Borland is 'mostly dead', it ceased being an independent entity in 2015 and that's because it is very hard to sell tools in a world that considers software tools to be a commodity.

Microsoft is only a language powerhouse because they own a whole platform. Mozilla does not qualify as a platform company, as much as they may want that.

> but their languages are mostly there to attract devs to Windows/Azure and are making $0 directly.

Exactly. The kind of benefit that Rust will never bring to Mozilla. Entirely different audiences.

> You missed my point, Rust does not need to directly make $$ "on the market place", ever. All it needs to do is enable Mozilla developers to make Firefox more competitive, easier and faster than other solutions. It is doing that, see "Firefox Quantum", WebRender, Servo etc.

I'll give that a 'maybe'. I don't see much difference in speed of development, if any I see a much slower pace of development @ Mozilla, bugs are open for a very long time and are typically closed not because they got fixed but because they've been 'inactive for too long'.

> And BTW, the Rust staff paid by Mozilla is relatively tiny, (dozen people?). The fact that this is a major focus is pathetic.

12 people is not 'tiny', thats two full teams. Of the 750 people left - if my math is correct - that is a small fraction but compared to the size of the team dedicated to FireFox it is reasonably large.