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Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

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Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#81

Post by pseudalopex »

ItsBob wrote: post #75
iggldiggl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has way more than 20 developers. Looking at https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/mots/index.html , if I'm not mistaken in my count, there are currently 147 module owners and peers alone. Some of those might be volunteers, but I think the large majority of them are Mozilla staff. On top of that there are probably a number of further Mozilla staff developers who aren't owners or peers, QA staff, product mana…

I know they have way more than that but I'd argue that you don't need that many. Hypothetically, if I was given the money and asked to build a team to fork Firefox I'd be more focused. Way more! The current devs work on stuff I'd scrap like Pocket, telemetry, anything with AI, and so on. I bet there is a load of stuff in there that I'd want out! There's probably a bunch of things in Firefox Labs they're working on to…

Vivaldi have 29 developers.[1] They produce an unstable Chromium fork. They couldn't commit to keeping uBlock Origin working.

[1] https://vivaldi.com/team/

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#82

Post by iteratethis »

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it.

They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.

Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is.

Making hundreds of millions from a new tech product in the consumer space is impossibly difficult. You're up against Big Tech and a generally very competitive and saturated space where any idea can be easily replicated. And you're up against consumers that really don't want to pay, hence ads.

That said, I do feel Mozilla barely tried and wasted a lot of money on distractions. They're way too comfortable raking half a billion for effectively doing nothing at all: keep the search box pointing at Google.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#83

Post by t43562 »

hagbard_c wrote: post #78
t43562 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly but right now you're being guided to whatever information makes the most ad revenue. A choice of two compromised mechanisms might be better than none.

No, that is not the issue here - this is not about which sites I frequent but about whether the browser I use to do so tries to keep me from going there. The content of those sites can be influenced by advertising (which I rigorously block, no exceptions) but the browser as of yet does not attempt to keep me from visiting site A nor does it change its contents (other than by means of the content blocker which I have…

It could but a national government is more likely to block sites at the ISP level.

Also ... private companies can block things they don't like, such as competitors...or alter their search rankings.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#84

Post by pseudalopex »

iteratethis wrote: post #82

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it. They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably. Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is. Making hundred…

> Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.

I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#85

Post by theandrewbailey »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #50
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #27

Not looking to grind an axe but facts matter in this case. Let's look at Mozilla's financial statement for 2007 and 2023 [0][1]: > Expenses 1. Program 'Software Development' 2007: 20.7M | 2023: 260M 2. Management 'General and Administrative' : 2007: 5.1M | 2023: 123M I am purposefully excluding marketing and fundraising costs. Because arguably you can't get away from those expenses. Let's ignore inflation and COL and…

The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed. The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial produ…

> The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc.

Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know that Mozilla funds things that are wildly not Firefox-related, like feminist AI conferences in Africa. Meanwhile Firefox looks more and more like an also-ran compared to its competition. All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser, not this.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/mozfest-house-zambia-...

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#88

Post by Raed667 »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #85
jillesvangurp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that development could easily be funded by donations. It's only a few million. Enough to keep a few dozen people employed. The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial produ…

> The bad news is that donations are unlikely to happen with the current massive misspending on overpaid people with no technical background that don't code that spend 95% of their budget on themselves, support staff that also doesn't code, offices they don't need, commercial products that flop, monetization schemes that fail, etc. Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know tha…

I'm not sure how common this sentiment is, but I had a discussions with colleges who will NOT donate unless they can guarantee that their money is going to the development of a chosen product or even more granularity to a chosen feature.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#89

Post by Sander_Marechal »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #65
notpushkin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better news are, Mozilla gets around $30 million as investment income ($37M in 2023 [1]). Some people argue that it’s not enough to maintain Firefox but that sounds weird to me. Chromium is not a good alternative: 95% of Chromium commits come from Google. [2] [1]: https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/File:501c3_2023_990_Mozi... [2]: https://chromiumstats.github.io/cr-stats/authors/company_aut...

Chromium is not a good alternative: 95% of Chromium commits come from Google. Or ... Chromium is the perfect alternative ... as long as it remains open source and privacy invasion can be easily stripped out of it. Let Google fund most of the development of a privacy respecting browser (i.e. Brave). And if it doesn't remain open source? Then it's time for a fork --- just like it is now with Firefox. Bottom line: If yo…

Chromium is also stripping manifest v2. Firefox isn't. Chromium is open source, but it's not an open source project. It's a Google project.

Re: Tell Mozilla: it's time to ditch Google

#90

Post by tonyhart7 »

noxer wrote: post #70
notpushkin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can invest some money with no strings attached – hey, why not.

Have you asked the people who pay in the end (the taxpayer) if they want that? The very last thing I want my taxes to go to is anything that has "no strings attached". Its by definition a gift and gifting taxes should be a crime.

if its come with string attached then another agency (ehm ehm intelligence) would try to get their hands on them
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