Mozilla lays off 250 employees!

[Free Bird]

Mitchell Baker is the head honcho in both the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation.

This is really unhealthy from a corporate governance perspective. She should choose which function she wants to perform and step down from the other one. Can't Mitch Kapor return and put her in her place?

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I would say bring back Eich but he is his own kind of filthy fucking scumbag. Just not for the reasons Mozilla forced him out for.

[Night Wing]

@ Free Bird

Baker doesn't care about Firefox or Mozilla (in my opinion). She was able to put herself in the position to be "both" the Executive Chairwoman and CEO of the Mozilla Foundation and of the Mozilla Corporation. I wonder who the fools were at Mozilla that went along with those two moves. To me, that is like "letting the fox guard the hen house".

She can steer Mozilla to do what she wants with Firefox or any other products (in my opinion) and she won't be challenged (in my opinion).

I think she is going to keep Mozilla afloat with her ideas and her main goal, in my opinion, is to keep milking Mozilla like a "cash cow" so she can keep receiving the large salary and bonuses coming her way. I think Mozilla is just "an after thought" for her now.

And I wouldn't be surprised to hear in about 12-18 months from now, Baker starts firing another 100-200 people. And Baker will "never" relinquish her positions mentioned above willingly.

[Moonchild]

This is really unhealthy from a corporate governance perspective. She should choose which function she wants to perform and step down from the other one.

It isn't if you are basically one entity and the Foundation is only there on paper to be a tax exemption. Oh, and to pretend you're non-profit to the public and "wholesome" and all that and can legally beg for handouts you don't need. If you're gonna be a profit-making business, don't hide behind a charity of your own making, I say, because that's just all sorts of hypocrite.

[gepus]

If Mozilla adopts Blink, there is no way that that will help Google avoid antitrust cases. The court isn't that stupid, mr tribute. If all viable browsers on the Web use Google's Blink, then they have no actual competitor. Even a small child could figure that out.

- It's highly unlikely that Mozilla will ever adopt Blink. They will rather leave the browser market if revenues will continue to drop.
AFAIK 80% of the revenue comes from Google-search. If Google doesn't renew the deal, Mozilla might be finished sooner as expected.
- Stupid or not, the court couldn't care less what layout engine gets used. It's solely about browser makers.

[Moonchild]

AFAIK 80% of the revenue comes from Google-search

Make that 95%

If Google doesn't renew the deal, Mozilla might be finished sooner as expected.

Not really. In case you haven't realized there are plenty of other search engines that all have affiliate programs. Also by the way Mozilla has over the past few years monetized about all of them already through partnerships, so even if you select a different search engine it's still money in Mozilla's pocket.

Off-topic:

the court couldn't care less what layout engine gets used.

Not the impression I got when talking to the panel of people performing the probe. They very much cared that Google with Blink was pushing for a monoculture and using anti-competitive methods to achieve this. They were very much interested in me explaining how the implementation-first standards-manipulation method of Google was throttling any competition.

[moonbat]

Off-topic:

Not the impression I got when talking to the panel of people performing the probe. They very much cared that Google with Blink was pushing for a monoculture and using anti-competitive methods to achieve this. They were very much interested in me explaining how the implementation-first standards-manipulation method of Google was throttling any competition.

When was this, could you elaborate?

[Moonraker]

how does this affect smaller browsers like vivaldi and brave,safari etc..ricochet effect on all of those.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I would advise this line of discussion not go any further than it has. You all should get back on the topic of Mozilla.

[John connor]

Mozilla has long been a corporation focused on social issues, instead of technology, so I guess they won't need all those programmers and sec people anymore

https://foundation.mozilla.org/campaign ... e-regrets/
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/ ... formation/
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/06/0 ... ork-to-do/

This is why Mozilla collectively fucking sucks. And it's why they ousted their CEO. Due to that, this is what I have in my browser's about:mozilla.

[Tharthan]

Stupid or not, the court couldn't care less what layout engine gets used. It's solely about browser makers.

Eh... I don't think that that is true.

Most laypeople can understand that "form of Chromium" (or "running on Google's Blink engine, which also powers Google Chrome") means that, under the hood, it's just Google Chrome. And those who do not get that truth now most certainly will get it if/when they find out what Chromium is.

U.S. courts definitely care about that. Many a company has tried to get around our antitrust laws, but simply doing the equivalent of taking a piece of copy paper, writing a different name on it, and then taping it onto one's own product, claiming that it's a legitimate competitor, simply wouldn't fly in this country.

To the average person, the only competitor to Google Chrome appears to be Mozilla Firefox. If Mozilla switches to Blink, so that Firefox cannot even appear to be an actual competitor to the layperson who knows little to nothing about all of this stuff, then the courts are obviously going to have a problem with that.

[Moonchild]

To the average person, the only competitor to Google Chrome appears to be Mozilla Firefox. If Mozilla switches to Blink, so that Firefox cannot even appear to be an actual competitor to the layperson who knows little to nothing about all of this stuff, then the courts are obviously going to have a problem with that.

Which is exactly why Google keeps the lifeline for Mozilla intact. Because it gives the illusion of competition, while all it seems to be is (1) a reason to say "look we are being fair" and (2) the necessary second vote needed to get past the bar for acceptance of "standards" in the WhatWG where a proposal has to have "2 implementer votes" to become part of the specs.
Mozilla isn't going to complain as long as the money flows.

[mr tribute]

Mozilla has long been a corporation focused on social issues, instead of technology, so I guess they won't need all those programmers and sec people anymore

https://foundation.mozilla.org/campaign ... e-regrets/
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/ ... formation/
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/06/0 ... ork-to-do/

This is why Mozilla collectively fucking sucks.

