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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engine consolidation happened, the fight now is over privacy. When and if Brave is big enough we will chart our own engine course.

The more influence Google gets over the web standards, the more they will steer it in order to raise the barrier of entry for web engine makers. It will also get them more and more power over what can be commercially viable on the web. Making it easier for them to set the rules for everyone on the web seems directly detrimental to your business. As time passes by for Brave to became "big enough" (supposedly to develo…

Find "slow forking" elsewhere to see my response to your concern that we would have to make an entirely new engine from scratch this year or next. That's not the threat. We strip out Google tracking already and work in W3C to keep them from jamming premature standards through -- if they try turning any such on without other browsers agreeing, we will disable.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#882
post #541
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Of course this is not the experience of the vast majority of Firefox users, so it's pointless to suggest that this means something about Firefox's overall quality. You can easily find people making the same sorts of complaints…

Considering he was on Linux, btw, that was probably not a Mozilla build. Sadly, one of the drawbacks of opensource is that people can take your code and butcher it, and users will blame you.

Firefox gigantic leaks happen to me on Windows too. Depending on the mood, it ends with a crash or with Windows warning me that it will kill some processes if that keeps going on.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many CEOs derive a significant portion - often even the majority - of their compensation from performance-based bonuses. Compensation not only reflects performance, it is directly tied to it.

Millions/Billions were paid out in bailout money, to the very same people responsible for collapsing the housing market in 2009. Compensation for that level is complete bullshit. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/31pay.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/16b-of-bank-bailout-went-to-exe... https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/banks-paid...

Didn't that bailout earn American taxpayers money in the end?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions/Billions were paid out in bailout money, to the very same people responsible for collapsing the housing market in 2009. Compensation for that level is complete bullshit. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/31pay.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/16b-of-bank-bailout-went-to-exe... https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/banks-paid...

Didn't that bailout earn American taxpayers money in the end?

Sure, the ones that actually paid back with interest. But that doesn't help the 'performance bonus' discussion. These people destroyed the housing market, then got bailed out by the people they destroyed, THEN got paid millions/billions in bonuses for doing it.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#885

I'm one of the 70. There were no signs that this was imminent, although Mozilla has been struggling financially for many years. I expected that it would happen eventually; I'm relatively well-prepared for it; and it's not too shocking. I did however expect that there would be some warning signs in the lead-up, but that was not the case. I was working on Cranelift, the WebAssembly compiler that is also a plausible fut…

Facebook is definitely looking for folks with compiler experience. Feel free to reach out at dannyz [at] fb

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#886

I'm one of the 70. There were no signs that this was imminent, although Mozilla has been struggling financially for many years. I expected that it would happen eventually; I'm relatively well-prepared for it; and it's not too shocking. I did however expect that there would be some warning signs in the lead-up, but that was not the case. I was working on Cranelift, the WebAssembly compiler that is also a plausible fut…

Shoot me an email agal at apple. Also feel free to give my email to anyone else affected.

For others who are interested in who's the parent is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Gal

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#887
post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in enacting company-wide policies to coerce political participation. Terminating employment for political actions in an at-will employment state like California is still legal. From your article: >On the contrary, political beliefs or views are not a specifically protected category under California's discrimination laws. Nothing in either of the two labor code provisions above directly addresses discrimination o…

Lawyers in California disagree: https://www.worklawyers.com/illegal-firings-california/

That's a lawyer's marketing blog selling his services to sue for wrongful termination. The labor code § 1101 they cite is the same thing: it applies only to employers using threatening to terminate in order to coerce political activity, not actually terminating someone for political actions.

This is an important distinction. It is illegal for an employer to threaten all employees with termination if they do not vote on X, for example. It is not illegal for an employer to terminate an employee for taking a specific political action.

Mozilla did not threaten to terminate in order to coerce action, they terminated for actions already taken place, making it legal.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think the Peter Principle would be better represented if there was someone who was a star on the technical side, but messed up as the CEO in a role they couldn't handle. i.e. if Brendan Eich was CEO and this happened it would be a Peter Principle moment. All these senior leadership people seem to be straight from the management track. Doesn't seem like they showed their excellence in another discipline and we…

Through the bank my experience is that a technical background with someone growing into a leadership role ultimately creates better results. People whose only skill is "leadership" tend to perform pretty badly. But the Peter principle, doubtful if it even can be taken seriously, doesn't say anything about this specifically. I don't know anything about Eich, but I don't really see how he would have been bad for Mozill…

> He had some controversial views as some have reported, but I don't really think that would have been very relevant, especially if so many people disagree.

As far as I know, he never expressed what his “views” were. People just found he donated $1000 (which was .002% of the total funds raised) towards a proposition opposing same-sex marriage. There didn’t seem to be anyone who had worked with him, regardless of orientation, who felt uncomfortable with him, or were even aware of it. His contributions having an effect were gated by a democratic vote, and his financial contribution was so small that I can’t imagine it having a substantial effect on the outcome.

To me the fact that he had the maturity to restrict his political discourse to the same means available to any other voter, to his private life, and was discreet enough that nobody knew about it for years, made him look better. Mozilla is supposed to be making the internet accessible to everybody, even people who hold conflicting views.

The quote comes to mind:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#889

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming anything, just explaining the law you cited. Being fired for your political actions is entirely legal in at-will employment states like California. The law you cited does not apply, except to companies that use company policy to _ coerce _ political action from employees. Firing someone for their actions does not make it company policy. Mozilla was not coercing employees to take political action by a…

I understand what you're saying, but the point is you're wrong. A company cannot go around firing any employees that donates or otherwise supports a candidate from a particular party, for example. The protections read: > No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or f…

Do you know the difference between threatening someone to coerce them into action, and actually doing it for said actions?
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