Mozilla Lifeboat
mozillalifeboat.com
mozillalifeboat.com
Particular areas that may be of interest include developer documentation (making https://matrix.org/docs/spec and https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc not suck), Safety engineering (subjective decentralised reputation, anti-abuse and anti-spam), Rust (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-rust-sdk is in the ascendant), and even possibly VR (we are on a mission to ensure Matrix is the comms protocol of the multiverse) - although Safety & Spec (and generally hacking on Element and Matrix itself) are the most important domains right now. https://element.io/careers has more details.
Do you run UI/UX tests on these flows? Also under non-ideal conditions and potential semi-broken states? I'd love to see Element become a more stable application--it's definitely more important to convincing friends to use it than an extensive feature set.
It's not even listed in search engines, especially DDG, so I then have to give them the URL which adds to the awkwardness. It was a bad move in my opinion. Sure sure, the old name had an conversational stance but it at least it had a flow. riot.im still sounds much better then element.io
Anyway, with that aside. Thank you guys for creating something that works. It needs some polishing but I had my first voice call and to my surprised it just worked for both of us.
I still get a few confused moments with the UX from my mother like where's the enter button, and why do I need to enter so many passwords but other than that it is a charm.
The technology, product and pricing with the deals they are making with multiple governments and businesses is an excellent source of revenue and is very competitive at striking those deals. However the genericness of the name will be a problem with non-technical users and will always be an issue with Element which is a problem the parent has highlighted.
The SEO on the name is terrible and doesn't come up on Google, Bing or DDG. The fustrating part? They were so close on deciding to rebrand everything and have ruined it on the name (for now).
It's not too late though. I guess they will have rename Element again in order to expand into becoming a true WhatsApp alternative mindshare-wise. Right now the name is quite frankly unappealing, but everything else is the gold standard.
honestly, i was aok with riot as a name being a barrier to entry, i’m fully convinced at this point that barriers to entry somewhat mitigate against eternal september and the toxicity which follows with it. take irc, while it certainly has toxicity issues, the esoteric nature kept the worst away.
so even if element, as a name, adds to keeping it low enough profile to keep it from becoming a verb–i know many will disagree (particularly the devs (sorry Arathorn))–im fine with that.
i hope we can find that magic balance where it’s a fundamental project which will bring in funding and people power, but not so fundamental that everyone’s toxic aunt and uncle uses it as a verb.
I really like the philosophy behind the project and I will check it out. I would, however, recommend maybe marketing it in a different way. Let's say Slack added every single one of these features on the Element home page. My guess is they wouldn't market any of these same features on the home page because they really aren't what you use the app for (which I take it is messaging). While I agree that Element seems much better than Slack in what makes it unique there's nothing telling me that's it's easier to use than Slack. There's really even nothing telling me it's even easy to use, or fun to use, or will help me communicate better with my team.
However, there's one major way it's lacking: brevity. "Element" will never be a verb like Slack, WhatsApp, Snap, Signal, etc. Telegram has the same problem -- "Send me a Telegram" is the closest you can naturally get; "Telegram me" is too much of a mouthful. Element is even worse in this respect, since I can't think of a phrase like "Send me an Element".
Now to turn this criticism upside down: I think you can spin this downside onto an amazing upside, by making the protocol the verb. People don't say "gmail me" or "aol me". They don't say "handcent me" or "textra me" (or at least, not until iMessage came along). If your goal is to encourage an open ecosystem rather than monopolize the market, not having your flagship client take up too much of the verbiage is a good thing. So it's not "Element me, it's "Matrix me".
..which, is still subpar. Two syllables with ending in x is a mouthful. I'm kind of loathe to suggest a rebrand of the protocol, too, but.. It might be worth considering.
