This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of staff on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46655413

The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.”

  • hypertown@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    I really wish Mozilla the best but if it were to fail I sure hope Ladybird will be stable by then.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      12 days ago

      well you see. all the cool kids are laying off staff and Mozilla wants to hang out at their pool next summer.

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
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      12 days ago

      They’re likely preparing for their funding from Google to be cut. Having a lot of money in the bank doesn’t matter if your income is lower than expenses, since you’ll run out of money eventually.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
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          11 days ago

          They get around $500 million per year from Google, so $1 billion is just two years worth of that. 86% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from that Google deal.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much Mozilla can do other than cut costs with it seeming like the Google funding will be getting severely hampered.

      They can’t get money from thin air.

  • anticurrent@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    11 days ago

    Mozilla keeps digging Firefox’s grave, and seeing how other opensource projects like Gimp struggle to even keep up with their own release schedule and very slow development rate. I fear we will be left with only chrome to use.

  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    11 days ago

    All of my favorite browsers are forks of Firefox. Lately it’s been Zen browser. Watching Firefox smoulder and collapse over the years has been truly painful and makes me fear a chromium future in hell.

    • Nino477@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      Same. In the late 2000s or so my father knew ot so much about computers so some family friend set it up and he installed Firefox. I ve been using Firefox my whole life since. I tried switching to ungoogled chromeium, Brave and cromite on mobile but just can’t. Like Firefox and its forks are in my muscle memory. It’s over. I won’t be able to use the internet anymore. Bye guys 👋

  • snowcrushed573@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    12 days ago

    Everytime I see comments regarding Mozilla’'s financials,I have the same effing question: How does a company like brave or opera maintain their browser ?? AFAIK both don’t have the level of community backing that Mozilla does nor do they have any (again AFAIK) agreement with a company like google for default search engine placement

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      BTW, about Opera - the newest events with OpenAI and other stuff and Winamp devs not being prosecuted for GPL violations all lead me to one thought.

      Are leaked Presto sources really-really illegal to use?

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      They use chromium.

      Firefox does not.

      The grand majority of software engineering effort goes into the browser development that they never have to work on for the most part.

    • morrowind@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      12 days ago

      Alongside what the other guy said, Opera definitely does have search engine deals, idk about brave since they launched their own. But brave has their own private advertising system

    • fatalicus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      12 days ago

      Brave just tries to scam their users for money.

      Like when they added “donate to the content creator” links on YouTube and such, then didn’t actually give the money to the content creators.

    • sibachian@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      12 days ago

      those are just rebranded chrome(ium). all browsers except firefox and safari are rebranded chromium or firefox. edit: there are some other projects but none are mature.

      • tb_@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Apple also maintains their own browser engine, but that’s Apple.

          • tb_@lemmy.worldEnglish
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            11 days ago

            Ah, I guess I read over the first bit to where you mentioned the rebrands, which didn’t include Safari.

            To still add some useful information: all browsers on iOS are rebranded Safari, because Apple only permits their own browser engine.

            (The EU ruling may change this, however)

      • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
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        11 days ago

        That’s good. Are you happy with the built-in privacy, or do you find extensions are needed?

        I’d still argue it’s chromium.

      • Gemini24601@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Also, Ladybird is looking very promising, so in a few years we should have a true fourth browser engine.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.caEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Let’s just separate GOOG from Chrome / Chromium and Google Search completely. So that the direction of the most used browser, most used search engine and the biggest advertiser don’t circle jerk each other.

    • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      12 days ago

      If Mozilla does become defunct, it does raise the question of whether Chrome would be considered a Google monopoly, and therefore subject to antitrust legislation.

      I can’t imagine any governments would look kindly upon internet access being guarded behind a single company’s product.

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        11 days ago

        Google should be subject to antitrust legislation regardless.

        Their position as a monopoly is what enables this.

      • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
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        12 days ago

        There is a new browser based on WebKit (safari), called Orion that looks promising. However, it’s only on macOS and iOS at this point. Hopefully Linux and Android will be a consideration at some point.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          12 days ago

          Chrome’s engine was originally forked from WebKit. That makes them too similar (even years later) for WebKit to count as a real alternative.

          • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
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            12 days ago

            I strongly disagree with this. In practice, supporting chrome does not imply supporting safari and vice versa. In particular, Safari is much, much slower about adopting new web technologies. Google basically implements support for anything they can think up, Apple waits for it become a ratified standard and then implements it only if they want to. Their JavaScript implementations are also completely different.

          • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
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            12 days ago

            The point is to leave a google controlled ecosystem… which means it counts as a valid alternative. What would you suggest besides chromium and gecko?

              • ravhall@discuss.onlineEnglish
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                12 days ago

                Haha. So I really do wish that all websites had a text version, or like markdown. Can you imagine how damn speedy things would be? Every website would have the same layout. As much as I appreciate good web design, there’s a lot of bad UI choices out there.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
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          12 days ago

          There’s also a new browser based on Firefox/Gecko called Zen. There’s way too many browsers based on Webkit or Blink.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
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        12 days ago

        I can’t imagine any governments would look kindly upon internet access being guarded behind a single company’s product.

        laughs in 2001

      • WldFyre@lemm.eeEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Splitting Chrome from Google wouldn’t make Chrome not a monopoly, though, right?

        • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          12 days ago

          The split might leave a monopoly still, if it’s the only major browser.

          • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.worldEnglish
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            12 days ago

            It would be a lot easier to compete with though, since Google couldn’t treat it as a loss leader that still bring them in search revenue by default.

      • drathvedro@lemm.eeEnglish
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        12 days ago

        They could try to employ some kind of Apple defense, like, you wouldn’t hit Apple for having monopoly on iOS. As long as it’s not the only solution on the market. And for web, most of time, you could access the same resources and get similar experience by downloading… the apps… wait, they have a monopoly on that, too. Well, they are completely screwed in that case.

  • Nytixus@kbin.melroy.org
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    12 days ago

    Getting rid of the advocacy part. That’s…not good.

    So what does that mean in layman’s terms? They’re not going to have as much of a voice to sway heads about things like open internet, the flaws of copyright, the problems with privacy and surveillance.

    • PlasticExistence@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      12 days ago

      It’s looking increasingly likely that the US Department of Justice is going to succeed in their antitrust efforts against Google. Currently, Mozilla gets something like 85% of their funding from Google for being the default search engine in Firefox. That may be deemed anticompetitive behavior by a judge, at which point Mozilla will be left with very little funding compared to their current situation.

      I’d bet these actions are in anticipation of that happening.

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Yeah, and although it will be painful for Mozilla in the short term - it would be a good outcome. It was always bad that Mozilla’s main source of funding was from their most powerful competitor. It’s an obvious conflict of interest. And obvious way to skew decision making. … But that money is just so addictive.

        There will be some pretty severe withdrawal symptoms if the money gets taken away, but everyone will be healthier in the long run… unless the overpaid CEO continues to suck in all the remaining money and leaves nothing for the people actually doing the work. That would be bad. In that case, if the corporate structure chokes the company to death, I suppose we’d be hoping for Ladybird, or something like it to take Firefox’s place.

  • PetteriPano@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    12 days ago

    Gee, I can’t imagine why they chose to drop this bomb today.

    It’s like they wanted it to be drowned in other news.

  • btaf45@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    12 days ago

    Why the heck did Mozilla need 120 employees for anyway? I hate that Firefox is updated so often because I always get Firefox Update Fatigue. I hope that fewer employees means fewer Firefox updates.

    • gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      12 days ago

      Just turn the updates off. Might want to remove the seatbelts from your car too, so annoying having to put them on and take them off every time you need to drive somewhere.

      • btaf45@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Doesn’t work. Firefox keeps nagging me to update every freaking time I open the browser. Now if they let me turn the nagging off it wouldn’t be so bad.

        I want an update once per quarter, not once per week. Only more often than that if there is a critical security fix.

    • raina@sopuli.xyzEnglish
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      12 days ago

      Well this is a unique take. But don’t worry, there’s a Firefox for you, too. Try the ESR, or Extended Support Release, it

      receives major updates on average every 52 weeks with minor updates such as crash fixes, security fixes and policy updates as needed, but at least every four weeks.