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Comment by izabera | Hacker News Reader

firefox is not remotely able to bring in enough cash to justify its current development costs. see https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202... ($12M income from contributions vs $260M spent on software development, the vast majority of which is undoubtedly spent on firefox). so no, mozilla cannot just drop everything else to finally focus only on their browser, as that is guaranteed to bankrupt the company.

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> firefox is not remotely able to bring in enough cash to justify its current development costs

Mozilla’s donations are roughly equal to their CEO’s compensation [1][2].

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2024/a... ”$7.8M in donations from the public, grants from foundations, and government funding” in 2023

[2] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-990... $6.9mm in 2022, page 7

Yes, and you can't donate specifically for Firefox development.

I don't want my donations to support the latest fashion, I want them to go directly to the browser.

100%, those hare brained schemes are Mozilla frantically trying to find another revenue stream to fund Firefox so they're not reliant on Google

no, it also a whole lot of virtue signaling nonsense

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...

Around 2012 I was advocating Wikimedia should have merged with Mozilla where by Wikimedia foundation would continue to fund the development of Firefox.

But then both were rotten and massively over spend.

If only they had set aside some funds to serve as an endowment for the future.

> $260M spent on software development,

What? I know the browser is a complex piece of software but considering at least part of the development is done by volunteers isn't this a bit too high?

Maybe at least they should move a part of the operation outside of HCOL areas in the US?

There are almost no volunteers working on web browsers anymore.

1800 ish devs from the last figure I could find. 700 ish on Firefox.

Now there is no way 700 people actually work on Firefox code. Throw in team leads, QA, dev tools, UI, specialized developers like WebRTC and that number makes a little more sense. But still seems inflated.

Most of Mozilla is already remote.

I mean Mozilla and Firefox should survive. But I do imagine we’ll lose Thunderbird and anything not Firefox related. And dev will drop heavily. CEO salary of almost 7 million will need to go as well.

It may be good for Mozilla to return to a streamlined company. Rather then a bloated one as it is now.

Almost nothing noticeable has changed with Firefox for years. A couple of minor features here and there, and just keeping up with standards. It does seem pretty excessive. Definitely seems that Mozilla has become massively wasteful and misguided over the past ~15 years.

That’s actually the point. An army of people are keeping up with standards so things just work. I’m curious as to what it looks like when only certain browsers are maintained.

New standards do not get adopted that easily? One can dream...

That's one of the main problems with Google controlling not only the top browser but also the rendering engine behind most of the competition. They don't have to care about standards at that point. When they do, it's mostly to put a veneer of openness over their operations.

Thunderbird is (amazingly) funded entirely by donations from users. The money is hypothecated for that purpose. There are so few good email clients now they get enough donors.

Source: someone I know who works there

Wait, you can donate for Thunderbird specifically?

You can! Thunderbird lives in a separate entity outside the main Mozillasphere called MZLA. I've given a few times in the past and use it for personal use, but my workplace recently banned Thunderbird.

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/

Aside from a handful of individuals the only volunteers doing a modicum of serious volunteer work are retirees/ people that don’t need to work anymore or companies directing their employees to make contributions for their own motivations

You seriously underestimate the complexity of a browser if you think it’s a hobbies maintained thing

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