Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you install Firefox via F-droid? (I searched, but don't see it listed in my F-droid store directly.) Do you use the FFupdater app?
Not the parent but from F-Droid I use Fennec, which is FF nightly with the branding and some of the more obnoxious anti-features removed: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
281–290 of 301 posts
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
He might have separated his personal views from his professional views. He probably did, actually. But I don't think it matters. People still didn't like it. His right to have these views, their right too. It would only have been worse if he hadn't. The world is not neutral, organizations neither.
> People still didn't like it. His right to have these views, their right too. Yes, the question here is who mixed their personal right to their views with their professional responsibilities. If Eich didn't, then it seems clear that everyone at Mozilla who objected to his appointment did. That wasn't the conversation that took place though. The "professional responsibilities" in this case was being a good steward fo…
That's not all a CTO does. They also have "people" responsibilities.
As the then CTO, one of Eich's professional responsibilities was to lead the tech teams and individuals at Mozilla. The belief, among a significant proportion of Mozilla's employees, that he could not be trusted to put aside his opinions on civil rights when managing people, was what led to the opposition to his appointment.
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Brendan was being portrayed as being evil incarnate because of the donations (which were a perfectly legal thing to do, btw). Im not sure why you posted this as it has never been suggested that his donation was illegal. The campaign against his appointment as CTO was on the basis that his financial support for proposition 8 showed him to be hostile to the protection of civil rights for some members of society, incl…
That doesn't make any sense., and there was something else going on. Eich's position was exactly the same as the platform that Obama when he initially ran for president. Somehow that supposedly makes Eich unfit to run a company, but it is fine for Obama to be President.
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People still didn't like it. His right to have these views, their right too. Yes, the question here is who mixed their personal right to their views with their professional responsibilities. If Eich didn't, then it seems clear that everyone at Mozilla who objected to his appointment did. That wasn't the conversation that took place though. The "professional responsibilities" in this case was being a good steward fo…
> The "professional responsibilities" in this case was being a good steward for Mozilla's products and the vision of products that preserved digital rights for its users. Not clear what this had to do with civil rights like gay marriage. That's not all a CTO does. They also have "people" responsibilities. As the then CTO, one of Eich's professional responsibilities was to lead the tech teams and individuals at Mozill…
A belief he couldn't be trusted based on what evidence, aside from them not liking his views on gay marriage?
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually somehow knew that singular they is not exactly new, but not to this level of details. But that only makes the argument more interesting: something that was normal was lost, and is now somehow coming back in some form… with push backs like "it breaks the English grammar" , where English actually already worked like this before (for the exact same use or not). Push backs I saw here on HN, or on RMS's website…
I think there's some confusion about this. They used to refer to someone (as a singular pronoun) whose gender is unknown has been valid English for hundreds of years. He to refer to someone whose gender is unknown is, as the link you provided points out, a more recent addition to English grammar and could be starting to fall away again. They to refer to someone whose gender is known can be and is used occasionally bu…
• The third-person plural 'they' is uncontroversial.
• The third-person singular 'they' for an unknown (but not general) individual, while valid English in nearly all dialects, went through a period of being proscribed for no apparent reason.¹
• The third-person singular 'they' for a specific individual, of unknown gender, was proscribed and uncommon. Evidence of its historical use is a lot rarer than the unknown-individual usage.
• For a known individual of known binary gender, you normally use the pronoun corresponding to their gender. (As you observed, neutral 'they' is becoming popular as an alternative.)
• For a known individual of known non-binary gender, it gets trickier. It's hard to separate language from culture, and English culture has more-or-less² only had two genders throughout the EMod–Modern English period: denoted by 'he' and 'she', respectively.³ To describe a non-binary individual who's sufficiently far from either of those categories is impossible, unless you fall back on the closest available construction: once 'it', currently 'they'.
To use 'they' to refer to somebody whose gender is known is a relatively recent construction – but English has been steadily losing its gender for the past few centuries. A few decades ago, to people in rural areas of England, a hedge was 'she', not 'it'. Now, we have sewists, and a woman's hair can be 'blond'. It breaks grammar no more than any other option would – and certainly less than the loss of 'thou' did:
> Again, the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person, you to one, instead of thou, contrary to the pure, plain, and single language of truth, thou to one, and you to more than one, which had always been used by God to men, and men to God, as well as one to another, from the oldest record of time till corrupt men, for corrupt ends, in later and corrupt times, to flatter, fawn, and work upon the corrupt nature in men, brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one, which has since corrupted the modern languages, and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men;—this evil custom I had been as forward in as others, and this I was now called out of and required to cease from.
The History of Thomas Elwood, via https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_varieties_of_religio...
Plenty of languages have a gender-neutral form of address: one that can be used for anyone. It serves a purpose, it fits a pattern, people are using it, and it doesn't even require extra logic in my natural language parser: I see no reason to call this sense ungrammatical, especially not when the others are accepted.
