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0 pointsYPPH4y ago0 comments

>it basically cedes the entire web to Google

Refocusing on making Mozilla a viable entity without the need for cash splashes from Google is doing precisely the opposite. By diluting Google's financial control it ensures decision-making is both actually and ostensibly impartial.

Gecko is still a perfectly functioning browser engine. It's far easier to keep Gecko up to date with modern web standards than reinventing the wheel.

As nice as it would be to have a free and open source browser engine written in a memory safe language, I can't see there being a lot of money in it for Mozilla.

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8 comments · 1 top-level

Dylan168074y ago· 7 in thread

In 2013 Mozilla spent $197M on software development and $30M on general/administrative.

In 2020 it was $242M and $137M.

The future-focused servo team was not the place to cut a couple million.

elb20204y ago

It seems to me, that once a company reaches a tipping point of more than 50% non-engineers in upper management, it's the demise of the company as an engineering company, and it will slowly drift in the direction of being a technology holding company only.

lifthrasiir4y ago

I wouldn't be this cynical if everyone said the same thing to the Firefox OS back then. It turned out that Firefox OS did have much potential to countries with less mobile penetration, as observed from KaiOS's success in India.

Was the Firefox OS less future-focused than Servo? I don't think so, and given that Servo actually did survive long enough to give back to the mainline Gecko (in the form of WebRender and so on). It might or might not make actual sense to conclude that as the ROI shrinks, but it is always easier to claim the decision was wrong after that decision.

toyg4y ago

Well, many claimed that back when decisions were being taken. They could have scrapped FFOS much sooner than they did.

> Firefox OS did have much potential to countries with less mobile penetration, as observed from KaiOS's success in India.

Such "success" is inevitably fleeting. Eventually a "developing" market develops to demand more established and desirable products. Nokia had those markets under lock and key for a long time, back when EU/US had already moved on to iPhone-like products; but then consumers inevitably gravitated towards the fashionable.

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dotancohen4y ago

  > In 2013 Mozilla spent $197M on software development and $30M on general/administrative.
  > In 2020 it was $242M and $137M.
  > The future-focused servo team was not the place to cut a couple million.

Wasn't it just after 2013 when the replacement politically-correct CEO got quadruple the pay of the not-politically-correct engineer CEO?

smcl4y ago

That's a bit of an oversimplification, it's not like they had a choice between adequately funding R&D projects or Doing Political Correctness and chose the latter. Besides, remember that Eich was appointed in 2014 and had only a short stint at CEO, so I don't think you can attribute the 2013 figures to him

I think all of us on HN are a bit saddened about Mozilla cutting back on the Rust and Servo teams, but political-correctness isn't the reason behind that. Let's not turn this into one of those discussions.

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iamdanieljohns4y ago

where can I find this statistics?

Dylan168074y ago

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/who-we-are/public-records/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2020/

All the "audited financial statements".

It should be the second full-page chart.

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