So instead of fucking over google with an antitrust ruling like they very much deserve, we're going to fearmonger about how much it might hurt the ✨ sole saviors of the web ✨ Mozilla, who's finances are apparently entirely dependent on the company primarily responsible for ruining the web. Looks like a narrative, smells like narrative, to get the public to turn against the antitrust ruling.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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"sole saviors of the web"
Lol I mean that's also a strong narrative you're pushing
apparently that needed a /s
Haha apparently, my bad
Honestly, I'd like if the browser could become truly independent from google ad money. Then mozilla devs would have to focus on the browser and come up with a donation program like thunderbird for example instead. I'd prefer to pay and know how the money is used. I absolutely hate the google dependence
There might not be any devs without that sweet google funding.
Nobody donates to these things.
You should read Thunderbird donation statement.
They got 6 million USD of donation back in 2022.
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving-our-2022-financial-report/
86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine
That explains a lot. I've only recently switched back to Firefox after Chrome took the throne years ago. I still use Google's services for now, so wanted their home page as my new tab page.
The only way I could find to do that was by using an extension, but every so often I get a warning from FF that my new tab page has been changed, and it gets reset. I looked up a way to stop the warnings, and found a Mozilla blog post with comments from staff claiming that it's a security feature.
Apparently the only reason that you might not want to start with the FF start page is because you've been hacked 🙄
Mozilla corp is trash and deserves to fail. The non-profit Mozilla however, can remain and steward Firefox and friends just fine.
I support the things that the Mozilla Foundation puts on its website, even their manifesto. Even, begrudgingly, the insistence that we must balance the needs of human beings against the needs of corporations.
Even if those things contradict what Mozilla Corporation is doing with their browser.
But the Foundation is just a thin wrapper for the Corporation, so I'm not sure how that would work.
TIL. Super disappointing. Thanks for the additional info. I've changed my mind. Mozilla can just go poof completely.
balance the needs of human beings against the needs of corporations.
I support this if it is a 1:1 scale.
Corporation can be human, but each corporation only counts as 1.
We can balance 9,000,000,000 people against a few thousand corps no big deal.
Why would the foundation have members? It's not a coop, after all. It's not the Linux Foundation model, either, which is "bunch of companies get together and decide on how to spend their money". It's much closer to the Bosch or Zeiss model, "We're doing business but are owned by noone and instead of handing out dividends we throw money at some charitable stuff" -- though Mozilla is way more charitable than either of them.
The board is bound to the Foundation's statutes, and it can't just change them. They're required to steer the foundation such that its actions benefit the free and open web, if you think they're doing something else, sue them. Or get oversight bureaucrats to investigate or however that works in the US.
The board is the Corporation. Why would they be bound to the Mozilla manifesto? They seem to be destroying its spirit right now.
If "just sue them" is the only way to hold Mozilla accountable, how low they have fallen!
And an executive is suing them. For discrimination.
The board is the Corporation.
No.The board is the board, an organ of the corporate body, but not the corporate body itself.
Why would they be bound to the Mozilla manifesto?
Foundations are bound to their bylaws, as set out when they were founded. Why? Because law, that's why. It's what foundations are for.
They seem to be destroying its spirit right now.
According to you.
If “just sue them” is the only way to hold Mozilla accountable, how low they have fallen!
You can also complain. Like, with that Brendan Eich situation, the community complained and he left.
And an executive is suing them. For discrimination.
That seems to be standard corporate stuff: The two sides disagree over the reason for a non-promotion. Should Mozilla lose the case you can be quite sure heads will roll because unlike other boards, Mozilla actually has to give a fuck about stakeholder opinion. See, well, Brendan Eich.
OTOH, blanket "they're doing stuff wrong" "criticism" like yours will be ignored. That's like filing a bug report saying nothing but "Doesn't work fix noaw"
You seem to have incredibly low standards for Mozilla.
