> As I reported back in 2023, the Servo browser engine is doing well. Early this year, its own figures show strong continued upticks in interest since Igalia took over development. You guessed it – Mozilla also gave Servo the boot in 2020.
You don't need to develop a new programming language to develop a decent browser engine. Maybe it would be nice, and maybe it could be better, but do you really have the resources to go off on such a tangent? Clearly the answer was no.
> 2020 is the same year Cathay Capital invested $50 million into KaiOStech, saying it would help bring the next billion people online. As The Register reported in 2018, KaiOS is Boot2Gecko, Mozilla's FirefoxOS rebranded. Mozilla killed its own version in 2015.
Calling it "FirefoxOS" was a mistake, but the idea wasn't all too bad. The rendering in HTML/CSS was a good idea, Java after all have Java Swing/JavaFX and that worked well, but I wouldn't have forced all of the apps to also be JS. I think it will be the future equivalent of an OS where all apps must be Adobe Flash. The rendering should have all been done in HTML/CSS, with the backend being any language of choice running in a tiny container.
I think Mozilla need to make things that do one thing well, and they also need to get better at developing MVPs that test the waters before pouring in years and millions into it.