Total aside: The single biggest improvement you could make to Element, for me, would be to stop giving mentions special treatment in the composer. I want to be able to put my cursor in the middle of someone's name, press backspace, and delete one letter, not their entire name. Using a pill as a distinct visual style to indicate that the person I'm mentioning will see it as a mention is a good thing. Making it function differently than the plain letters would is an exercise in frustration. I've nothing against WYSIWYG composers, although I prefer plain text (since I'm used to it), but if you're going to allow text-based formatting, then the composer window needs to act as (but not necessarily look like) 100% text. Polari is the absolute gold standard here, and Discord is alright (at least, if you keep their godawful "preview as you type" beta feature, which messes up mentions the same way Riot does, turned off). I spend most of my time in the composer; it's the biggest bang-free-buck area for QoL improvements.
Don’t try to make “matrix me” a thing, that’s the exact sort of thing that makes nerd decentralisation projects on the web fail outside of needing your own personal sysadmin to replace Twitter. It sounds dumb and matrix is known as a pain in the arse to use by people that have come across it, 1999 film otherwise
We have a word, it’s message.
Even people who agreed that the old name was a problem were still telling me that they just didn't like the shift in tone, that they felt doubtful about everything. It was a very surreal experience, because I knew the old name was a problem and I knew the newer name better invoked the feeling I wanted, but all of a sudden I was seeing so much pushback from so many people that I wasn't confident any more.
The solution was to take the project to a big conference with a bunch of brand new users and ask them about it while I demoed. Across the board, pretty much everyone liked the new name better, it immediately got across what I wanted. It was a complete 180 in reactions. So after that, I stuck to my guns and in a month or two everyone in the existing community was used to it and a lot of them had come around to saying they now preferred the new name.
My take is people are familiar with 'Riot', it has a sense of nostalgia for them, and even if they don't like the name Riot, that's just what pops into their head when they think about the project. If it's something you feel confident about, then you should ignore the people complaining. Or maybe not ignore, but at least filter their complaints a bit and don't treat them like gospel.
When thinking about branding changes, there's danger in listening too closely to the existing community, because it's going to be hard for them not to have a familiarity bias towards the things they're used to.
Or try something random: Gregarious, Rune, Radio Moskva, Ricochet, Lore, Franko, Mayham, Rockodial. Whatever, just not Element.
Do any of these names have excitement? WhatsApp, WeChat, Jabber, Signal? I think not ;)
Everyone should migrate off matrix.org sooner rather than later. I fully expect seeing regional public Matrix homeservers popping up here and there eventually, just like regional public Jabber servers did back in the day.
Or, indeed like public e-mail providers did.
I thought the same about XMPP 15 years ago.
I think chat protocols are much like languages, it's almost inherent that in communication between people different standards and different communities form.
Different groups of people use different messengers to (often unknowingly) express an identity.
I've giving up on the hope that there will be one universal language / protocol to unite everyone.
Did you do user research studies on the name, if so what was the results from those studies?
I did, alongside a few others from the team.
> Do you think it's too late to change it?
Yup :)
> Did you do user research studies on the name
Yup.
> if so what was the results from those studies?
Broadly positive.
As for why there's a red panda in the boat... despite the logo distinctly picturing a fox on fire, a "firefox" is actually the name for a red panda!
Overall great job, its super slick.
Normally, I'd use a combo of Sketch (for making the assets) and GSAP (for animating)!
Props to even come up with the idea.
Genuinely interested if some of the spirit of Mozilla could be preserved in that transition.
I think the idea that most Mozilla employees were working there for morals rather than being able to buy their children shoes is doubtful.
I don’t have kids so I don’t know what that part is like, though.
That’s like saying that working at Apple and being on the macOS team you will be part of the core of PC operating systems.
But it seems that you just wanna piss on Firefox for market share reasons.
That said, is always a mix, and a balancing act. And a matter of finding something fun to work on :)
Second, instead of stock you'll get a higher potential bonus. The bonus percentage increases based on your level.
Third, benefits are generous. Being able to work remotely was a particularly unique and valuable one for a long time.
Fourth, the class and scale of the problems Mozilla is solving are interesting and challenging, which is a motivation for some employees.
Fifth, the mission and the commitment to open source are a motivation to many employees as well.
(These are just my personal observations as a current employee)
Most of the people I know in tech work for governments, non-profits, small business, private companies, etc. that don't offer stock-based compensation. They just make much less in total comp than BigTech stock-heavy jobs.
