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The Mozilla Manifesto

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Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#61

Post by MrDresden »

I think it deserves mentioning that if any individual here believes that what Mozilla does is valuable, either to them selves or to others, and would like to "put money where their mouth is" as it were, then they can do so here: https://donate.mozilla.org

I had not thought about donating until these recent layoffs, but have now set a monthly 5$ donation up, as Mozilla's tools and work mean enough to my own interests, as well as being important enough for the internet as a whole, for me to donate.

Sadly the public donations will never be enough to cover their whole operational expenses, but every little bit helps.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#62

Post by ekianjo »

nikitaga wrote: post #17
ekianjo wrote: post #8

Does Mozilla even follow their own Manifesto? > Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. So having Google as the default search engine is the right approach for privacy? > Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource. We are still waiting for Pocket's server source code... > Magnifying the public benefit aspec…

> So having Google as the default search engine is the right approach for privacy? That's not their entire approach to privacy. How would you have them exist? There aren't enough people willing to pay for a web browser in 2020. There aren't enough unpaid volunteers to work for free and outcompete Chrome. What would you have Mozilla do? They're trying to develop other services that can actually make them money so they…

> There aren't enough people willing to pay for a web browser in 2020.

Interesting claim, since no browser out there was ever made available for payment in recent history. So if I follow you correctly, there are people willing to support projects on Patreon and shell money on software they find important and worth supporting, but for some reason for a much more sophisticated piece of software like a browser suddenly no such market would exist?

I'd like to see Mozilla seriously try instead of accepting a check from Google every single year while pretending they care about their users' privacy.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#63

Post by ekianjo »

joe-collins wrote: post #15
kgraves wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So having Google as the default search engine is the right approach for privacy? This and the fact that they signed the deal with Google again makes me lose faith in Mozilla, caring about privacy yet making deals with the devil that is killing them.

I don't like it. I'd rather they moved to DDG. But if I let myself be an optimist for a short while, I can understand the compromise in order to establish a runway while they build up more ethical sources of income.

> I can understand the compromise in order to establish a runway while they build up more ethical sources of income.

When? It's not pragmatism anymore, it has become pure laziness on the part of Mozilla. They have been accepting this business model (being fed by the hand of Google) forever now, instead of seriously trying to achieve financial autonomy. They have lost all credibility if they compromise on that front - it's such a huge conflict of interest.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#64

Post by ekianjo »

manquer wrote: post #56
nikitaga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard any person outside of tech forums complain about Firefox's default search engine being Google. Even those people who are privacy conscious who complain about google and facebook privacy all the time. Not once in so many years have they complained about Firefox privacy, in fact the opposite sentiment is prevailing among those people. I don't think Firefox is failing to retain market share because thei…

I really don't think Chrome has a better product because of the outspending for technical work . Firefox post quantum is on par and in some features actually better browser than Chrome. If it all took was money to spend build , Microsoft would still be doing building Edge , they have deep enough pockets and it was technically really good product, scored most in standards compliance etc. Google makes sure it apps work…

> There are people who use Firefox on mobile because it is the only browser to support ad-blocking on mobile , building a unique value proposition and carving a large enough user base for that usecase will allow them to survive.

Yup, but Mozilla apparently does not even care about their Mobile Firefox, they don't advertise that it's one of the only browsers which accepts extensions, and the UI to actually get to add-ons on Mobile is miserable at best. There's so much lack of focus instead of improving what they already have.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#65

Post by ekianjo »

nikitaga wrote: post #43
manquer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is may look like the reasonable compromise on the surface but it really isn't. Manifestos are about principles not pragmatic approaches, taking a stance is not free or easy, look at the stance RMS takes on open source and GPL for example. Had RMS and other pioneers in the open source movement did not take such ideologically driven stance at the expense of pragmatism , we may have parts of BSD maybe today but not t…

I've never heard any person outside of tech forums complain about Firefox's default search engine being Google. Even those people who are privacy conscious who complain about google and facebook privacy all the time. Not once in so many years have they complained about Firefox privacy, in fact the opposite sentiment is prevailing among those people. I don't think Firefox is failing to retain market share because thei…

> Firefox is a consumer product, unlike BSD. I know this is disagreeable on this forum, but RMS' values although certainly commendable are not super useful in building popular consumer products. As evidenced by absolutely negligible proportion of consumer software created with values as uncompromising as RMS (measured by the number of users who actually choose the software, not people who use it without knowing, because that has nothing to do with consumer products or values).

