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Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

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Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#271
post #217
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general critique is: the performance of a CEO should be tied somehow to the performance of the company, yet year after year, the company performs worse while CEO compensation goes up.

An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation Then put the money saved towards allocating tens more top, full-time, aligned engineers to projects. When I see leaders of a non-profit personally drawing more than is necessary to lead a comfortable life, I see a conflict between the mission and personal e…

> An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation

That doesn't translate. A believer in freedom and openness should be compensated more than a counterpart in the private sector so they can work even harder for the causes. They may not be in it for the money, but they shouldn't be punished financially because of their belief, as surely there are no lack of lucrative opportunities in for-profit organizations for them.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has lost over 20 million users in 2 years. Jan 3 2021 210,085,100 Jan 1 2023 193,199,300 Dec 17 2023 185,599,100

I can read. The point is that the number doesn't translate: 7.5 million lost users over 2023 doesn't correspond to a 0.75% decline in global browser presence. 7.5 million is a tiny fraction of that.

7.5M out of 193M is 0.39%, so it's off by about a half. Hardly a "tiny fraction". Presumably the growth in internet users in the period would increase the relative decline in market share, too.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has lost over 20 million users in 2 years. Jan 3 2021 210,085,100 Jan 1 2023 193,199,300 Dec 17 2023 185,599,100

I can read. The point is that the number doesn't translate: 7.5 million lost users over 2023 doesn't correspond to a 0.75% decline in global browser presence. 7.5 million is a tiny fraction of that.

It does if the global number of active browsers increased. The more people get connected to the internet, and the more of them use Chrome or Edge, the smaller Firefox' market share will be if their user numbers stay about equal.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#274
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year it was IoT

Before that it was a mobile OS that failed to gain traction.

FirefoxOS may have died, but its fork KaiOS did quite well, shipping on tens of millions of cheap phones in developing countries.

I think these countries are moving to Android/iOS as they get wealthier, but the legacy of FirefoxOS was quite successful. It's just that Mozilla never got much out of it.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developing and operating open technology is political advocacy. Technology and its implementation is simply the expression of the ideology, rights, etc. Leadership choices, as well as their efficacy and compensation is still an important discussion.

No, it’s not. Software development is software development. Political advocacy is political advocacy.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#276

(×_×) We need a modular, open source browser engine desperately; one not beholden to Google or any other for profit entity. The Servo people are trying, but the task is enormous. I don't know what can be done (。•́︿•̀。)

The SerenityOS/Ladybird project has been making very steady progress towards that goal https://ladybird.dev/

Ladybird is developing at an impressive pace, but it's nowhere close to being as usable as Servo, and it'll probably take a while before it can be. Even with the experienced and skilled developers Ladybird has attracted, it'll take a few years before it can compete with a project that had whole teams working on it full-time.

On the other hand, it could well become the de-facto standard browser for embedded applications, though. The browser frame can be ported to different UI frameworks quite easily and the code has practically no dependencies outside the project itself.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#277
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation Then put the money saved towards allocating tens more top, full-time, aligned engineers to projects. When I see leaders of a non-profit personally drawing more than is necessary to lead a comfortable life, I see a conflict between the mission and personal e…

> An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation That doesn't translate. A believer in freedom and openness should be compensated more than a counterpart in the private sector so they can work even harder for the causes. They may not be in it for the money, but they shouldn't be punished financially bec…

I disagree. $500K (and some degree less) is a perfectly comfortable living in even an expensive US city.

Not paying them millions is only "punished financially" if being rich well beyond comfortable is more important to them than the mission of the non-profit.

This "doesn't translate" only to people who have zero business leading non-profits. (Incidentally, capping compensation is an awesome cut filter, to eliminate people who are poorly aligned with the mission.)

Sure, there are classes of people who see something like non-profit CEO as their angle for wealth and status to which they feel entitled, when they can't get the for-profit CEO job they'd prefer. Not only are they innately misaligned with the mission, but they are also completely out of touch with the vast bulk of the people who non-profits typically are supposed serve. Keep them away from non-profits.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#278
post #123

[flagged]

Mitchell Baker was important for Mozilla/Netscape in the past. She was the primary author of Mozilla Public License in 1998 (MPL 2.0 is a very good license). I bet that many of us were just infants when she was at Mozilla. The problem is that many feel that she is not a good leader for Mozilla today, not that she is not a historical figure for Mozilla and the open source community in general.

She's an excellent lawyer. How did she get promoted to head the software company that makes software?

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#279

(×_×) We need a modular, open source browser engine desperately; one not beholden to Google or any other for profit entity. The Servo people are trying, but the task is enormous. I don't know what can be done (。•́︿•̀。)

The open source solution to Windows is not a os that runs windows applications. It's an OS which has it's own user space and application ecosystem. Sometimes I wonder why folks don't take the same tact with other platforms like the web. Alternatively, if you look at mobile, no one is seriously pursuing alternatives to Android. They just make Android based distros and no one seems to complain. What makes the web diffe…

Wait… does SerenityOS have special win32 support ala ReactOS?

Last I heard it only borrows Windows 95's aesthetics and nothing more.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#280
post #114

I guess the question - why can't Mozilla (or at least Firefox) - be like the Linux kernel or the Debian group? They are healthy open source projects, some funding from industry, sure, but they're staying current in the latest tech/comp-sci tech while not beholden to anyone in particular (I hope) Organizational baggage?

Last time I checked the Linux Foundation had a similar problem, spending 2% on the Kernel development and the rest on the latest tech trends, AI, blockchain, metaverse etc.

Do you have any source for this? This would be quite shocking for me, if true.
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