As someone working at a private finance company - annual bonuses at a rate similar to big tech stock grants work just fine.
Google could kill Firefox by just not renewing its search contract.
If money wasn't a consideration perhaps ddg become a good partner. That combo could shift as much as 5% of google traffic away from search.
Google pays Apple a reported $8 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS. It pays Mozilla less than $600 million (https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...).
Doesn’t that tell you how little Firefox traffic is worth?
As for iOS, this source says there were 900 million iPhone users (doesn't include iPads) as of Jan 2019: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/01/30/900-million-iphones... , and this one says 1.5 billion Apple devices (probably includes Macs) as of Q1 2020: https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/28/apple-hits-1-5-billion-active...
I'll arbitrarily guess 1.2 billion iOS users (the rest being Macs). In that case, there are maybe 6x as many iOS users as Firefox users. Therefore, if Google paid the same per Firefox user as they did per iOS user, they would have paid $1.3 billion for Firefox users. That's a difference of about 2x per user from what they actually paid.
iOS users have demonstrably paid for (or been gifted by people who paid for) premium electronic devices, which I would expect makes them more valuable advertising targets. I'm mildly surprised that the difference isn't larger, but I don't have a good feel for advertising expenditures.
If you’re qualified to write that kind of code, basic needs are surely well taken care of and are the least of your concerns.
To put it simply, these people will not have a hard time finding high paying jobs. And since they are able to choose, “being part of the open web” makes a lot of sense.
Have you checked Mozilla’s salary? https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng...
I was making almost that much pre-Covid as a regular old SAAS CRUD developer in the south East US. It was comfortable but far from not needing to work for a few months and hold out because I was concerned about “open source values”.
I jumped at the chance to work remotely at BigTech three months ago. I’m sure many of them would too.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/arubin/status/27808662429?locale=...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
In my experience, finding fulfilling work is harder than well paying ones.
Not saying I have all the answers, just what happened to me. This fulfilling thing is hard.
But I was replying to this...
If you’re qualified to write that kind of code, basic needs are surely well taken care of and are the least of your concerns.
The Mozilla developers aren’t getting paid minimum wage by any means, nor am I doubting their skills, but they definitely aren’t making the salaries of great engineers if levels.fyi is accurate.
That was my entire point. I wouldn’t get past the first technical screen for an entry level software engineer at $BigTech without “grinding leetCode ((tm) r/cscareerquestions) as a CRUD developer, but I made about that much even before I got a consulting job at $BigTech and I am living on the opposite coast from Silicon Valley.
I'm not opposed to nonprofits creating systems to make sure donor money is handled appropriately, but it seems to me there's something seriously wrong with the current structure. In hard times, organizations generally need to focus on their core initiatives, not branch out even more!
You can infer from the foundation tax returns that most of the assets are held by the corporation: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-fo...
It's the assets held directly by the foundation that have implications for their tax status, and they only move assets to that status as necessary.
And conveniently, the people directing the Corp are the ones setting the agenda for the org (which that agenda is the thing the Corp has a fiduciary duty towards...).
The way that we viewed it at my previous company was basically it's two different businesses, two different P&L's and two different sets of metrics and KPIs. You could see them as two different business units that can succeed or fail independently.
If one Business Unit is struggling, you can't just fill the holes by taking funds from another BU to fill the gap. You need to solve the inherent profitability problems in the struggling Business Unit in some other way, typically by selling more, increasing the price/mix or reducing the cost.
Don't know if this is how Mozilla reasons, but this was definitely the way we reasoned in the last two large corporations I worked for.
While the Mozilla corporation is for profit entity , the goals of the foundation and reason Mozilla foundation /corporation exists is not to make or maximise profit .
Non profits generally run on the principles of sustainability I.e are they spending more than endowments or they drawing on the principal amount etc.
In Mozilla case drop in revenue/ donations resulting in cancelled projects is per se not abnormal , but which projects are shelved depends on how the mission is interpreted.