Have you ever heard of Krita (GPL3)? VLC (GPL2)? Inkscape (GPL)? They are far from being negligible and they have a huge consumer following across the world. So I find the claim that Free Software principles are not super useful to build successful consumer products largely false. And such software is actually chosen by end users for the examples I provided (and there's more), because of their intrinsic qualities.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#66

Post by yosito »

aravindet wrote: post #18
djaychela wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is already on board with your ideals of open Internet. I don't think that's the case. Increasingly content is being placed in walled gardens which you don't get full access to that content unless you have an account. Google is still pushing AMP. Chrome is becoming the new IE, and sites that 'work best' or only work with Chrome are not uncommon. Those (and many other) factors don't indicate to me that every…

I think most people can (and do) agree with these ideals stated in the abstract, but still do things that violate them in their jobs / real life because of practical considerations such as pursuing a profit. Not unlike how most people understand the dangers of climate change, but continue to drive cars, fly, use air conditioning etc. Or, stated another way, we are all hypocrites to some extent.

Or, stated another way, it's the tragedy of the commons.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#67

Post by yelloworangefog »

MrDresden wrote: post #61

I think it deserves mentioning that if any individual here believes that what Mozilla does is valuable, either to them selves or to others, and would like to "put money where their mouth is" as it were, then they can do so here: https://donate.mozilla.org I had not thought about donating until these recent layoffs, but have now set a monthly 5$ donation up, as Mozilla's tools and work mean enough to my own interests,…

I really don’t think feeding more money to their flagrantly incompetent and greedy management right now is at all the best course of action if you want to see them do well. The absolute best thing you can hope for that the public backlash to their recent decisions is strong enough to manifest a financial incentive for those in charge at moz to reconsider their business strategy. By encouraging others to donate, you’re essentially rewarding this behavior and reaffirming that this strategy is financially lucrative for them.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#68

Post by anonymousab »

Ygg2 wrote: post #19
tarkin2 wrote: post #14

Has the op posted the Icelandic version to get it here as a new post and to make a point? Look, I’m saddened by the layoffs too. And I’m very sad the dev tools and servo teams teams in particular have been hit. And I would like to know why. Yet there are still 750 mozilla employees. The servo stuff was merged into ff already. I’m not saying it’s good that they’ve scaled down their R&D but the narrative that the C-sui…

To me, this manifesto is just empty platitudes. + We support privacy - Yet get millions from Google to keep their search engine default. + We believe in transparent community based decisions - Which is why we gutted several community darlings (Devtools, Servo, Wasmtime, MDN) Without Servo, Firefox is doomed to become a cheap Chrome knock-off. Why not fire like 650/750 and just base FireFox on Chromium? And in that ca…

> Why not fire like 650/750 and just base FireFox on Chromium?

That's likely not too far behind. There might be a runway of a couple of years before that, though. I don't think they'd get rid of quite so many people at that point.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#69

Post by JBiserkov »

tsujp wrote: post #47

I _want_ to use Firefox, and Mozilla's kit but every single time I've come onboard after watching improvements etc I get shafted by updates which change major things every few weeks, this is mostly around Firefox having constantly had a different URL bar every update and them removing the ability to search for preferences in my preference list. It feels like they are fighting my ability to make Firefox exactly how I…

>removing the ability to search for preferences in my preference list

They did what? frantically clicks Hamburger -> Options, which opened about:preferences, "Find in Options" is top and center. Firefox 79, Windows 10.

Re: The Mozilla Manifesto

#70

Post by prepend »

Seems like open expression is an important requirement of an open internet.

Not sure if that’s in one of the 10 or not there because it conflicts with their ad revenue (ie, open expression doesn’t mesh with ads), or conflicts with authoritarian regimes (eg, Great Firewall of China), or conflicts with “language is violence” or conflicts with “nudity offends me” or something else.

It seems like one of the big things at risk now is the ability of the internet to allow direct connections between people without intermediaries. I feel like standards bodies kind of help with this (ie, protocols over platforms).

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