Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#491

Post by smt88 » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

sfink wrote: post #464

smt88 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can donate to any nonprofit and stipulate that your money be used only for a certain purpose, and they're legally bound by it.

Not relevant here. Yes, you can donate to Mozilla.org and stipulate whatever you like, but Mozilla.org does not develop Firefox so telling them to use it for developing Firefox will do about as much good as telling them to use it to resurrect unicorns. Mozilla.org owns Mozilla Corporation, which is a for-profit entity that develops Firefox, but thus far the corporation hasn't wanted the complications and restrictions…

Everything I can find online says that there are contributors working for both Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#492

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #275

Having worked at Mozilla a while ago, the CEO role is one I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Success is oddly defined: it's a non-profit (well, a for-profit owned by a non-profit) that needs to make a big profit in a short amount of time. And anything done to make that profit will annoy the community. I hope Anthony leans into what makes Mozilla special. The past few years, Mozilla's business model has been to just m…

Anil Dash wrote something relevant recently: https://www.anildash.com/2025/11/14/wanting-not-to-want-ai/

His point (which I agree with - softly) is that Mozilla could approach this from a more nuanced perspective that others cannot, like not anti-AI but anti "Big AI". Facilitate what people are already doing (and outside of the HN bubble everyone is using AI all the time, even if it's just what we think is "dumb" stuff) throught the FF lens. Like a local LLM that runs entirely in an extension or similar. THere's no shortage of hard, valuable things that big tech won't do because of $$$.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#493

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #319

driverdan wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public Defenders (and defense attorneys in general, but PDs don't get oodles of cash) have to work with some pretty reprehensible people sometimes. That doesn't mean they believe in the awful things their clients do.

That's exactly my point. They are able to do their job despite not believing in their clients, which for public defenders even means trying to let their clients go free, which is a fair bit further than is asked of a tech employee who disagrees with their CEO.

Public Defenders do not have a choice at who they defend.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#494

Post by glenstein » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:28 PM UTC

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #483

fsflover wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just to add, I kind of mourn FirefoxOS. Today, we have Mobian, postmarketOS, PureOS and many more GNU/Linux OSes for smartphones.

It's too late. If I want to interact with modern society, I have to use banking apps, the NHS app, WhatsApp, numerous IoT apps... The list is endless. Many of these will refuse to run on rooted phones. Google and Apple won. We can learn from this and hope the next big thing to come along has some competition from the truly open source side of computing.

Well that's a fantastic point, and interesting in this context because the whole gambit of FirefoxOS was to use progressive web apps. The browser rather than the Linux ecosystem becomes the trusted execution environment and PWAs actually ask less of your bank or (insert security agency) than even Android or iOS development.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#495

Post by LunaSea » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

philipwhiuk wrote: post #129

4gotunameagain wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, totally worth it to risk THE FREE INTERNET because of that.

He's not defending "THE FREE INTERNET" at his new place. (Which for the record, is less important than physical freedom).

Maybe that has to do with Brave not getting a free check to the tune iof $500M Google every year.

That makes it more difficult to create "free internet" type projects.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#496

Post by roenxi » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #477

macspoofing wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Mozilla is good at ... Firefox - the one thing they do not want to work on is the only thing that makes them special.

>Firefox - the one thing they do not want to work on I'm sorry but this is complete nonsense. Just this year they pushed 12 major releases, with thousands of patches, including WebGPU efficiency improvements, updated PDF engine, numerous security fixes, amounting to millions of lines of new code. They maintain a codebase that rivals that of Chrome and of the Linux Kernel and push the equivalent of Rust's entire codeb…

> They maintain a codebase that rivals that of Chrome and of the Linux Kernel and push the equivalent of Rust's entire codebase on a monthly basis.

Is that comparison supposed to make their management of the code base seem better or worse? Chrome, Linux and Rust are arguably colossi in their niches (Rust having the weakest claim). Firefox's niche is Chrome's and it doesn't do that well. It used to be that at least Firefox had it's own little area with more interesting extensions but obviously that was too hard for them to handle - yes I'm still grumpy about ChatZilla.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#497

Post by LunaSea » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

sct202 wrote: post #52

jsheard wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then he went on to make Yet Another Chromium Fork, so it doesn't seem like he was particularly attached to Gecko or what it stands for in the browser engine market anyway. What's to say that Mozilla wouldn't have given up the fight and pivoted to Chromium, like Opera and Edge did, if he was still in charge?

And he went in on integrating trendy things like Ads that pay crypto and AI integrated into the browser, so it's not like there wouldn't be AI if he were in charge.

Maybe that was necessary because they don't get a $500M check every year. Kinda makes things more difficult.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#498

Post by smileson2 » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #140

From my perspective, Firefox, a while back, just stopped working on issues that matter. They got into politics, they tried to do everything, but not as good. If they just focused to produce a good browser, they would be way ahead. And time when you could get $100Ms from Google are slowly coming to an end. Money attracts grifters and this is what brought them down from my perspective. Now, just to be honest, I wish th…

I've never understood their massive activism arm, it's always seemed bloated and ineffective compared to organizations I donate money to like the EFF

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#499

Post by glenstein » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #485

ethbr1 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000% The two places it's mind boggling that Mozilla doesn't have a product are (1) identity (especially as a provider to 3rd parties) and (2) instant messaging (especially on mobile). They were important 10 years ago, they're more important today, and the existing providers all have huge privacy concerns.

What would be Mozilla's revenue model for instant messaging?

[flagged]

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#500

Post by aaronax » Tue, Dec 16, 2025, 9:30 PM UTC

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #483

fsflover wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just to add, I kind of mourn FirefoxOS. Today, we have Mobian, postmarketOS, PureOS and many more GNU/Linux OSes for smartphones.

It's too late. If I want to interact with modern society, I have to use banking apps, the NHS app, WhatsApp, numerous IoT apps... The list is endless. Many of these will refuse to run on rooted phones. Google and Apple won. We can learn from this and hope the next big thing to come along has some competition from the truly open source side of computing.

A law can fix that!