Being pro censorship and anti free speech can be profitable if someone like Soros (or Google) likes your message. Mozilla's political bs is just bs, but also a little bit worrying. Maybe the red star on the airship is no coincidence?

http://www.mozillazine.org/

I think this (below) is the compensation for Mozilla board members 2018. It does seem that Baker hijacked the organization. She gets a $2 million bonus. What for? Firefox market share has been falling steadily since November 2009. I know Baker is hardly the worst person in tech, but to fire 25 % of the employees in 2020 while not scaling back your personal compensation is a little weird.

On the other hand, maybe we should thank her for everything:
"Baker was instrumental in the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, an independent non-profit that was launched on July 15, 2003 as America Online shut down the Netscape browser division and drastically scaled back its involvement with the Mozilla project. Baker became the President of the Mozilla Foundation and was appointed to the five-person Board of Directors.[2]"

Mozilla 2018

The latest blog post from Baker shows that Mozilla has no vision at all. It will be more of the same. Even more data mining and telemetry. Maybe the removal of about:config (already happened on Android FF v.79) and possibly the removal of the possibility to load user.js. And more political propaganda and non-sense of course, because free speech and free information are the biggest threats to humanity in 2020 and Mozilla is determined to fight them.

[Tharthan]

and (2) the necessary second vote needed to get past the bar for acceptance of "standards" in the WhatWG where a proposal has to have "2 implementer votes" to become part of the specs.
Mozilla isn't going to complain as long as the money flows.

At this point, Is it fair to call Mozilla little more than a puppet of Google? Sort of like the browser equivalent of a puppet state, or (at the very least) a puppet government?

And more political propaganda and non-sense of course, because free speech and free information are the biggest threats to humanity in 2020 and Mozilla is determined to fight them.

Off-topic:
To be fair, if your goal is to wipe out or hamstring anyone who does not think like you and hold your specific social and world philosophy, so that you can achieve a world in which everyone is "woke" (read: a dumber, less literate populace's way of saying "enlightened") and shares all of the same views and prejudices on anything and everything, then free speech and free information are your greatest enemies.

[Moonchild]

At this point, Is it fair to call Mozilla little more than a puppet of Google?

I certainly wouldn't fault you for coming to that conclusion.

[rv-2019]

It's a shame Mozilla went this way, because I've relied on Firefox for basically much of my personal browsing work. I've also relied on it recently for my web scraping workflows. I still use Thunderbird (no longer part of Mozilla) for archiving my own emails.

I'm only glad Pale Moon is based on legacy Firefox code for this, but Pale Moon is a little awkward in certain other use cases (namely I also use the web on Android as well as on a dual-booting system but I believe I can only so far use Firefox, so I can't easily send stuff I've found on Android easily to Pale Moon even if I had Pale Moon installed on Android).

[rv-2019]

This is really unhealthy from a corporate governance perspective. She should choose which function she wants to perform and step down from the other one.

It isn't if you are basically one entity and the Foundation is only there on paper to be a tax exemption. Oh, and to pretend you're non-profit to the public and "wholesome" and all that and can legally beg for handouts you don't need. If you're gonna be a profit-making business, don't hide behind a charity of your own making, I say, because that's just all sorts of hypocrite.

American neoliberalism is a virus, although I don't think I'll discuss this at length because of the forum rules.

[Tharthan]

I still use Thunderbird (no longer part of Mozilla) for archiving my own emails.

Switch to Interlink Mail & News. That's Tobin's pet project, and it's a very good e-mail client. I give it a 10/10, and would recommend it to anyone.

Pale Moon is a little awkward in certain other use cases (namely I also use the web on Android [...] I believe I can only so far use Firefox, so I can't easily send stuff I've found on Android easily to Pale Moon even if I had Pale Moon installed on Android).

Off-topic:
Stop using a smartphone. If you absolutely have to use one, limit yourself to using it only in situations where it is absolutely necessary.

Smartphones are part of what caused all of this rot in the first place. Dumbing down interfaces and developer impressions of their consumers, treating the user as a product and milking them for all of the personal info that they can get, trying to simplify everything because of people's weakening attention spans, etc.

If you use rot (especially rot made by Google of all companies!), then you get what you get. You don't really have any place to complain.

Pale Moon for Android is no longer maintained, by the way. See this announcement.

[athenian200]

It isn't if you are basically one entity and the Foundation is only there on paper to be a tax exemption. Oh, and to pretend you're non-profit to the public and "wholesome" and all that and can legally beg for handouts you don't need. If you're gonna be a profit-making business, don't hide behind a charity of your own making, I say, because that's just all sorts of hypocrite.

I totally agree with that, and it's honestly why I never liked Mozilla much. I mean, at least with companies like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, even Google itself, they're honest about the fact that they're in business to make money and don't try to pass themselves off as something they're not. Mozilla's setup is so suspicious it seems like some kind of tax evasion scheme that also allows them to collect donations and recruit volunteers while still operating for profit. "The Mozilla Foundation" reminds me of all these celebrities that set up foundations, like the Gates Foundation or the Clinton Foundation, and it seems to be the same basic idea too.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

The Mozilla Foundation had the best intentions when it was created. A way of formalizing the Mozilla Organization and protect various IP and be able to research, get grants, and pay employees as a non-profit doing good. However, that soured after a few years of operation and when the Mozilla Corporation was created it was basically all over. MozCo and the Firefox brand killed Mozilla of old within 3 years. Technically the Foundation STILL owns the Corporation but it has been basically a huge scam since about 2009-2010. In reality the Corporation runs everything and the Foundation is there as a tax shelter and as a slimy way to still beg money off people and maintain the thinnest pretense of not being 100% for profit.