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"Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

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Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#181

Post by maccard »

shawxe wrote: post #123

From many of the comments in this thread, one might think that FAANG companies invented the concept of open source software or that software doesn't exist outside the context of a "profit model." Whatever is going on at Mozilla right now, the notion that a piece of open source software even needs to be profitable (let alone supported by a single large company) in order to continue existing is ridiculous. I'll concede…

> but is that really something that can only happen when one big company/organization is funding the project?

Have you any examples of any large OSS projects that don't have this problem?

> As for Rust, maybe someone could point me in the direction of the one benevolent large company that's backing GCC/G++ or CPython or Ruby?

gcc [0] has a list of maintainers, which features a lot of redhat email addresses. The ruby maintainer is employed by Heroku. CPython is maintained by a RH employee. The linux kernel is mostly comprised of people paid to develop by their employers.

[0] https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/MAINTAINERS

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#182

Post by AsyncAwait »

zettadam wrote: post #177
AsyncAwait wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, the fact that in the U.S. your healthcare is tied to your employer is absolutely nuts.

In other countries your health insurance payments are deducted automatically from your paycheck before you get it. Is it not the same or very similar?

> In other countries your health insurance payments are deducted automatically from your paycheck before you get it. Is it not the same or very similar?

Not at all, In places with national single insurer system, (medicare for all), like the UK where am based, the way it works is that you do contribute to National Insurance effectively as part of your taxes, (usually less than you'd pay in the U.S.), BUT if you switch employers or even are unemployed, you still have that healthcare available to you.

Also, all the doctors, hospitals etc. are technically always "in network".

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#184

Post by stonogo »

blub wrote: post #69
fs111 wrote: post #9

What is actually left of mozilla after this?

The projects which are essential for Mozilla. These were all side-projects which maybe a FAANG can afford, but not a normal company. Mozilla was operating a long time under the mistaken assumption that they're a tech powerhouse when they're obviously not. You can lie to yourself only for so long before the market corrects your assumptions the hard way.

They fired the Servo team. Servo's CSS engine is shipping in Firefox. Servo's rendering engine was supposed to become the primary Firefox graphics engine. It's weird to call that a side project when it's clearly development aimed at becoming the basis of their primary product.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#185

Post by iaml »

_jal wrote: post #121
iaml wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they don't just create a patreon/github sponsors/bitcoin donations for core ff/rust/mdn teams salaries and call it a day. I'm sure they'll get more than enough contributions to make it viable.

> I'm sure they'll get more than enough How sure are you? Would you be sure enough to bet your child's health care on it?

Companies can contribute too, you know. I'm sure there are some that would be negatively impacted by firefox going down. And besides, it is possible to measure the interest before committing.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#186

Post by jhatemyjob »

_jal wrote: post #121
iaml wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they don't just create a patreon/github sponsors/bitcoin donations for core ff/rust/mdn teams salaries and call it a day. I'm sure they'll get more than enough contributions to make it viable.

> I'm sure they'll get more than enough How sure are you? Would you be sure enough to bet your child's health care on it?

I would be shocked if it surpassed $2M/y. And that only pays for 10 engineers

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#187

Post by iaml »

throwaway3neu94 wrote: post #154
iaml wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they don't just create a patreon/github sponsors/bitcoin donations for core ff/rust/mdn teams salaries and call it a day. I'm sure they'll get more than enough contributions to make it viable.

Who wants to donate when their CEO makes 2.5million/year?

The point of this option would be that those wouldn't go to CEO at all.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#188

Post by the_other »

leeoniya wrote: post #140
dreamcompiler wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On IOS. On a Mac you can run any browser engine you want.

i wonder when the other shoe will drop. maybe as part of the ARM and iOS/macOS consolidation. things are much more likely to go the iOS route given it's already ARM.

Apple will lose their entire Mac audience if this happens. Slowly, but surely.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#189

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Jach wrote: post #146
iaml wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they don't just create a patreon/github sponsors/bitcoin donations for core ff/rust/mdn teams salaries and call it a day. I'm sure they'll get more than enough contributions to make it viable.

Doubtful at standard software engineer rates living in SV[0]. I remember being kinda surprised my first visit to SF, that Mozilla had an office right on the waterfront. Seemed kind of wasteful. They've also continuously lost lots of good will they had in the mid to late 2000s, both from end users and developers. I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to declare good riddance if chromium ever got a decent extensions…

I like Mozilla, I like Firefox, I like Rust, I like that they offer a remote work option, that they're kind of the anti-Google in a way (even while taking $$ from Google, but whatever). I like their whole philosophy at a certain level. But when I interviewed with them last year I honestly could not understand where the money was coming from to pay for all the perks and compensation and the offices and the bi-annual company-wide gatherings, etc. And the number of people!. Etc. The whole thing seemed... too much ... for what they needed to do.

(Don't get me wrong, I am not underestimating the complexity of their browser -- I work full-time in the Chromium code base, so I have a pretty good idea what a modern browser looks like inside.)

In any case the position wasn't a fit. I didn't get my chance to say no to it because the team I interviewed with didn't think I was a fit either (for imho dubious reasons, but whatever). But from talking to people work there... I dodged a bullet big time.

I wish them the best, but I didn't get the impression from the letter and the composition of the layoffs that the rethinking is really happening.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#190

Post by tedunangst »

dx87 wrote: post #101

> The internet is the platform now with ubiquitous web technologies built into it, but vast new areas are developing (like Wasmtime and the Bytecode Alliance vision of nanoprocesses). Our vision and abilities should play in those areas too. Two days ago, the CEO said that focusing on technologies like Wasmtime was one of their plans for the future[1]. Now we find out that they're actually getting rid of the team. The…

Wasmtime is so important to our future we've decided to let people work on it for free.
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