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Comment by kps | Hacker News Reader

> Fix-the-Internet — Join us on Slack

Doubt.

I don't know why they're not also advertising their Matrix server: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix

There are quite a few different groups within Mozilla that are accustomed to and comfortable with different communication platforms. For chat, it's mostly Slack vs Matrix. Everyone around me will roll their eyes and grumble if you suggest using Slack for anything but very very clearly company-internal stuff. But other groups "just use Slack" and don't think twice about it, so are a bit confused when we demand to know why they're only on Slack.

I guess few large-ish companies have managed to keep their communication platforms rationalized and consistent. It's more important for Mozilla to stay open than it is for most places, though.

Mozilla has been part of the problem for ages now. Even their language Rust has been using Discord. Not to mention that their browser has been the pioneer on telemetry.

So strange they chose Slack and Discord when they had a perfectly fine IRC server (that now is deprecated). Instead of trying to improve IRC (either the protocol or any clients), they chose to go with closed-source hosted platforms. Damn shame.

> that now is deprecated

It is not deprecated. It is completely dead. Try connecting to irc.mozilla.org — you can’t because it’s permanently offline.

Thanks for the correction! Sad to hear. Last time I checked, it was just "advisable" to not use it...

Mozilla chose Matrix, not Slack or Discord.

On the Mozilla branded website that this discussion is about: "Join us on Slack"

I missed that! That is very strange, given their very public move to Matrix.

From any Matrix client try searching for Rust.

It pops right up for me with #/room/#rust:matrix.org at the top of the list.

Now try searching for Firefox.

There's a Russian Firefox community on Page 2 of the search results. There are beta and nightly groups on page 3. There's various other noise. But the maintainers have hidden the real Matrix room for Firefox so well, it doesn't even seem to be in the search index.

The choice was public. The move has not been public at all.

IRC was not bringing any money.

It’s hard for Mozilla to fight for privacy on the internet since their main customer is Google. Firefox needs to have enough tracking in it, in order to send data to Google. Otherwise Mozilla would earn no money.

And there are no other major customers willing to pay Mozilla. Pretty much the only other options are Yahoo/Verizon (they are currently in a legal fight With Mozilla about a breach of contract that happened in 2017), and Bing (but Microsoft is currently on a mission to promote new Edge, and even included various pop-ups in Windows 10 to discourage people from using Firefox, so I don’t think they are interested in being Mozilla’s customer at the moment).

Mozilla has to stay in bed with google, and this is going to muddle any kind of privacy-related initiatives and communication from them.

I thought the Mozilla Google partnership ended several years ago when they changed to Yahoo for Default search and signed a MASSIVE mutiyear deal with Yahoo.

I know they terminated it (and kept the money) when Yahoo was sold to Verizon but I had not heard they signed a new deal with Google, I assume they were surviving off the Yahoo Money still

They currently have search deal with google. This was disclosed in their yearly financial statements. ~90% of their revenue comes from google.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3487825/mozilla-in-tro...

Cadence's point is very valid. Mozilla gets funding by charging search engines to be the default in Firefox and that isn't changing anytime soon.

I wish people didn't instinctively downvote when someone is wrong on a technicality, but this is a site filled with nerds after all lol

EDIT: i guess he isnt even technically wrong.

The default is still Google. The search deal with Google is where the vast majority of their budget comes from.

Or perhaps Google needs Mozilla to thwart accusations of having completely monopolised the Web.

Rust's decisions about chat platforms has nothing to do with Mozilla.

Mozilla chose Matrix, not Discord, for example.

(Also, while the popular version is "Rust chose Discord," it's actually more complex than that: each team decides what they want. Many chose Discord. A bunch chose Zulip. The embedded working group is on Matrix.)

Mozilla chose Matrix but they advertise Slack on the linked page.

> Rust's decisions about chat platforms has nothing to do with Mozilla.

Is Rust not a project of mozilla?

Rust is not a Mozilla project, but it is sponsored by Mozilla. https://research.mozilla.org/rust/

Interesting, I thought that Rust was a Mozilla project because the Wikipedia page listed it as its developer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language)

Mozilla was heavily involved in the early development of Rust (and since there is no Rust Foundation, is the holder of the Rust trademarks etc.).

But at this point however you can't really call it a Mozilla project as active development is no longer dominated by Mozilla employees. Holding the trademark is just a formality owing to there not being a better way to do that without starting up a new Foundation.

> Mozilla chose Matrix but they advertise Slack on the linked page.

Gotcha, I missed this. Very odd.

> Is Rust not a project of mozilla?

Mozilla was the first sponsor of the project, and still sponsors a bunch of stuff to this day. But they don't own the project, and cannot make decisions on its behalf.

> Not to mention that their browser has been the pioneer on telemetry.

That's patently false. It pales in comparison to the telemetry sent by Edge:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/study...

https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...

Regardless, I said that it was the pioneer, not that it has the most telemetry.

How's Rust "their" language ? It just started as a side project from one of their dev.

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