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Leaving Mozilla

emilykager.com

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Re: Leaving Mozilla

#101

Post by acdha »

fireattack wrote: post #97
acdha wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's her reaction _after_ a bunch of non-contributors whined that the project team was making different decisions than they wanted. This is a common hazard of visibly working in open source and it's caused a lot of people to decide it's not worth being involved in a project.

Ok, that makes sense. It's an eye-opener for me that people would do that. I can't even name a single developer for any software I use, let alone find and harass them on social media.

It’s not a given but when it happens it can be relentless. GitHub added the block feature after some outbursts where some crank just wouldn’t give up.

It also happens more when people decide someone doesn’t belong in the field: if you’re visibly a white male your odds are pretty low. I’ve heard more a few accounts of how the tone changes from “I found a bug” or “I don’t like this change” to “who told you that you were good enough to be a developer”.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#102

Post by AlchemistCamp »

eloisant wrote: post #73
fireattack wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, using Firefox on desktop is easy. It is at least on par with competitors, if not better. Firefox on Android on the other hand (the one the author worked on), IMHO, is simply an inferior product. This is kinda understandable due to their small team size (and it looks like they're overworking too), but what I didn't get is why they kept revamping it. I don't have a clear timeline, but in my recent memory they at…

Inferior to what? I have yet to find a browser that blocks ads on Android as efficiently as Firefox+uBlock.

DDG browser is pretty good on Android.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#103

Post by gggtt »

hutzlibu wrote: post #84
coldpie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on an open source project which is popular, but definitely a lot less used than Firefox. I often feel pretty lucky that I grew up with the early internet, back when you hid your real identity and trusted no one. While I don't do that anymore, it does still give me with a strong sense of maintaining a "firewall" with the public. I don't put myself out there as a public face more than necessary. I don't have wor…

"The Internet is an incredibly harsh and toxic place, always has been" Refreshing to read this, compared to the "it was all so much better before"

But before anonymity was allowed, so all this toxicity & harassment didn't hurt too much because you could just create a new identity, start again, and it would go away.

Today most people are on FB & social medias under their real name & with their real face and everything is stored & will hunt you for the rest of your life. With fingerprinting, facial recognition, surveillance, etc. there is now no way to speech freely without having your identity tied to it.

Some people claim this is great because you say less crap when they're forced to put their name on it, I think this is a very poor argumentation when we look at what we're losing in exchange. There is a reason why in most democracies voting is anonymous.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#104

Post by ekager »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #56
anuragsoni wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are "more sides" to this story. Harassing someone because one doesn't like an update to a piece of software is not okay.

There are always more sides to a story, and hearing another side doesn’t mean you think whatever they have done is “okay.” > Harassing someone because one doesn't like an update to a piece of software Harassment is probably never okay butneither is directing obscene gestures at people.

Hi! Emily here! Added some more context in a footnote in the blog post about this "obscene gesture" and the harassment after the fact. TLDR: The amount of disgusting harassment I received was unbelievable and could never be justified as a reasonable reaction to an "obscene gesture"

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#105

Post by ekager »

patrickscoleman wrote: post #45

If you read these comments, Emily, just want to say thank you for having the courage to share this in public. Burnout is tough but it gets better. Helpful for others to know they're not alone. And thank you for Firefox on Android!

I read them <3 Thank you!

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#106

Post by hutzlibu »

gggtt wrote: post #103
hutzlibu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Internet is an incredibly harsh and toxic place, always has been" Refreshing to read this, compared to the "it was all so much better before"

But before anonymity was allowed, so all this toxicity & harassment didn't hurt too much because you could just create a new identity, start again, and it would go away. Today most people are on FB & social medias under their real name & with their real face and everything is stored & will hunt you for the rest of your life. With fingerprinting, facial recognition, surveillance, etc. there is now no way to speech fre…

"there is now no way to speech freely without having your identity tied to it."

Erm. Really? Aren't you a bit exagerating?

You can still post anonymous in lots of places. Like right here, for example.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#107

Post by __turbobrew__ »

dessant wrote: post #69
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #2

> The cherry on top was being specifically targeted for harassment that same week after the release by unhappy users of Firefox looking for someone to direct their frustrations at. Thats lovely.

I remember seeing her tweet as I was struggling to migrate away from Firefox for Android since I also got surprised by the half-baked release, and closing the Twitter tab in disappointment. https://web.archive.org/web/20200801082154/https://twitter.c... Despite maintaining two of the handful of extensions currently available for Firefox for Android and developing for the beta versions of Fenix leading up the release,…

That tweet left a bad taste in my mouth as well.

The team was understaffed so the OP took up the slack by working massive overtime to push out a half baked release. Users complained about the half baked release, the OP gives the users the finger, and neither party seemed happy with the outcome.

I'm glad to see that the OP has identified that work-life balance is important; it isn't worth burning yourself out for a job.

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#108

Post by ekager »

leereeves wrote: post #41

> I first joined Mozilla as an intern during my change-career journey mainly because I had taken one Android class, knew some Java, and applied on a whim at the right time to hit the recruiter’s inbox. Is it that easy to become an intern at Mozilla?

Sorry, how many years of experience with professional software development do you expect your interns to have?

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#109

Post by LegitShady »

eloisant wrote: post #73
fireattack wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, using Firefox on desktop is easy. It is at least on par with competitors, if not better. Firefox on Android on the other hand (the one the author worked on), IMHO, is simply an inferior product. This is kinda understandable due to their small team size (and it looks like they're overworking too), but what I didn't get is why they kept revamping it. I don't have a clear timeline, but in my recent memory they at…

Inferior to what? I have yet to find a browser that blocks ads on Android as efficiently as Firefox+uBlock.

Brave

Re: Leaving Mozilla

#110

Post by dralley »

morsch wrote: post #83
SemNome wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see them through archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200731211652/https://twitter.c... https://web.archive.org/web/20200731235001/https://twitter.c... https://web.archive.org/web/20200801025736/https://twitter.c...

This opened as tab #26 on my Firefox Android because half a year later the bizarre tab handling is still unchanged. Sigh. And why does Mozilla have a "small team" working on Firefox Android? Their flagship product on the operating system with the largest install base.

It's not that small.

But Android is also the most casual install base, and it comes with Chrome by default. It's probably the hardest market to gain marketshare in.

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