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¹: For a specific instance of the general person, 'one' and 'you' are used, with 'one' currently out of fashion: I personally prescribe 'one', but often find myself using 'you' anyway.
²: Upper-class English culture, anyway. Great Britain's got a dozen ethnic groups on it, more ways of speaking than you can shake a stick at, can't even make up its mind what a 'country' is, and don't get me started on the trade/invade/cold-war dynamic with what seems like the entirety of Western Europe. And then you've got religion on top of that: are we with the Pope? Are we against the Pope? Do we even care? Which prayer books are we using? Are we running out into the woods when the moon is full and yelling 'Diana' into the night? Is the priesthood male, or some 'third sex' – and if so, what (if anything) does that have to do with 'eunuchs'? And then there's historiography on top of that, because culture is affected by people's beliefs about what is and isn't traditional… No, it's much easier to stick with what the wealthy and powerful's letters and diaries and books say, than to try to work that whole mess out with basically no sources available.
³: This isn't strictly true: I've seen writing that used þorn ſimultaneously with 'it' for Hermaphroditus. Currently, 'it' seems to be exclusively for objects, dehumanising when used for people… except infants, where it's an acceptable gender-neutral personal, for some reason.
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#286Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's some confusion about this. They used to refer to someone (as a singular pronoun) whose gender is unknown has been valid English for hundreds of years. He to refer to someone whose gender is unknown is, as the link you provided points out, a more recent addition to English grammar and could be starting to fall away again. They to refer to someone whose gender is known can be and is used occasionally bu…
Not quite: I think you've conflated some senses. • The third-person plural 'they' is uncontroversial. • The third-person singular 'they' for an unknown (but not general) individual , while valid English in nearly all dialects, went through a period of being proscribed for no apparent reason.¹ • The third-person singular 'they' for a specific individual, of unknown gender, was proscribed and uncommon. Evidence of its…
2. We know what a country is, we've created several.
3. We're not with the Pope and haven't been for nigh on 500 years now and won't be back.
4. Non-binary is a luxury belief[1]. It came directly out of universities and has been supported via people of a similar background in media and education sectors, so if we're wondering how the wealthy and powerful want us to speak, we need look no further than this. As the link states:
> Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.
5. There are no true human hermaphrodites as even those born with something akin to the other sex's genitalia have only been able to produce from one type, usually female. As with singular they, it is a misnomer and the medical profession prefers more accurate designation of disorder of sex development. Calling them it would seem dehumanising.
> Plenty of languages have a gender-neutral form of address: one that can be used for anyone. It serves a purpose, it fits a pattern, people are using it, and it doesn't even require extra logic in my natural language parser: I see no reason to call this sense ungrammatical, especially not when the others are accepted.
Putting the verb at the end of the sentence is grammatical in Japanese, that is not a reason for why it should be grammatical in English, any more than giving my television a female gender would be (French), or using capitals for every noun (German). I'm all for helpful innovations but as stated in point 1, this ain't that, or should that be they ain't they.
[1] https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-...
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla has been going down a bizarre path for a while. If only Brendan Eich could have stayed at Mozilla instead of getting excommunicated, then we'd have the best of Brave and Firefox. (What _really_ showed me Mozilla is going crazy is when they fired sunfishcode (IIRC) and the Servo team! Both were essential to their success. It makes little sense.)
I agree, Mozilla has been on a very weird path since then. Not sure Eich would have made a positive difference though. Brave's main claim to fame is that they took Chromium and added an ad blocker. At the same time, they dabble(d?) in injecting ads and crypto, to just name the shady things I know about. I suppose there just isn't much money in building a non-compromising browser, and Mozilla is struggling with this p…
Why spout off on browsers as a business without doing your own research? I know, it's HN, but it's also 2023.
Mozilla seems to be getting more money from Google now (https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-202..., see also Chair compensation at https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...), even though Firefox share per statcounter.com is flat or down (https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-2022...).
It's possible to make money as an independent browser if you put the user first and deal them in on >= what you make from the gross. That's what Brave does, and we're building out search ads now to do the same. These revshare and payment rails use crypto, no "dabbling".
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mozilla has been going down a bizarre path for a while. If only Brendan Eich could have stayed at Mozilla instead of getting excommunicated, then we'd have the best of Brave and Firefox. (What _really_ showed me Mozilla is going crazy is when they fired sunfishcode (IIRC) and the Servo team! Both were essential to their success. It makes little sense.)
> If only Brendan Eich could have stayed at Mozilla instead of getting excommunicated Mozilla actually encouraged him to stay by giving him the role of CEO. He decided to step out. > First, though, there's a matter that we should all be clear about: Brendan Eich was not fired. After his appointment, there was backlash from the Mozilla Community. He came under pressure to resign and he did. The Mozilla Board that appo…
Re: Firefox Android now supports Tampermonkey
#290 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/ClearURLs%20for%20uBo/clear_urls_uboified.txt