It is perfectly within the foundation remit to infuse capital into the corporation if they had more money and they also believed the work of the corporation is more important than some foundation projects to the overall foundation’s mission.
Just like NASA cancels other projects when one project like JWST goes a lot overbudget , with approvals from congress if required .
Clearly the foundation did not think corporation projects were worth saying over others , we can debate that , but they did and do have that choice
If Google are stopping the money then FF is like a person with no money taken in by Google and hooked on drugs; once they're kicked out they can't fund the habit and reliance on Google has meant they've not had to find ways to fund themselves.
I realised Google held the cards, but hadn't twigged on how the excessive nature of the funding made Firefox/Mozilla weaker.
Unless FF were aware of how that might go and put half of their Google money into investments?
edit: Really, could you please not do that? Asking "Is the search deal not expiring?" is even worse than the earlier comment...
e: to your edit.
I'm not sure what is wrong with the question. My understanding is that the search deal is expiring and is the source of most of the FF related revenue.
If that is not the case I'd like to know. It seems like a reasonable question.
pbhjpbhj's comment did predicate the speculation with an "If". And Mozilla has already had two rounds of layoffs this year ostensibly because of declining revenue. I think speculation on what will happen if the search deal is not renewed is reasonable.
I do appreciate pointing out that we do not know this will expire.
I mean unless we're going back to phoenix days it seems like Google's money both saved and potentially secured Firefox's demise.
Re the speculation that the Google money is stopping (AIUI its something of the order 90% of income) Mozilla seem to be hunting for all and any revenue streams and urgently cutting costs. They look like they're preparing for it to stop, and I get the impression they want to be self-sufficient. It strikes me (and recall I have little knowledge of their financials - perhaps they've put a lot of income aside) they need to be self-sufficient in order to not be scared to follow a privacy route that could readily [probably has already IMO] annoy Google. Google aren't giving them $X00 Million for fun, I feel. The less useable data, and sellable users, Mozilla directs their way the less useful Mozilla is to Google.
(Perhaps there's also a benefit in keeping FF to prevent the appearance of Chrome being a monopoly.)
I mean I'm looking at the leadership page and all I can ask myself is do you need to pay that many executives just to build a web browser?
I'd be fascinated to know how much it costs Apple to develop Safari, a browser multiple times more successful than Firefox judging by Wikipedia. Just a hunch but I'd bet money it's a fraction of the cost of running this bloated pseudo-charity.
Best thing for the internet is for current Mozilla to fade out fast and something more sustainable be built from the technology remains.
Basically, part of situation analysis is that you have to evaluate the future potential of your projects and where your investment dollars go. Businesses are always thinking of the future, and that includes non-profits.
The Boston Consulting Group matrix is one tool that might fit this scenario: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/st...
The scenario you describe might be analogous to this hypothetical example: let’s say Microsoft laid off its entire Microsoft Surface team, and simultaneously invested $10 billion into Microsoft Azure. You might think, what the heck, the Surface lineup are good products that seem to be profitable (I actually have no clue if they are).
But, perhaps the Surface product line is a dog. It’s a low-market share product in a low-growth market. Azure might be a star: it has a large portion of a fast-growing market, and deserves more investment.
Even though Mozilla is a non-profit, I think it’s clear that they are looking to diversify their income stream. The “fix the internet” incubator can probably come up with services in high-growth markets that are less costly to implement and more easily monetized than a web browser (and fit their organizational goal of improving the Internet).
Of course, perhaps they will also cut future funding to this incubator, and it's just a different timing that they announce it.
I agree that the pay in The Netherlands is pretty bad for software devs compared to other countries with similar wealth (UK, Germany, US, etc), but I know that it’s much worse in e.g. Eastern European countries, which I also expect Mozilla to hire from.
There are a couple other factors - one extra factor is this is just for entry-level employees, another extra factor is that Mozilla probably doesn't pay quite as well as Google. I am not sure how large those factors are, but it's just an estimate and they work against each other, so I think the range is a reasonable guess. I would be surprised if it's very far off.
