Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#31

Post by franga2000 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:18 AM UTC

porjo wrote: post #21

jjcon wrote: post #11

I’m glad to see the healthy skepticism towards Mozilla lately, they have long been a sacred cow in tech. Just because a company’s mission is positive or aligns with ones values does not mean the company itself is good or is actually carrying that mission out.

Mozilla senior leadership have also been caught up in the politically correct mantra that pervades much of silicon valley, which imho is a huge distraction from making great products. Case in point: https://mobile.twitter.com/newstephen/status/106048929137627...

This has to take the cake for one of the stupidest "we won't use this word because it's offensive or whatever" arguments out there.

Just because people call things that aren't a meritocracy a meritocracy does not mean that's what it means. It's like saying we don't want to say "democracy" anymore because China (PRC) calls itself a democracy and they actually aren't. Or if we turn the whole thing around, saying that "feminism" is offensive because TERFs use the term too.

Like, are there actually people who actually think like that? How do they communicate??

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#32

Post by vetinari » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

fnord123 wrote: post #24

Yetanfou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if Mozilla plans to bring it back but I know the solution is just around the corner: host it yourself. If you only want to do things like this you could use any SBC - Raspberry Pi etc - running some distribution of some operating system you prefer - Linux, *BSD, etc - hanging off your own internet connection. Either run something cloudy - Nextcloud, Owncloud, Syncthing, Seafile - or find (or make) a prog…

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All that just for few hundreds of euros; all data are private and nobody is trying to constantly upsell or trying to figure out how to monetize something taken for granted until now.

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#33

Post by mantap » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #31

porjo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla senior leadership have also been caught up in the politically correct mantra that pervades much of silicon valley, which imho is a huge distraction from making great products. Case in point: https://mobile.twitter.com/newstephen/status/106048929137627...

This has to take the cake for one of the stupidest "we won't use this word because it's offensive or whatever" arguments out there. Just because people call things that aren't a meritocracy a meritocracy does not mean that's what it means. It's like saying we don't want to say "democracy" anymore because China (PRC) calls itself a democracy and they actually aren't. Or if we turn the whole thing around, saying that "…

The word was actually coined for the purposes of mocking the concept of a 'meritocracy' in a satirical essay. Then people picked it up and started using it straight. Now it's come full circle again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Etymology

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#34

Post by AlphaSite » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #17

jacquesm wrote: post #14

Don't put a lawyer in charge of a tech company.

"But I think most would also agree that if all corporate lawyers, bank lobbyists, or marketing gurus were to similarly vanish in a puff of smoke, the world would be at least a little bit more bearable." I remember just yesterday there was a great article on HN that discussed bullshit jobs and counted corporate lawyers towards the "goons". The rationale was that if nobody has them, nobody else needs them. https://www.…

Who exists to enforce the rules? Contracts? Etc. I feel like this sounds great on the surface, but is quite flawed.

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#35

Post by johannes1234321 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #22

Am I the only one trying to figure out why Mozilla even has a "speech-to-text" team?

They want to build technologies which bring access for everybody. There is a huge population of people who can't type easily and where speech is an important alternative. Having all input running through an ad company (Google) or requiring to buy premium products (Apple) isn't good for an inclusive society valuing privacy.

Quoting their mission statement: "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent." https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/

However Mozilla seems like it did too many wrong bets and didn't execute well (see also FirefoxOS)

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#36

Post by suby » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #22

Am I the only one trying to figure out why Mozilla even has a "speech-to-text" team?

The world needs a state of the art and easy to integrate library for providing speech to text so that we don't have to rely on sending all of our voice data to the big tech giants. I imagine this was the motivation behind it.

That being said, I think the current open source options are actually okay and constantly getting better. They're certainly a lot better today than they were 3 years ago.

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#37

Post by dgellow » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

It's always sad to see people at the risk of losing their job or the project they are working on. That being said, this Speech to Text engine always seemed to be more a distraction than anything else. There is of course a lot of pessimism at the moment toward Mozilla, and I subscribe to it for the most part, but if the recent changes and upcoming changes result in more focused projects and efforts that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#38

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

I don't understand what Mozilla is. They re-upped the Google deal to the tune of $400-450million/year for the next 3 years, so their revenue is secure. That's great. I can also understand that it makes sense to cut some side-projects that are probably a distraction (and this one may very well fit that category). But if you cut funding to things like MDN, Servo/Rust and move away from Firefox as a core focus (the thing that just brought you another $1.2 billion) .. what the heck is Mozilla now?

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#39

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

Tanath wrote: post #6

Seems unlikely. The layoffs happened before they got a new deal: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/15/21370020/mozilla-google-f... Now they can bring people back.

You think they didn't know this deal was going to be signed before they announced their layoffs?

Re: Mozilla's Speech-to-Text Engine Is at Risk Following Layoffs

#40

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

krzepah wrote: post #25

foolzcrow wrote: post #2

Mozilla supports censorship and banning for wrong-think. So I don't care what happens to them.

Can you please source at least when you state such things on HN ? this is not reddit

Probably alluding to Eich, a competent executive with a technical background (because don't we have enough lawyers in executive positions?), having been pushed out for his private beliefs. 6 years later, rightly or wrongly, they are judged for this decision.

There is value in organizations staying politically neutral, especially if the are trying to build a broad coalition to further other goals (such as internet privacy and open-standards - as Mozilla is trying to do).