> aggressive political stance
These two statements are at odds with each other. Mozilla whole purpose is inherently political.
There is no expertise at managing humanitarian efforts at Mozilla. There is no overlap with their primary purpose and external charitable contributions outside of those supporting open web standards. It’s a waste of everyone’s resources.
What did they actually do here? Host a mastadon instance for gay people? How many of those people wouldn't have a chatroom with like-minded people if not for Mozilla's efforts? There are countless such spaces on the net already, for instance on traditional social media, on other fediverse instances, on discord or reddit, etc... so how much money did Mozilla spend creating yet another chatroom for LGBTQI+ people and how much real world impact did their effort actually have?
(Aside, saying 'individuals' instead of 'people' exemplifies the sort of swarmy weasel language used by cops, corporate PR, and other snakes putting on airs. Why do they do this, don't they know this kind of language betrays them for what they are? I guess they use this language to impress each other and don't really care that normal people perceive it as inauthentic.)
except in the sense that technology/products are political.
Mozilla advocates a free and open internet. Providing a free and open browser is quite essential to that, and in fact any other effort is pretty much wasted if they can't deliver that.
> Riseup’s Purpose
> We value, support, and engage in struggles for human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability.
> We organize on the basis of autonomy, mutual aid, resource sharing, participatory knowledge, social advocacy, anti-oppression work
> We empower organizations and individuals to use technology in struggles for liberation
> Meet the Collective
> Cedar Waxwing is a revolutionary hacker and critic of late capitalism. Although deeply skeptical of technology, Waxwing has spent much of his life in a quixotic attempt to use technology for liberation.
> Colibrí Jacobina doesn’t hesitate to use her abilities and radical spirit to fight rich people, men, meat eaters, fascists, monogamy, and the police.
...And so on.
When you look at what this group actually does it's basically a glorified mail host for Queer, Feminist, Anarchist, Socialist, Labor, Unions etc. mailing lists: https://lists.riseup.net/www/
Now I mean I'm not necessarily against all of these causes but WTF is Mozilla doing bankrolling the "fight against monogamy and meat eaters" or "Anarchist and Socialist" groups? They have lost the plot.
This shift of focus has occurred during the reign of a CEO who is a lawyer and has boosted her own comp to $7.5M annually of course, what a true revolutionary socialist she is!
> They stopped being an organization dedicated to furthering the cause of free software, and instead dedicated themselves to promoting radical left wing political causes.
Mozilla's resources are directed at Firefox much more than anything else. Grants and donations were 1% of 2022 expenses. Your claim would be far from true still even if all grants and donations went to communist rebels.