I'll go with the world.
Microsoft has brilliant engineers and is in Seattle, for example.
What about Tencent? and things like HK's HFT
What about competitive security? here's huge variety in countries e.g 2 very strong teams are Poland based
At most it's just brain drain from around the world (and around the U.S.) due to capital concentration NOT talent concentration.
There's this belief that anybody who isn't willing to move to high COL metro couldn't cut it there because having a worldview outside of living in SF or similar isn't something that can be fathomed.
Brain drain implies relative talent concentration - are you sure this is what you mean to say?
Look - I hate SV and don't live there. The reality is unavoidable: for software, the best talent lives in the Bay. It's not that deep.
Mozilla’s layoffs were to get rid of the highly paid engineers, IMO. We have new talent coming in fresh and loose for a bunch less.
We also have a lot of cash in the bank. Mozilla is wealthy. CFO was asked to increase runway.
Let's take three others that make well-known desktop browsers: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Apple,Google,Microsoft&track...
According to that data, senior developers at Apple (ICT4), Google (L5) and Microsoft (64) make on average $320k, $352k, and $225k. Their fully-loaded costs (benefits, payroll taxes, office space, etc) to the company will of course be even higher.
These are examples of peer companies Mozilla is competing against for employees. As I explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138083 , Mozilla does not try to attract people solely via compensation. However, you can only offer so much less before you're no longer able to hire and retain the talent you need.
Sure but that's the case here.
I wish you well for the future and hope you find a new gig soon.
Gutting the Servo team makes me wonder if management is going to move the rendering engine from Gecko to Blink.
Perhaps the "Foxium" browser is "coming soon."
Not happening.
Here on the outside, it's hard not to imagine the 2022 blog post that carefully explains that the huge cost and burden of maintaining a modern independent browser engine just isn't the most efficient way of furthering Mozilla's goal of an open internet.
Mozilla is definitely moving away from Firefox over the next few years, this is but one of the first steps to that end. They have decided to renew Google's partnership so Google will remain the default search engine for the foreseeable future (next 3+ years), once again talking the talk instead of walking the walk and switch to a privacy-first engine.
The security and devtools teams getting axed is not only a clear signal but also the physical implementation of de-emphasizing Firefox and pushing for new standalone subscription services that don't need to be integrated (as tightly) into any browser to be used by actual people.
A few years down the line of such a "strategy", all things remaining equal, I can't see the browser being even used by developers/FOSS advocates because even these kinds of people need to see at least some progress over time and get at least some increasing value over time from a piece of software they use as heavily as they are, every single day of their professional as well as personal lives.
Last but not least, with all due respect to Aaron, I can't see such strategic decisions to be taken with the assent of his team at all. In effect, the GeckoView team could get axed overnight and implementations would immediately turn to using Android's WebView instead. It's actually a bit ironic that GeckoView's own wiki lists itself as "not a dropin replacement of Android's WebView" in that regard, as most differences between the two are due to GeckoView's rejection of existing, native APIs, leading the team to do much rework. And teams that base themselves on doing unnecessary rework and following NIH instead of building on existing libraries and APIs often get canned first during such strategic shifts.
As a gecko tester since the very first day Netscape was open sourced and Mozilla M1 was released, this hurts.
What would "Foxium" offer that Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Chromium, or Chrome don't already offer?
I don't think your speculation is unfounded though.
More ability, at any given cost, to innovate on candidate new web technologies maintaining Mozilla’s objectives to promote the open internet, acheived through lower cost to implement and maintain consensus technologies.
Which is similar to what other Chromium-descended third-party browsers offer their sponsoring entities, but each sponsoring entity has different objectives. Everyone benefits from the ability a common open-source core provided to distribute (or just outsource) the cost of maintaining the features that are shared, leaving more bang for engineering buck on each entity’s investment in not-yet shared features.
Which isn't to say that diversity in implementation of the shared features doesn't have its own benefits to the ecosystem, particularly in terms of preventing future development from being adversely constrained by what is practical to bolt on to one particular implementation without rewriting big parts of the core. But, for that to really bear fruit, you'd need more diversity than the existing Blink + WebKit + Firefox ecosystem provides anyway, and it's not like Mozilla can conjure that out of thin air.
