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Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

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Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#141
post #23

The Mozilla Treasurer and Chair are still taking $1M each, right? Why is this scandal going unreported? Are there really no experienced managers willing to run this potentially great organization for $300k/year? Why would we want people who are willing to take so much money from an open source project? Why are there 1200 people at Mozilla and so little product to show? Why do they constantly spend all of their revenu…

> It appears a lot like Mozilla is a corrupt organization taking bribes from its competitor (Google) to not actually compete. There may even be a need for government intervention. Yes, clearly I only pretend to work nights and weekends as cover for shadowy secret Google payments.

Arthur C. Clarke's law - sufficiently advanced technology appears to be magic (and therefore easy.) So just wave that magic wand faster, darn it :)

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#142
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not privy to the search deal, but my understanding is that this is driven by our internal user research and metrics, which show that a significant number of users have a search engine other than what they prefer or expect. In these cases, users usually choose to directly navigate to their preferred search engine to search, instead of using Firefox access points. That’s a poor user experience, so our focus here is…

Re 3.: I think that's a terrible promtp. The prompt says, my settings might be outdated and I should switch back to Google as a search engine. What's the reasoning here? Why is implied that the settings are outdated if I use a custom search engine? No other settings are checked/affected by this prompt, so why frame it as a settings issue at all? Re 4.: Why silently, why not a prompt here?

Using an HTTP based search engine should be explicitly opt-in, imo. Moving it to https by default seems like the right choice for non-technical users.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#143

Wow, those income and expense figures are incredible! Am I the only one that didn't realise just how big Mozilla is?

I am surprised as well, especially the point that they must own so much furniture that it is specifically mentioned in their assets sheet.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I blame a corrupt board of directors for not making Mozilla a great organization that can attract great altruistic leaders that don't need to take so much. 2. Mozilla has blown almost every dollar it has ever earned. Hundreds of millions wasted on failed projects and useless activities. No one disputes this. 3. Mozilla revenues should be growing every year and not never reliant on a competitor's goodwill. And just…

I think Google and Yahoo, etc, have swung and missed a few times, too. You don't want them to be dependent on a competitor... neither do I, but with "antimonopoly" (really market power, bundling and patent misuse) laws having not been properly enforced for decades, those few companies still alive to bid, are the only "market." Given the almost zero marginal cost of reproduction of software, it's been a perfect storm.…

Funny that you'd mention the BSD license: an overwhelming amount of early code released under the BSD license was paid for by government grants.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to ask the same thing. But also why are people still using Google? I've been using DuckDuckGo for years and only use Google when I'm forced to (like in Chrome on iOS).

Because fairly frequently, I'll search for something on DDG, not find what I was expecting, and try on Google as a backup. And because in many people's minds, Google is search.

Can you give an example? I've seen this comment before but never have an issue with DDG.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because fairly frequently, I'll search for something on DDG, not find what I was expecting, and try on Google as a backup. And because in many people's minds, Google is search.

Put a !g in the front of your search. DuckDuckGo is awesome.

The one I use all the time is !m for Google Maps.

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#147

"Mozilla ditched Yahoo recently however in favor of Google, two years before the five year contract would be up for renewal. The terms of the new deal with Google have not been revealed yet, and it remains to be seen whether this new deal will give Mozilla's revenue another boost in 2017." Apparently Firefox 57 when it is installed tries to switch the users default search engine to Google. Whether it asks for user pe…

I'm not privy to the search deal, but my understanding is that this is driven by our internal user research and metrics, which show that a significant number of users have a search engine other than what they prefer or expect. In these cases, users usually choose to directly navigate to their preferred search engine to search, instead of using Firefox access points. That’s a poor user experience, so our focus here is…

There's another firefox prompt which also annoys me.

Firefox sometimes asks me if I want to do a factory reset, clear all my settings and add-ons, "to make the browser faster".

I believe most users will find this question absurd. And Mozilla give it a pretty baity name, too. "Refresh Firefox". What if someone clicks Yes by mistake?

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#148

Well, i've been running firefox pretty consistently since I switched from Netscape all those years ago. I've tried pretty much every browser out there, and have a fair number of them installed but came back to FF... But 57, is likely the end. Yah, they fixed it. Its a little faster, but it still seems to consume RAM/CPU until my whole machine grinds to a halt. Previously, when it did this I could be assured that it l…

Why is someone just sharing their personal experience so heavily downvoted?

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#149
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google and Yahoo, etc, have swung and missed a few times, too. You don't want them to be dependent on a competitor... neither do I, but with "antimonopoly" (really market power, bundling and patent misuse) laws having not been properly enforced for decades, those few companies still alive to bid, are the only "market." Given the almost zero marginal cost of reproduction of software, it's been a perfect storm.…

Funny that you'd mention the BSD license: an overwhelming amount of early code released under the BSD license was paid for by government grants.

Of course, surveillance infrastructure remains heavily funded: "Today, the NSF provides nearly 90% of all federal funding for university-based computer-science research." https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

Re: Mozilla’s revenue increased significantly in 2016

#150
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that you'd mention the BSD license: an overwhelming amount of early code released under the BSD license was paid for by government grants.

Of course, surveillance infrastructure remains heavily funded: "Today, the NSF provides nearly 90% of all federal funding for university-based computer-science research." https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

I was thinking of things like the BSD implementation of the TCP stack, and the MPICH implementation of the MPI message passing standard.
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