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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#191

Post by la_fayette »

zelly wrote: post #171
strict9 wrote: post #43

Not sure of Mozilla’s financial or organizational structure but it seems to be part of a larger trend of de-emphasizing QA departments at software shops large and small over the past 10 or so years. In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage. But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can…

If there's anything they need to axe, it's the Gecko team. Just replace it with V8. The whole layout engine too--replace it with Blink. It is inevitable, so might as well get over with it now and save the wasted human effort and $$$. I tried to use Firefox recently. It leaked 28 GiB of RAM on x86_64 GNU/Linux with no extensions except uBlock Origin. Happened a few times over the month whenever I visited JS-heavy webs…

Cpu usage of chrome is higher on chrome on mobile. Cpu affects battery life more than memory... so firefox is a good choice on mobile.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#192

Post by saagarjha »

zelly wrote: post #171
strict9 wrote: post #43

Not sure of Mozilla’s financial or organizational structure but it seems to be part of a larger trend of de-emphasizing QA departments at software shops large and small over the past 10 or so years. In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage. But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can…

If there's anything they need to axe, it's the Gecko team. Just replace it with V8. The whole layout engine too--replace it with Blink. It is inevitable, so might as well get over with it now and save the wasted human effort and $$$. I tried to use Firefox recently. It leaked 28 GiB of RAM on x86_64 GNU/Linux with no extensions except uBlock Origin. Happened a few times over the month whenever I visited JS-heavy webs…

> If there's anything they need to axe, it's the Gecko team. Just replace it with V8. The whole layout engine too--replace it with Blink. It is inevitable, so might as well get over with it now and save the wasted human effort and $$$.

And further contribute to the browser monoculture?

> I tried to use Firefox recently. It leaked 28 GiB of RAM on x86_64 GNU/Linux with no extensions except uBlock Origin. Happened a few times over the month whenever I visited JS-heavy websites.

And you've reported this, I assume?

> Never had that happen with Chromium, which runs through megs of JS like butter.

Really? I explicitly avoid Chrome on my computer because it can't handle the web without chewing through my RAM.

> Wouldn't it be nice if an experienced browser dev team maintained a privacy-oriented libre version of Chrome (without manifest v3, sync, and all that trash). Or should they keep doing what they've doing and make the best pro-privacy browser that no one ever uses except indirectly through Tor Browser.

I would like the experienced Mozilla team to continue to work on their pro-privacy browser than a decent number of people use.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#193

Post by JohnFen »

save_ferris wrote: post #156
_-david-_ wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I have seen any marketing material from Mozilla. I have seen some Chrome marketing though.

They pour a ton of money into events like SXSW. They had huge displays of their new branding up and down Congress Ave a couple of years ago, with several other "brand awareness" things going on throughout the conference.

I don't want to second-guess the marketing team, as I clearly don't know all of the things I'd need to know to do that.

But let me second-guess the marketing team: wouldn't all that money be better spent marketing to potential customers rather than things like SXSW?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#194

Post by zelly »

crazypython wrote: post #129
strict9 wrote: post #43

Not sure of Mozilla’s financial or organizational structure but it seems to be part of a larger trend of de-emphasizing QA departments at software shops large and small over the past 10 or so years. In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage. But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can…

Mozilla uses AFL, which is a genetic algorithm that tests code paths. They are also transitioning to Rust, which will give them a much bigger safety guarantee over most of their code and a much smaller audit surface for the rest.

Mozilla is good at everything except making browsers. rr is the best debugger I've used. I wonder if there's a way for them to monetize Rust. It seems impossible to monetize a programming language without owning a platform e.g. Microsoft (*.NET), Apple (Swift), Borland (Delphi), JetBrains (Kotlin). FirefoxOS for mobile with Rust as the first-class citizen would have been huge for them. Maybe it's not too late. Take note Mozilla.

If there's anything they're going to be in the history books for, it's going to say Rust, not Firefox.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#195

Post by JohnFen »

vkou wrote: post #91
tracker1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why they don't largely sack half their marketing budget and concentrate on community outreach from the developer side... that's how they grew in the first place. I'm also surprised they haven't tried to create commercial mail and communications products. Thunderbird used to be one of the best options out there, and they could easily spin this off into a SaaS and self-host product on the server component.…

> I'm not sure why they don't largely sack half their marketing budget and concentrate on community outreach from the developer side... that's how they grew in the first place. Which worked because IE 6 was a dumpster fire for both users and developers. Developers were looking for any excuse to jump ship off it. The browser market in 2020 is 'good enough' for users and developers. It's like gasoline - nobody cares wh…

> The browser market in 2020 is 'good enough' for users and developers

Sadly, I agree.

I find it sad because I haven't personally found any modern browser that I'm happy using.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#197

Post by JohnFen »

asdasdasdasdwd wrote: post #65
walshemj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General Electric was famous for doing this is the problem is you cant keep doing it every year. Also people just game the system and only do what will get them a good review. I know some on at a big UK company who was bucking for a promotion and they blew through 1 Mill and 15 Man years for no good reason.

> Also people just game the system and only do what will get them a good review. Wouldn't doing a good job earn a good review? This reminds me of the xkcd comic about the bots starting to have constructive messages to avoid spam filters. Mission fucking accomplished.

> Wouldn't doing a good job earn a good review?

If only life were that simple.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#198

Post by saagarjha »

summerlight wrote: post #167
jahlove wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made $450m in revenue in 2018. What fraction of that is actually needed to keep a productive browser team afloat?

Assuming that Chrome team have thousands of engineers, designers and PMs (which is a pretty reasonable number as a modern browser is comparable to OS), I expect them to spend more than a billion each year. Mozilla is really in short of resources.

Other browsers do just fine with significantly fewer engineers.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#199

Post by lucb1e »

nordsieck wrote: post #106
aaomidi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's hundreds of other engineers that can probably do as good of a job or better than him. Just because someone has a CEO label doesn't mean they have to be paid extreme amounts of money.

> There's hundreds of other engineers that can probably do as good of a job or better than him. There are 2 parts to the job of CEO: 1. Sales 2. Incentive engineering (overcoming Goodhart's law) There is very little about software development expertise that will help with either of those endeavors.

> There is very little about software development expertise that will help with either of those endeavors

Good point, we can pay them much less than developers. Having a warm smile and making informed decisions about ~things is something my mom can do and I assure you her hourly wage is less than a developer's.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#200

Post by lucb1e »

marcinzm wrote: post #131
aaomidi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's hundreds of other engineers that can probably do as good of a job or better than him. Just because someone has a CEO label doesn't mean they have to be paid extreme amounts of money.

>There's hundreds of other engineers that can probably do as good of a job or better than him. Says only someone who hasn't seen what happens when the average IC is forced into management.

IC? (Merriam-webster doesn't come up with anything useful and I only know it as integrated circuit or intercity train)
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