Normally, however, I'd use GSAP for SVG animations: https://greensock.com/gsap/
``` @keyframes sea-Top-Deck-Inside {
from {transform: translateX(0);}
from {transform: translateX(0);}
to {transform: translateX(-3px);}
@keyframes sea-Top-Deck-Shadow {
from {transform: translateX(0);}
from {transform: translateX(0);}
to {transform: translateX(-3px);}
sorry if it seems like im doubting you, i am just really super impressed by this animation and wanted to understand how you put this together!
also: readme is really cool! love your podcast interviews!
Yup, I used Stylus mixins for this. I just mean I didn't use something like Framer or an animation library :)
Here's the code (I don't expect it to make any sense to anyone other than me!)
(There's a bug in that code causing two `from`s! Seems it's moot since it works, but I fixed it on my end. Here's the updated code: https://pastebin.com/Y6JwkZi4)
You just described 3d projection, aka how most 3d games display a 3d world on a flat monitor.
Everything else is just CSS!
minimal repro: https://svelte.dev/repl/7eea2eba3707414aa62c9ea53b92ad2d?ver...
quick youtube discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wKnZNjdpp8&feature=youtu.be
I didn't get everything bc you can only get so far looking at the output CSS - he used Stylus here to generate most of these https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138573
This had me in splits:
>> “ Yup, had to get it out quick so I went simple!“
> “What the actual fuck?!”
thanks
If Apple really wants to stick it to Google, they could make an iOS App Store policy exception for Firefox / Gecko engine. Heck, that alone may be enough to buoy Mozilla, w/o paying a cent.
I'd guess most of the FF iOS users don't even realize it's not Gecko under the hood, and don't even know/care what Gecko is.
One other thing that would interest me is Mozilla buying out Fastmail but I am not too sure that would drive the sort of revenue Mozilla needs. There are a few mergers out there that could occur. I mostly mention this one cause it Mozilla had an email service I would pay for it. Especially if its pay only. I want someone who isnt crawling my emails beyond spam detection to manage my email situation.
Heck whats stopping GitHub from buying out Mozilla with its new fatter wallet?
Hard to see MS/Github maintaining a browser after Microsoft just adopted Chromium for Edge, but it would be cool to see Firefox given the VS Code treatment. Github had Atom which is where Electron came from, then VS Code is an evolution on top of Electron. Would be nice if Edge was built on Firefox instead of Chromium.
So Mozilla became dependent on Google, and here we are.
Even Apple took MS money back in the day: seems to have worked out for Apple.
Use your network. Make sure your friends know you are looking. Especially friends that are also looking. I've had conversations like this with old friends: "Hey, I'm looking for something new. Do you guys need an EE?" them: "No, sorry. Sure could use an ME, though, do you know anyone?" Give intros for friends, and they will give intros for you.
Giving up on Firefox OS too early was a such a terrible mistake- look at the success of KaiOS in emerging markets. That should have been Mozilla's success.
Mozilla needs to find someone other than Mitchell to lead the organization. I realize how difficult that is, but she is clearly not the right CEO, even if she was the founder. The organization needs someone new at the helm.
(I was at Mozilla for 10 years- left on my own accord in 2016.)
/app/views/index.pug:40:173 38| .add-company 39| h3 #MozillaLifeboat > 40| p Mozilla has done two rounds of layoffs (#[a(href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...] and #[a(href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363424/mozilla-layoffs-...) second]). Mozilla has one of the most vibrant alumni networks, and Lifeboat helps connect Mozillians looking for jobs with people hiring. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^ 41| h3 Other Resources 42| p A great place to find more people hiring and looking is the #[a(href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mozillalifeboat") #mozillalifeboat] hashtag on Twitter. 43| h3 Add Your Company Unexpected token `tag` expected `text`, `interpolated-code`, `code`, `:`, `slash`, `newline` or `eos`
/app/views/index.pug:84:1 82| footer An unofficial directory by ex-Mozillian #[a(href="https://gkoberger.com") Gregory Koberger] 83| > 84| --------^ The end of the string reached with no closing bracket ) found.Just because something is hosted by mozilla doesn't make it better. Instead of copying VPNs, Bookmark directories and such, they should focus on the browser and offer the other services as some form of cooperation.
