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

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

#451

Post by m0llusk »

Someone should set up an organization to strip mine valuable assets and work with them. The popular docs should be possible to copy and extend. There is a tremendous amount of value that could be taken up and made to live again with just the most basic good management.

Just to pick out one example: The Fluent localization framework is the best in its class. Localization is a huge and valuable market. Simply building that out and charging customers could potentially save the organization all on its own.

There is plenty of capital and experience around, so why isn't this already happening? Or maybe it is?

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

#452

Post by panny »

jacquesm wrote: post #358
dotancohen wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was at…

Sorry, but you're not going to paint Eich as a victim over what is a totally self inflicted wound. And there is no argument from utility to be made here either along the lines of 'oh Eich may be a bigot, but look at that nice browser he gave us'. He has to work with the people around him and that scenario would have likely not panned out. Instead, a large chunk of Mozilla/FireFox' employees may have walked if he had…

>Eich may be a bigot

Eich was perfectly capable of working with others. He had a demonstrated track record of doing so since he co-founded Mozilla.

>a large chunk of Mozilla/FireFox' employees may have walked if he had tried to hang on

A group of people intolerant of a political difference would have left rather than continue working with him. That's the definition of bigot.

Bigot: One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

https://www.wordnik.com/words/bigot

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

#453

Post by austincheney »

jacquesm wrote: post #100

> And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. That must be a real comfort to all the people they laid off. This CEO needs to go, needs to be replaced by someone who is well versed in technology instead of in law.

Previously they had appointed an excellent CEO from within that is universally well respected for his technology contributions and then they fired him after 11 days without cause. Now that guy is a CEO at a different company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

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

#454

Post by throw_m239339 »

twblalock wrote: post #94
Jonnax wrote: 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…

The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ. If they left, it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less. The same is true for most of the engineers at Mozilla. They could go to FAANGs and increase their compensation quite a bit. So while I agree that the leadership has been bad, executive pay was…

> The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ. If they left, it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less.

Eich. But you'll have to kick out the idpol activists still left at Mozilla, the people who ditched FirefoxOS and contributed to the destruction of Firefox.

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

#455

Post by jacquesm »

Tom4hawk wrote: post #446
jacquesm wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you pay for this? Without critical mass you are not going anywhere. FireFox had critical mass, and lost. You won't be able to recover that position without some extremely deep pockets even if you start off from what is there today. I am not convinced that even if Mozilla/FF got a competent CEO tomorrow and started executing 'just so' that they would be able to recover from their slide, a newcomer would have…

Steve Jobs was able to do that with Apple. There is no reason to believe that is not possible with Mozilla. Especially taking into consideration that Mozilla doesn't have to be profitable as a company. Being sustainable would be enough.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24565032

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

#456

Post by michaelt »

jacquesm wrote: post #309
sangnoir wrote: post #286

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…

> he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name [...] That was stupid.

Clearly it didn't work out well for him, but I'm not sure it rises to the level of stupidity so much as naïvety.

After all, he'd probably seen plenty of his peers publicly supporting other political causes without problems.

He just didn't realise the situation was "Leader of open source nonprofit, right-wing, publicly political, pick any 2"

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

#459

Post by neurostimulant »

INTPenis wrote: post #299
panpanna wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. Not anymore! To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.

I don't see this, how is it a mess exactly? On the parent issue, Firefox on mobile is great because of the same reason Firefox on Desktop is great. Power over your browser. Which is important since browser exploits are using Javascript to compromise phones. Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care. But it's the reason Firefox probably won't die. Because the people who know tech know its s…

Some important features such as about:config access has been neutered in the latest firefox mobile. The ability to fully customize the browser is an important feature for the enthusiast folks you mentioned, so by removing access to about:config they effectively alienate their most important and vocal users.

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

#460

Post by tingol »

bambax wrote: post #278
jameslk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the frustration, it's unclear to me what the expected solution is for Mozilla. Pay the CEO less until the company does better? Ok but the CEO will presumably just find a higher paying job elsewhere. Then what? Find a cheaper CEO? How does that help fix the slipping market share for Firefox?

Modern CEO pay is a cargo-cult. Companies pay CEO insane amounts because "everybody else does it" and "it helps hire the best". These theories are untested, except that we now know for certain that paying $2.5M doesn't guarantee that the CEO is any good. I would bet you can hire an excellent, technically competent CEO for Mozilla for $250k a year.

We knew that already, did everyone forget the Yahoo fiasco?
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