if you look at the tweets and stuff from their blog post, mostly they have killed off their R&D, which is actually where all the interesting stuff from the last few years has come; wasm, rust, servo, vr & ar. Without that stuff and since Google has squeezed the money pipeline, they're reduced to BS areas which are already super competitive like vpns. What next, antivirus? Fn goodluck with that. Mitchell Baker should have been put out to pasture long ago and the new exec ranks look stacked with diversity hires. Inclined to agree with OP.

OK but seriously, is the Firefox security team gone? If so, how do they propose to ship a browser without anyone making sure it's secure? That sounds kind of irresponsible.

If cost-cutting is the ostensible goal then I presume there have been layoffs in non-engineering divisions too? Why are we not hearing anything on Twitter about that?

Mozilla better switches to a management that understands building experiments to move the company forward based on data / evidence. Why not establish an experiment based on the the concepts of Brave? Why not evaluating if people have money to get advanced dev tools (e.g. I'd buy session replay tools).

Killing of teams related to Firefox will definitely hurt their reach, especially in enterprises.

Why do most people assume the worst on this topic?

Mozilla might be changing, but it's not dead:

Mozilla Extends its Google Search Deal - http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ksxPwXG1UyY/...

Dead or not, their intent to focus on profits led me to delete my Firefox accounts preemptively before they start mining user data...

Good bye, Mozilla Firefox, looking forward to the forks a few years down the line.

I'd love to know how many people have flagged this for an article with 57 upvotes and 19 comments in 1 hour to get marked as [flagged].

So what does this mean for Rust? Is there any other company dedicated to maintaining it, not just using it?

> As an administrator in the main job and helper in the private sphere for some people, Firefox as a browser can no longer be an option. The danger of unpatched security holes and lack of further development in the core area endangers the infrastructure and systems.

I think this is the killer for Mozilla. Most people knew about Mozilla because of Firefox. Most non-tech people knew about Firefox because their tech friends recommended it to them. Now, I think that recommending Firefox to your non-tech friends is a disservice to them.

Despite what people say their priorities are, what their priorities are become evident when they are forced to make cuts. What gets cut is not the priority no matter how loudly they proclaim it. What remains is the priority no matter how much they may say it is not. Firefox, Servo, Security these all got the axe. They are not the priority at Mozilla.