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Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#271
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for capturing my feelings around this so well. I absolutely love Firefox, but I can’t help but feel Mozilla’s ambitions are hurting them rather than helping them. Don’t get me wrong; their “distractions” have given the world a lot of nice things (Rust comes to mind). But first and foremost, Mozilla’s mission should be to ensure a great, competitive browser, and they’re losing the competition badly. And imho th…

Regarding the donations, I think the way they are structured with donations going to the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and development of Firefox being done by the for-profit Mozilla Corporation means that donations cant be used to support Firefox development. Its unfortunate, because I would happily donate to fund Firefox, but I'm not terribly interested in funding Mozilla's non-profit activities (at least not more…

Yep, Mozilla and/or the Firefox team is abysmal at communicating about these things. They regularly make HN front page with the release notes, but ... nothing happens, no call to action, no communication.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#272
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I you think projects like Mozilla and Firefox are important donations can really go a long way. I know this kind of goes against my other comment stating that I'm super worried about losing the only viable free and open browser out there (my only browser), but: what's keeping me from donating is the bad aftertaste of the money being used for frivilous things. I don't want to fund their bookmarking service. I don't…

You can't give them money and then put conditions on top of it. It's their business decision as to what they want to do with their monetary donations. Otherwise, this would be like your employer saying, "I will pay you salary, buuut only if you promise not to spend it on alcohol". It clearly doesn't work like that, you just have to make a high level judgement if you agree with their values and if yes, go ahead with t…

Which is exactly what gspr is saying is the reason they don’t donate. If an org shows that they have no focus, then people won’t want to donate exactly because you can’t say what the money goes to.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they did that, and now Firefox market share is almost negligible because it wasn't the default browser on mobile OS's. Firefox has never been a default browser on any OS, mobile or otherwise, and I don't see how that could ever change short of Firefox developing their own OS. Which is in fact something they tried a while back for mobile, and it didn't go so well.

Firefox has been the default browser on many linux distros.

Very good point, I forgot about that!

Sadly though, I don't know how relevant it is due to Linux's desktop marketshare.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#274

[I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I do recognize how my position influences my perspective.] One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards. OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at…

> Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards.

> OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at the corporate doublespeak in that press release. Fuck Mozilla, I'm switching to Chrome."

If you think that Mozilla not using "corporate doublespeak" is an impossible standard, I am left speechless.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The key quote from the announcement is this one: > "Furthermore, Mozilla's contract with Google to include Google as the default search provider inside Firefox is set to expire later this year, and the contract has not been renewed." That sentence doesn't seem to be anywhere in the announcement, nor in the linked PDF. Where are you getting this?

It's here [0], which was posted in a separate thread [1]. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays-off-250-employees... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166

Even on that article I don't see a source for the claim. It's all unsubstantiated speculation.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#276
Here is a (selective) look at the management of Mozilla in the recent past.

From Mitchell Bakers blog https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in-memoriam-gerva...

“Gerv’s faith did not have ambiguity at least none that I ever saw. Gerv was crisp. He had very precise views about marriage, sex, gender and related topics. He was adamant that his interpretation was correct, and that his interpretation should be encoded into law. These views made their way into the Mozilla environment. They have been traumatic and damaging, both to individuals and to Mozilla overall.”

From http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2018/07/29/gerv.html

“I bring up Gerv's open-mindedness because I know that many people didn't find him so, but, frankly, I think those folks were mistaken. It is well documented publicly that Gerv held what most would consider particularly “conservative values”. And, I'll continue with more frankness: I found a few of Gerv's views offensive and morally wrong. But Gerv was also someone who could respectfully communicate his views. I never felt the need to avoid speaking with him or otherwise distance myself. Even if a particular position offended me, it was nevertheless clear to me that Gerv had come to his conclusions by starting from his (a priori) care and concern for all of humanity. Also, I could simply say to Gerv: I really disagree with that so much, and if it became clear our views were just too far apart to productively discuss the matter further, he'd happily and collaboratively find another subject for us to discuss. Gerv was a reasonable man. He could set aside fundamental disagreements and find common ground to talk with, collaborate with, and befriend those who disagreed with him. That level of kindness and openness is rarely seen in our current times.”

Here is an article another person who knew Gervase Markham who refutes Mitchell Bakers account https://lwn.net/Articles/762345/ . Worth a read.

Brendan Eich on the jump in executive share since he was let go: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058629

Here is Brokedamouth on the two class system now at Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22061500 Comment replicated here (it is worth looking at the whole discussion): “I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures. This is not even included in comp. One time, the CFO sent out a missive urging everyone to stay in AirBnB to save money and the execs (literally the following week) booked $500/night rooms at a hotel in NYC. I think the moment that made it clear as day was during a trip to Hawaii for the company all hands. The plane was a 737 so you had to walk past first class. These all hands are a huge deal for families - many were struggling down the aisle, carrying booster seats, etc. And they were passing two of the C-levels sitting in giant first-class seats sipping tropical cocktails. The rule in the military is that men eat first, officers last. Mozilla has always reversed that rule and the result was a pretty toxic culture, all around.”

The people saying this is full of corporate doublespeak look to be very true, especially when you have a memory and can look up what has gone on before.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#277

Can they just focus on the browser? Firefox has been falling behind for years now, especially on mobile. And it's not all because of Google's questionable advertising. Chrome is simply better in many ways. Mozilla is failing it's core mission chasing so many vanity projects. It's a non-profit, not a startup. Flush management and start over

If you actually use Firefox it's really hard to support the belief that there's some quality or speed gap like there was in the mid-2010s. They're neck and neck on quality and features but it also highlights the degree to which Google uses their other businesses to promote Chrome: everywhere you go you'll be hit with suggestions to switch to Chrome, not to mention various QA “lapses” like lowering performance on YouTube or accidentally breaking logins on GCP only in Firefox.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#278
post #274

[I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I do recognize how my position influences my perspective.] One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards. OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at…

> Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards. > OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at the corporate doublespeak in that press release. Fuck Mozilla, I'm switching to Chrome." If you think that Mozilla not using "corporate doublespeak" is an impossible standard, I am left speechless.

> If you think that Mozilla not using "corporate doublespeak" is an impossible standard, I am left speechless.

If you think that is a reason to abandon Mozilla, you've just proved my point.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#279
post #74
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, please make a monthly donation to Mozilla if you can. You will contribute to saving the world. https://donate.mozilla.org/

While donating to Mozilla Foundation is a great cause [1], none of those funds go to funding Mozilla Corporation, and thus Firefox. If you want your funds to go toward MoCo (and thus Firefox development), your best bet is to subscribe to Mozilla VPN or Pocket Premium. [1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/

Money is fungible and dollars are dollars. Donating money to the Foundation means less of the Corporation's dollars have to go to supporting the Foundation (which they do via dividend payments), and so more of the Corporation's dollars go to Firefox.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#280
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the donations, I think the way they are structured with donations going to the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and development of Firefox being done by the for-profit Mozilla Corporation means that donations cant be used to support Firefox development. Its unfortunate, because I would happily donate to fund Firefox, but I'm not terribly interested in funding Mozilla's non-profit activities (at least not more…

This is a bit of a silly argument, because money is fungible and dollars are dollars. Donating money to the Foundation means less of the Corporation's dollars have to go to supporting the Foundation, and so more of the Corporation's dollars go to Firefox.

Either that, or they decide that they now have enough cash to pursue folly #12 and end up with less budget for FF.

Mozilla has not been very effective with how they have spent the received money in the past, a very large fraction of that money went to dead end projects or net negatives.

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