But for people who are not you, I want you to explain how the Mozilla Foundation manifesto is compatible with the Mozilla FakeSpot privacy policy that promises to sell browsing history, search history, and geolocation directly to advertisers.
Don't install it, then. There: Voila, manifesto fulfilled because it's all opt-in. It's still an extension, they bought it, they didn't build it into the browser. How did anything change? Before the acquisition, people had to install the thing and agree to privacy terms, after the acquisition, people have to install the thing and agree to privacy terms.Find something relevant to complain about.
Interesting. I asked you how Mozilla FakeSpot's privacy policy adheres to Mozilla Foundation principles, and your answer is to tell me to avoid it.
Is the privacy policy of Mozilla FakeSpot compatible with the Mozilla Foundation, yes it no?
Quoth the manifesto:
Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
Yes, it is. In fact that language is so generic and vague everything compliant with the GDPR should easily fulfil it.
Also you don't need to avoid FakeSpot, you can simply be blissfully unaware of it. As in not seek it out.
Go iron your tinfoil hat it's getting crinkly :)
Oh, so you think the Mozilla manifesto sucks. Why do people like you hate Mozilla so much more than I ever could?
And that, apparently, FakeSpot selling private data is the "fundamental" and "non optional" approach. Is that your interpretation of it?
According to their privacy notice you can opt out of that (the targeted advertising bit). Certainly legally required in the EU, if you're not in the EU and they don't give you the same option then I guess you have something to complain about.
And, yes, I very much do think that the Mozilla manifesto is generic and vague and wishy-washy. If you disagree, I suggest you contrast it with this.
Seriously, the right time to burn the phoenix was ten years ago.
Paid for by what money?
Not all software needs to be backed by money. Money helps, of course, and I would support a non-profit financially that is focused purely on browser development. Right now, the only game in town doing that is Ladybird. But honestly, I think building upon a firefox fork makes more sense than starting from scratch.
You're saying Firefox could exist, and keep up with security updates and website compatibility, without being backed by money? (Or based on a couple of donations?) Any convincing evidence that could make us trust that that's possible too?
Many such pieces of software exist both backed by non-profit foundations, and not. Before the Linux kernel was running the world, it was primarily maintained by volunteers. Also consider the myriad of Linux distributions that don't have corp overlords. Or pick a *BSD. Or anything you watch video content with: ffmpeg, vlc, mpv. Or even various programming languages such as ECMA Script, Python, Ruby, C, C++, etc. Hell, even Lemmy fits into this category. There literally is a whole slew of software not directly backed by money and still maintained that literally runs the world.
All your examples are at a way smaller scale, or rely on corporate cooperation (and we already have that in Chromium). With the exception of VLC, which is a treasure, but also has way fewer adversaries/things that will break because they don't care about VLC.
Open source existed before money. Corporate backers came in because the product was successful, not because they thought it was a sinking ship.
So the proverbial one guy in Nebraska and a few dozen like him can work on Firefox in addition to their day jobs?
so the worldwide open source community can actually take over the project, in the full knowledge that their pull requests will actually be merged.
That can work for small improvements but not for active development at the pace of Chromium and its forks.
I see this a win.
Firefox's core users don't really care what google does, Mozilla tries to maintain feature parity with Chrome only to win the non-FF users over.
Isn't it open source?
Won't random Devs that care about Firefox just keep working on it?
Yes and no, if Firefox org falls, open source community will continue to develop necessary features like security updates, but features will drag behind. Eventually a new player will emerge and we will bury it out back with Netscape, ie and aol explorer.
Mozilla org isn’t the concern. Mozilla Corp, the for profit company, makes Firefox and has to worry about things like revenue for the most part. Mozilla org used to develop it and could fold it back in if it went really bad, it would definitely hamper development but being the premier browser is more of a Corp goal than an org one. Most likely the corp will just find a different search partner again (Google hasn’t always been default).
taking down a 90% monopoly will have side effects? impossible.
I have one of those anti-capitalist takes where if taking down one company takes down another company, then the system is probably broken.
Which we know it is, but not enough know it is.