Hacker News Reader

Comment by heinrich5991 | Hacker News Reader

From your rant: Mozilla doesn't actually make money from integrating Pocket with Firefox.

Yup, I'm aware of that now, but you can't blame me for thinking that it did a few months back.

This is the most unbelievable and I heard it before: when an open source software starts including proprietary bloatware like that, one might think there is money involved...

> including proprietary bloatware like that

No matter how many times it's disproven, this meme just never ends, does it?

The Pocket client code is free and open source, just like Firefox itself[0]. If the user uses the Pocket feature, that code makes HTTP requests to another server, which runs a mixture of FOSS and proprietary code. If the user does not use the Pocket feature, it does not.

Remember that we are talking about a web browser, the primary function of which is to do exactly that: make HTTP requests to another server that may be running proprietary code[1].

[0] Pocket's client is arguably more free than Firefox is, if we look at the fact that Iceweasel is distributed with the Pocket logo included whereas Debian cannot include the Firefox logo for its patched builds.

[1] Unless you only use your browser for accessing http://fsf.org, but at that point you're probably using Lynx or Seamonkey anyway.

> No matter how many times it's disproven, this meme just never ends, does it?

I can tell you from personal experience that trivial things like facts or proof have no bearing on popular misconceptions, and trying to change the narrative is unrewarding at best, and counterproductive at worst. Tilting at windmills, and all that.

>Remember that we are talking about a web browser, the primary function of which is to do exactly that: make HTTP requests to another server that may be running proprietary code[1]. //

So IYO Firefox should modify the UI to add a button to integrate every website?

Adding a product logo for another (presumably for profit) company in a major browser is probably worth millions of dollars as past of a marketing effort - doing it for free is even more strange.

Presumably as an open organisation Mozilla have a meeting report somewhere detailing the people who made the decision and their rationale?

Adding company logos by dictat to the browser when there's a perfectly good addon system needs a clear argument from a company that supposedly champions freedom in software. They also re-added the logo on the next release IIRC (or was that the chat to debacle).

> Adding a product logo for another (presumably for profit) company in a major browser is probably worth millions of dollars as past of a marketing effort - doing it for free is even more strange

Saying "no money changed hands" does not make it any better. If anything, it makes the decision for Pocket integration by Mozilla less Lawful Evil and more Chaotic Evil[1], which is scarier.

Edit: clarified that I'm referring to the decision, not Mozilla itself

1. I don't think Mozilla is evil, but the alignment system is my best explanation of my understanding of the bizarre decision

There's a reason nobody believe there is no money exchanging hands: if there is no profit for Mozilla in including Pocket, then there is no explanation as to why it is included. It's useless bloatware. I could "understand" if Mozilla was selling us out and being paid to do this. If they are not, nobody is benefiting, and it should be removed.

Even if there is no actual money being funnelled to Mozilla itself, that does not mean there isn't a financial kickback behind the scenes to upper executives that is not on the books, or other incentives not being handed over in cold cash.

Just because the Mozilla Foundation itself is a non-profit, does not mean that the people at the top of the food chain are not the same scummy types you find in any for-profit corporation.

> that does not mean there isn't a financial kickback behind the scenes to upper executives that is not on the books

This is a very serious accusation to make, especially without tangible (as opposed to circumstantial) evidence.

Have you ever worked closely with upper management? I have personally worked with 3 CTO's at medium-to-large companies who have taken advantage of external relationships with partners to personally profit. I mean cash and benefits deposited in their individual hands, not the company's coffers. It's amazing how far executives in power will go to pad their pockets with extra dollars. Perhaps more incredible is how much you observe when you gain the trust of such people - I've never really understood why I find myself in a position to see these events taking place.

So yes, my personal observations over the years have made me extremely critical of any "business deal" wherein there is supposedly no "deal".

That just means that those 3 examples made you cynical. It doesn't mean that ALL upper management is corrupted.

And as others pointed our, their financial statements are public.

"if there is no profit for Mozilla in including Pocket, then there is no explanation as to why it is included."

That's clearly wrong. After all, I can think of at least one big reason right off the top of my head. For example, Pocket may well share a set of political priorities that, as noted elsewhere on this thread, get frequently trampled in forums like the W3C.

In other words, as long as your smart enough to recognize that alliances can be formed for non-monetary reasons, it's easy to imagine several other reasons for Mozilla's choice.

That doesn't mean those reasons are correct. It just means that insisting that money is the only possible explanation is both demonstrably wrong and—in the absence of any real evidence to the contrary—slanderous in effect.

If you have evidence, fine. But if all you have to offer is nasty speculation based on shoddy reasoning, don't be surprised when you get downvoted judiciously.

"If the user uses the Pocket feature, that code makes HTTP requests to another server, which runs a mixture of FOSS and proprietary code"

I want the code to take a piece of HTML source, and extract only the meaningful text body from it. Show me the code that does this for me.

No? It's not open source then, it's proprietary. That's the only meaningful code.

The client code of Pocket != client code of Firefox. Firefox is a web browser - it's client is where the value is. Pocket's browser (like Google's code for it's homepage, and Apple's code for Siri's sleek interface) is 1% the value of Pocket.

I think you're misguided in defending Pocket by focusing an implementation details. You're ignoring that user data and freedom is also at the heart of the discussion. Mozilla put Pocket right in front of their users and actively encouraged them to use a US-based, proprietary service.

> The Pocket client code is free and open source

That's meaningless in the bigger picture. Defaults are powerful. Mozilla added a feature to Firefox (arguably bloat by making the UI more complex) which encouraged their users to give their data to a third party company, one not bound by Mozilla's goals of openness, transparency and freedom. The alternative was to wait and build a similar feature into Firefox Synx which offers true user freedom (self hosting) and really respects freedom (no data harvesting). See the discussion in the bugtracker. That's why users like me disagree with the Pocket decision. The client code is irrelevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com