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Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

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Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#91

Post by maleldil »

hn_submit wrote: post #64
freedomben wrote: post #25

Like many here, I think Mozilla has done a terrible job managing their money and they are largely to blame for the pickle they are in. However, I don't see who picks up the reigns if Mozilla dies. Like it or not, Firefox is essential for a somewhat (increasingly less) open web, and (at least for now) Mozilla is essential to Firefox. For those who want to see Mozilla die but Firefox live on, what are the more likely o…

Despite the oodles of money Mozilla receives it manages Firefox poorly . Because of that its market share has been slipping for years. Soon it may become so insignificant that Google will cut back funding to say, tens of millions a year. And Mozilla keeps attempting to diversify its income stream by coming up with commercial services for which there are loads of alternatives, such as VPN. Why don't they just give up…

And when the Google money runs out, what will they do?

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#92

Post by pjmlp »

dralley wrote: post #41
hn_submit wrote: post #12

I love Firefox but feel little pity for Mozilla which receives $400+ million a year on search placement in their browser but spends only a tiny fraction on its development. The rest is wasted on greedy management and frivolous projects to give that same management an excuse to give themselves multi-million dollar payouts. Everyone's only in it for the money. There are no good or bad people anymore, only...unfortunate…

HN is incredibly inconsistent and two-faced about which Mozilla side projects are "frivolous" and which ought to be defended to the death. Rust was a side project, asm.js was a side project that turned into WASM, IIRC LetsEncrypt was a side project (or at least a side project of Mozilla engineers, if not official), significant parts of the initial R&D for AV1 and Opus came out of Mozilla, Servo was largely a side pro…

> asm.js was a side project that turned into WASM

Only because Mozilla refused to adopt PNaCL, people keep forgetting about this little detail when praising asm.js.

Rust while an interesting side project, the ideas were from Cyclone which probably would still be around if Rust hadn't happened, and it only really took off, because it became interesting for Amazon, Google and Microsoft, when despite all that money, Mozilla killed the team, and they picked a few of the core team.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#93

Post by pjmlp »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #87
hn_submit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The head of a non-profit shouldn't be raking in millions. Not even in the Valley! Instead they dreamed up the idea of being a multi-billion corporation next to the non-profit so they could give management commensurate compensation.

The fundamental problem with non-profit executive pay is that they earn their keep. Even more directly than CEOs in a for-profit space. The CEO of a non-profit has approximately one job: convince rich people to give the non-profit large amounts of money. It turns out, rich people know other rich people. And rich people who know how to convince other rich people to give them large amounts of money are a scarce resourc…

Outside US, many non-profit organisations, the management gets as much money as most other folks that also contribute their free time. There are no goals and bonus to share, quarter earnings and whatever else.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#94

Post by dingaling »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #87
hn_submit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The head of a non-profit shouldn't be raking in millions. Not even in the Valley! Instead they dreamed up the idea of being a multi-billion corporation next to the non-profit so they could give management commensurate compensation.

The fundamental problem with non-profit executive pay is that they earn their keep. Even more directly than CEOs in a for-profit space. The CEO of a non-profit has approximately one job: convince rich people to give the non-profit large amounts of money. It turns out, rich people know other rich people. And rich people who know how to convince other rich people to give them large amounts of money are a scarce resourc…

> convince rich people to give the non-profit large amounts of money

And yet Google's funding remains 85% of Mozilla's income, so that 'convincing' doesn't seem to be worth paying for.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#95

Post by hn_submit »

2tx81z wrote: post #79
hn_submit wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porting code from one language to another is much faster than writing it from scratch. I'm currently porting my own code from Python to C++ and it's a snap. Mozilla could've chosen to port the C++ code to Rust, but they didn't because they had other "frivolous" priorities.

LOL, I love how people love to say what Mozilla _should_ do but clearly have no fuckin clue what goes on in that place.

Then maybe I should tell them what they shouldn't do: waste their money on management and other projects not directly related to improving the Firefox browser.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#96

Post by hn_submit »

bulbar wrote: post #89
2tx81z wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, I love how people love to say what Mozilla _should_ do but clearly have no fuckin clue what goes on in that place.

People seem to underestimate what a (even somewhat) large codebase entails. Even switching the compiler version is serious effort. Replacing the compiler can already be unfeasible, but apparently, switching the whole language seems to be super simple from the outside.

Simple it ain't, but it's certainly doable if you have hundreds of developers working on it. It will reduce maintenance further down the line especially as far as vulnerabilities are concerned.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#97

Post by pseudalopex »

dralley wrote: post #41
hn_submit wrote: post #12

I love Firefox but feel little pity for Mozilla which receives $400+ million a year on search placement in their browser but spends only a tiny fraction on its development. The rest is wasted on greedy management and frivolous projects to give that same management an excuse to give themselves multi-million dollar payouts. Everyone's only in it for the money. There are no good or bad people anymore, only...unfortunate…

HN is incredibly inconsistent and two-faced about which Mozilla side projects are "frivolous" and which ought to be defended to the death. Rust was a side project, asm.js was a side project that turned into WASM, IIRC LetsEncrypt was a side project (or at least a side project of Mozilla engineers, if not official), significant parts of the initial R&D for AV1 and Opus came out of Mozilla, Servo was largely a side pro…

> HN is incredibly inconsistent and two-faced about which Mozilla side projects are "frivolous" and which ought to be defended to the death.

HN is not a person. People's opinions differ. This is not 2 faced.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#98

Post by pseudalopex »

hn_submit wrote: post #12

I love Firefox but feel little pity for Mozilla which receives $400+ million a year on search placement in their browser but spends only a tiny fraction on its development. The rest is wasted on greedy management and frivolous projects to give that same management an excuse to give themselves multi-million dollar payouts. Everyone's only in it for the money. There are no good or bad people anymore, only...unfortunate…

> spends only a tiny fraction on its development

No. People imagined this for some reason.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#99

Post by hn_submit »

pseudalopex wrote: post #98
hn_submit wrote: post #12

I love Firefox but feel little pity for Mozilla which receives $400+ million a year on search placement in their browser but spends only a tiny fraction on its development. The rest is wasted on greedy management and frivolous projects to give that same management an excuse to give themselves multi-million dollar payouts. Everyone's only in it for the money. There are no good or bad people anymore, only...unfortunate…

> spends only a tiny fraction on its development No. People imagined this for some reason.

They're not spending $400 million a year on development. Unless you're including management fees of course.

Re: Mozilla says stricter antitrust measures against Google 'threaten Firefox'

#100

Post by hn_submit »

maleldil wrote: post #91
hn_submit wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the oodles of money Mozilla receives it manages Firefox poorly . Because of that its market share has been slipping for years. Soon it may become so insignificant that Google will cut back funding to say, tens of millions a year. And Mozilla keeps attempting to diversify its income stream by coming up with commercial services for which there are loads of alternatives, such as VPN. Why don't they just give up…

And when the Google money runs out, what will they do?

Then they'll go bust.

Having all those side projects won't make any difference in that sense because they can't even pay the rent. But it does make a difference in their focus on improving their main product: the Firefox web browser, which they are neglecting.

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