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Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#311
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, please make a monthly donation to Mozilla if you can. You will contribute to saving the world. https://donate.mozilla.org/

Do this! I procrastinated on switching from Chrome to Firefox for several months because I wasn't sure how much time and effort it would take. I set up a monthly donation to Mozilla during this time because it was easy and supported browser diversity. When I did finally switch, it turned out to be pretty easy and fast to transfer my bookmarks and passwords to Firefox, and there are some features like the built-in con…

TST is pretty valuable, is it supported at all by Mozilla? They seem not to make it easy to use it.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#313
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common refrain, but is anything but obvious. Focusing on the browser could be a losing strategy. I'd argue it probably is. The trajectory is terrible: the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) and the market share picture is bleak. The opportunity cost is huge: maintaining a web engine, one which basically just tries to keep up with the others put out by Google et al, takes armies of people that could perha…

> the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) An aside from the discussion at hand: is it possible to repackage Gecko so that it uses the same API calls that WebKit uses, basically translating from WebKit calls to Gecko calls? The problem with WebKit and Chromium is that all new browsers are going that direction and Gecko is being left behind. This isn't good for the web as a whole. A version of the Gecko API t…

That's a mug's game. The best you can do is exactly what Webkit does, because that's what you're trying to imitate. You won't do it 100% perfectly (all software has bugs), so in any direct comparison you come out looking worse.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's only a matter of time before Microsoft does a hard fork of Chromium.

Can you elaborate on what makes you think that? (I'd love it to happen, btw)

I don't have any insider knowledge. It makes sense to me that a trillion-dollar platform company will at some point want to control their browser destiny, and not rely on their competitor's roadmap.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#315
The "make Firefox a secondary goal" faction has won again.

"Mozilla exists so the internet can help the world collectively meet the range of challenges a moment like this presents. Firefox is a part of this. But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests. Over the last while, it has been clear that Mozilla is not structured properly to create these new things — and to build the better internet we all deserve."

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#316
post #312

While I really hate to suggest this, the best way to make money might be to sell space on newly opened tabs (with an option to turn off ads for something reasonable like USD$24.95 per year).

What!? I would switch to brave immediately.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#317

Mozilla management has me puzzled. They have a position that is incredibly strong, lots of dedicated users that would rather quit the web than switch to Chrome or Edge. "But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests" Is exactly what they should stay away from. Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. There a…

Mozilla management isn't interested in "boring" browsers, they are activists.
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