Comment by DoctorOW

Comment by DoctorOW 4 days ago

I don't understand what these comments are actually criticizing in terms of side projects. They got rid of stuff like Rust, Firefox OS, Pocket, etc. Mozilla has streamlined to make web browsers and web browser accessories. VPN/Relay are both profitable projects that inhibit surveillance, so clearly that's not the issue. Do you want, not just these projects gone but the CEO gone? That happened already too, https://fortune.com/2024/02/08/mozilla-firefox-ceo-laura-cha...

zetanor 4 days ago

We've been through a decade of the Mozillas blackholing money with zero telegraphing of any intent to bring financial sustainability to Firefox. The (expensive! ugly?) rebrand did not include any meaningful recommitments (which filtered down to me, anyway). I've just now clicked around the Foundation's website trying to figure out what my prospective donation might have gone towards and it's still kept very vague. Am I donating to Firefox, to non-software activism, to a podcast? I couldn't even find a single mention of Firefox on https://www.mozillafoundation.org in a minute of looking.

I don't mind side-projects, I mind that Mozilla looks completely directionless from the outside. It might even look like a Google-funded adult daycare. I can't trust that.

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DoctorOW 4 days ago

Whoops, it happened. An internet argument changed someone's mind. :)
According to their latest financial transparency report[1], software development as a line item is about 60% of their expenses. However, your question wasn't about where revenue has gone, it was about where new donations would go. That lead me to the donation FAQ which reads:
> At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. The Mozilla Foundation programs are supported by grassroots donations and grants. Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the *Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
If I'm reading this correctly, this means you are not able to donate to Firefox development at all. This explains the lack of Firefox on their website. Any mention of it as a product of the foundation would be misleading about where the donations go. From the point of view of the Mozilla Foundation, Firefox is just another revenue stream for outreach efforts.
This really bums me out, because I'm a huge fan of Firefox. It's my go to browser on my computer and my phone. I advocate for it as much as possible. I've donated before, but I've likely never actually financially supported development of Firefox. I support the EFF, so it's possible I could have donated to this foundation on its own merits. But I didn't.
[1]: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
[2]: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...

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- codethief 3 days ago
  
  > If I'm reading this correctly, this means you are not able to donate to Firefox development at all
  Yes, this is what so many people here on HN have complained about for years :) and is also being raised by the OP:
  > To be clear, I very much support the Foundation, and it does amazing work, but I want to know this money in particular would directly support Firefox development.
  
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jm4 3 days ago

I just took a look at that site after reading your comment. It almost appears as if Mozilla just isn't interested in making a browser anymore.
"In the early 2000s, the Mozilla community built Firefox. We toppled the browser monopoly, gave users choice and control online, and helped create a healthier internet.
Twenty years later, Mozilla continues to fight for a healthy internet — one where Big Tech is held accountable and individual users have real agency online."
They list a bunch of projects on the site that are kind of all over the place. It's almost as if they don't know yet what they want to do. Mozilla is synonymous with Firefox and the Mozilla browser before that, but it is clear from the site that browsers do not fit in with their future. I'm not even sure they know what their future is. They look like a research organization that's dong research for the purpose of finding something to do? They are also accepting applications for funding.
The only purpose Firefox has in this organization is to fund exploratory research via the Google search deal. There is no plan. These people don't deserve our money and are not responsible enough to be custodians of a project as important as an independent browser.
A new organization should fork Firefox, rebrand it, contribute real resources and monetize it enough to keep it healthy. I'm not talking about junk like Zen or Floorp where they just put a skin on Firefox and have no real development resources to speak of. Someone should do to Mozilla what Mozilla did to Netscape.
Personally, I think that's a more worthwhile approach than what Ladybird is doing, although I'm rooting for them to succeed.

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cropcirclbureau 4 days ago

I'm curious, how capital intensive/wasteful were these aimless projects? Compared to their operating expenses? What better way could they have spent this money? (Development isn't exactly a good answer, if it's not a lot of money, it won't exactly buy a lot of R&D and even if it did, R&D doesn't necessarily translate to more income).

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bastawhiz 3 days ago

> They got rid of stuff like Rust

They got rid of everything. Relay and VPN are both five years old. Other than MDN, everything they've done, including "browsers and browser accessories" have been killed. For company as old as Mozilla, if your two oldest offerings are less than a quarter of your lifespan, what does that say?

And on the browser front, they're really not making a whole lot of anything. Ignoring fixes and web standards work, the latest version has.... Vertical tabs? Which there's been an extension for since pretty much forever. Some AI stuff? Changing the background of the New Tab page? I'm supposed to be excited for this? This is supposed to make me want to give them money?

Meanwhile there are startups like The Browser Company who are actually doing exciting things with the web (that people use! that are exciting enough to raise funding for!), and users love it. You can't say "we're building the best browser" and then not even ship anything.

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EasyMark 3 days ago

The interface is fine, they need to make sure they are participating in web standards and implementations of those in their browser. I would love if they froze development for a year and just fixed bugs that have been around for 1+ years.

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- bastawhiz 3 days ago
  
  99% of consumers don't care about web standards, they just care that their site works. Nobody is paying for the minimum viable browser. It's not going to get anyone up in the morning.
  What gets people excited are quality of life improvements, like video chat picture in picture, or new ways of grouping and managing tabs (your reminder that Mozilla killed Tab Candy). Firefox only got a cookie cutter clone of Chrome tab groups on v137.
  There is no shortage of ways browser vendors can ship features that make browsing the web better without getting in anyone's way. Hell, they could have a build of Firefox that just has all the new stuff and merge it back to trunk when it's been proven out.
  The thing is, for people like my mom, every other browser has features she uses and likes. Firefox hardly does more in the core experience than it did fifteen years ago when they started shipping every six weeks. My mom has every single department store's app installed on her phone, she's not choosing a browser based on how much it may respect your privacy.
  
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graemep 4 days ago

It takes time to win back trust.

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nabakin 4 days ago

I keep seeing comments on HN that misunderstand what's happening with Mozilla and it's kind of frustrating.

Right now, if you were to take away Google's money, Firefox would not be able to compete with Chromium and Safari. It would die.

All these side-projects are attempts to find a source of revenue aside from Google and are necessary to Firefox's survival. So saying they should stop doing them, completely misses the point.

Unless we want Firefox to die, we should understand Mozilla's situation and encourage this exploratory process, not hate on it.

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kbelder 3 days ago

>Right now, if you were to take away Google's money, Firefox would not be able to compete with Chromium and Safari. It would die.
I think the only way for it to prosper is to take away Google's money. I firmly believe it could do better browser development on 5% of the income it's currently receiving.
It'll be a heck of a culture shock at the foundation, though.

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stefan_ 3 days ago

If you had put all the money Mozilla executives have spent on buying then winding down bizarre startups, occasionally connected to them, in index funds instead, you would probably have an actual revenue stream to support Firefox, other than what they have now, which is nothing, because like their leadership, these purchases never amounted to anything other than damaging their brand.

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