41–50 of 245 posts
In my head the question is: can a wikipedia-style MDN exist? If the answer is yes than I think op opinion is only on one type of model of organizing and funding a documentation site. Will a wikipedia-style MDN be successful if there are (in addition of volunteers) paid writers who cover the majority of the work need? Maybe not. Maybe that's what the existing MDN proves.
Google seems to be paying technical writers to build the free (growing) alternative to MDN, https://web.dev . It's not a generalized web resource yet like MDN, but just wait. Of course, you'll have to accept that the documentation here will likely have a Chrome-centric view of web development, further establishing the Chrome-only version of the web. The loss of MDN will just result in Firefox becoming less relevant.…
Rather sad the two proposals here are either "giant browser vendors should pay for it" or "independent web developers should pay for it." It's one thing for developers to pay for things that will develop their independent careers, but MDN is a reference as much as it is a learning resource; it's something developers constantly use at their jobs. Their employers , big or small, should be the ones paying for it. Of cou…
Usually the provider of a system or a standard also provides the documentation. Should my employer also pay to keep MSDN c# docs up to date? Or should that be the task of microsoft employees?
>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…
> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. Interestingly, this same sentiment is a huge part of why charitable giving runs into problems. A lot of people are willing to give, so long as they get to decide what is done with their funds. Of course, these same people have no i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>MDN is a reference as much as it is a learning resource.. >Their employers, big or small, should be the ones paying for it. Your argument is counter intuitive, if it is truly a reference, then surely the developers themselves should pay for it. A company hires a developer with the expectation that they know their field (including the standards etc.). It is the developers' own concern if they (understandably) need a…
Also bring your own chair and desk while we're at it. Oh and you definitely want to buy some toilet paper. Felix always keeps a stock on those but he never shares.
>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…
>degenerate activism What is degenerate activism?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. Interestingly, this same sentiment is a huge part of why charitable giving runs into problems. A lot of people are willing to give, so long as they get to decide what is done with their funds. Of course, these same people have no i…
It need not take such high salaried non-technical CEO, degenerate activism or doomed web startups to run something like Mozilla.
Much of what the Firefox and Safari teams do on standards committees is activism as well: fighting against useful standards from the big player because they believe the standards are bad for users. I generally agree, but it's impossible to claim that it's anything other than activism (pro-privacy, etc) when the average Chrome user just goes 'cool, I can use my midi keyboard and bluetooth headset with my web browser'.
Mozilla was a doomed web startup up until the point where Firefox finally succeeded. Now they're doomed again. I won't even claim that's false - I think it's probably true - but it's a fact that the effort was hopeless early on too.
This is my perspective as someone who previously got paid to work on Firefox, then later got paid to work on Chrome, and had an offer to get paid to work on Safari. I think people who complain about Firefox often don't understand what the web actually is and what Mozilla actually does. To be fair, Mozilla is poor at educating people about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. Interestingly, this same sentiment is a huge part of why charitable giving runs into problems. A lot of people are willing to give, so long as they get to decide what is done with their funds. Of course, these same people have no i…
It need not take such high salaried non-technical CEO, degenerate activism or doomed web startups to run something like Mozilla.
That's the thing. $50 / month from you or me means nothing compared to $5 / month from a 100x larger audience. Growing the audience means marketing, and tons of non-technical work.
A lot of charities become marketing firms to bring in more money. Because that's how you effectively grow a charity and get more work done. Its just the reality of modern society.