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Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

calpaterson.com

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Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#331
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. Someone with at least a little hands-on experience in building a product really should be something companies look for in leadership. I mean, sure, Baker's done plenty for Mozilla, but Mozilla has been absolutely lost as to what they're tryin…

> t wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. But he resigned (he wasn't forced out, though…

>I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other

Who asked Mozilla to be a "flagship of diversity"? What we wanted off them, and what their mission statement was, is a FOSS browser that supported the open web.

Plus, one can be/believe whatever on their personal life, as long as they don't bring it to the office.

Not to mention that penalizing people because they supported one side in a public vote is anti-democratic.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. I have a problem with characterizing Brendan Eich as a bigot for donating to a non-fringe political group. IIRC, the proposition campaign he donated to had close to a 50/50 split in support for/against. Eich's ouster cryst…

I'm still a FF evangelist though it is getting harder by the day. Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupi…

> Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupid.

So I guess this means no Mozilla leader should be making any private political donations at all, because if they do, Mozilla is at risk of losing half of its (US) leaders in red or blue states.

I sure hope the employees still have jobs, and if not, they have vetted their new board & CEOs past donations.

> Whether a proposition has a 50/50 split or not does not matter, if half your country is made up of bigots that doesn't mean that it isn't bigotry, it just means that you have a very large problem.

Do those employees/volunteers feel equally strongly about their "bigoted" user base? Or are they more morally flexible since that directly impacts their incomes?

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#333

I'm two fences on Firefox doing "too many unrelated things" as the article suggests. Firefox OS has been pretty much unsuccessful, but it sort of made sense? It started to be made when Firefox was still on top on desktop, but mobile started eating its lunch; and it was clear that Firefox need to do something about it, or the future will be all Chrome and Safari, on the two locked-down platforms. Which eventually happ…

While back Twitter recommended me a tweet from one of Firefox female engineers saying that she was responsible for pocket and updating pocket. many people complain that pocket sucked she claimed them all being misogynists so there's clearly cultural issues at Mozilla.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#334
Hey Microsoft, i have a Idea:

Buy Mozilla, fire all the CEO/Staff, bring all the lost Devs back and let them work on the Browser and Rust (and just that), if anything happens with the Chromium development you have your own second browser at hand...and by that way rust itself.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. I have a problem with characterizing Brendan Eich as a bigot for donating to a non-fringe political group. IIRC, the proposition campaign he donated to had close to a 50/50 split in support for/against. Eich's ouster cryst…

I'm still a FF evangelist though it is getting harder by the day. Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupi…

>Whether a proposition has a 50/50 split or not does not matter, if half your country is made up of bigots that doesn't mean that it isn't bigotry, it just means that you have a very large problem.

Morality (or what is "bigoted") is not a law of nature or an absolute, it's a societal convention (even murder is not an absolute "bad" - the US or Chinese or Saudi society deems capital punishment as immoral for example, whereas mine does not. Same for drug use or sale, and tons of other things, heck, even incest - not a big deal moraly in ancient Egypt, Westeros, and/or some parts of the rural South).

So it very much matters what the split was.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#336
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as free if he were at Mozilla.

A chromium wrapper that inserts affiliate links? This doesn't seem a compelling argument based on available evidence.

Yeah Brave's business model always seemed incredibly scummy to me. For ad blocking arguments can be made both ways, but Brave's "let's replace them with our ads" model (I know it's opt-in) just seems like a way to hold site revenue hostage. Either join Brave's network or miss out.

Vivaldi seems like the better Chromium wrapper to me. But my daily driver is Firefox.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> t wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. But he resigned (he wasn't forced out, though…

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other Who asked Mozilla to be a "flagship of diversity"? What we wanted off them, and what their mission statement was, is a FOSS browser that supported the open web. Plus, one can be/believe whatever on their personal life, as l…

Nobody asked, but Mozilla took (and still takes) that role. Witness plenty of comments on HN from Mozilla employees reinforcing that.

I'm all for the FOSS browser company, the 'support for the open web' is already a step in the direction of losing focus. Just keeping up and having a viable alternative browser out there keeping Chrome at bay is a major job (and one they are currently miserably failing at).

> Not to mention that penalizing people because they supported one side in a public vote is anti-democratic.

Actually, it isn't. Actions have consequences, if Eich wanted to be a contributor to that cause he could have done so silently. By doing it in a publicly visible way as the CEO of a large company he made it a political statement and action begets reaction. Eich very explicitly brought his views into the office in a way that a substantial fraction of Mozilla's employees did not want to be associated with.

Besides that, money in politics is anti-democratic.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#339

for Firefox usage, I recommend a look at Firefox for Android's Google Play page [0]. Reviews are absolutely catastrophic for the recent "update" https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fi...

The thing is: one botched update and users drop you and never come back.

I saw this once when Firefox deprecated something that the old Jira instance used. The next day Chrome was the default browser and has ever been since.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#340
post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

> but their ideas haven't worked. What ideas though?

For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515063
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