But maybe I am wrong and uniting everything under the mozilla brand is the way to go.
Today, in fact, there is a huge pseudo-advertisiment (at least in fr_FR) about "how I should not feel guilty about browsing Facebook [through Firefox]" , which almost made me puke.
As a person who doesn't care about Facebook whatsoever, I didn't get the impression that FB was enemy #1, but rather I assumed FB was paying them money like Google is...
I can actually see FB being happy to just give money away to Mozilla, just to influence them away from Google.
That extension is described as:
"Prevent Facebook from tracking you around the web. The Facebook Container extension for Firefox helps you take control and isolate your web activity from Facebook."
I am critical of some fb practices, but if it was a choice between having a job and not having one, the decision is not hard
It's a big company, with multiple areas. Find a less contentious area and go for that
Mozillians at Facebook is not new or novel. There was a time when it seemed like everyone was leaving Mozilla for Facebook. If someone collected the data, tallying every subsequent company worked at for every employee departed, it would be would be pretty unsurprising if the results showed Facebook as the biggest employer of former Mozillians.
But you say many of them would work to the company with opposite values.
Any moral or ethical values is somewhere in the middle of the pyramid of needs.
Any job you take is going to be a blend and balance across your personal passions, values, talents, desire for impact, financial goals and responsibilities, risk tolerance, and alternative available opportunities.
Is it so surprising that one of the largest employers in the bay has attractive opportunities across a range of reasons?
The reverse is not true.
Interpretations of other peoples values is largely skewed by their perception, and rarely takes into account the practical realities of working on privacy and security in tech.
There are many, many, many folks who work in positions that allow them to provide for themselves, their families, and their communities while working for objectionable organizations.
Look at all of the public servants who are keeping the lights on and trying to keep the US government running. I guarantee you there are folks who absolutely abhor how the system is run, and despise the leadership and politicians (regardless of which leader is in power), but they show up every day and do their job, and try to help people.
It's not ideal, but when you get a burger it wasn't made from a spherical cow of uniform density either...
Engineers who really care about privacy do not work for Facebook like engineers who really cares about peace do not work for the army.
I really doubt Assmunchio is a real name...
Edit: Perhaps I'm a bit bitter, as I was laid off because of the pandemic after 4+ years at my previous employer, and left on my own to figure things out. I imagine the experience was the same for others in a similar situation.
Sad indeed.
1. These layoffs specifically get a lot of time on HN because people have strong feelings about Firefox, Mozilla's mission and the teams in particular (ie Servo, MDN).
2. Specific efforts like this site are a function of Mozilla's alumni community, which is a function of Mozilla/Firefox's culture. (Or, maybe, past culture?)
So it isn't so much that the engineers laid off from Mozilla need more help than anyone else, but that the environment around Mozilla naturally creates help and attention for them.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...
Now I gotta work on my personal website.
> Try this on a computer! This site is way more interactive on a bigger screen… so check it out next time you're on your desktop!
SideQuestion: Given that most of MDN were laid off, Would MDN continue? It was good imo.
And - sorry for the spicy take - I'm bummed to see Facebook and Amazon on this list. It would be nice to see other nonprofits on the list, but it's doubly disappointing to not see any and to also see the worst of tech's forprofits here. To go from Mozilla to Facebook would be quite the swing. (Of course, if people need jobs and Facebook/Amazon are what are most immediately available to them, I can't blame them. But I certainly hope that many that are looking for a new job are in a position to be picky.)
It's more complicated than trying to say that the "Mozilla that people think of" is not a non-profit. The Mozilla that I think of seems to be a combination of both.
Here's the initial SVG: https://p195.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/OAuqBqvx/boat.s...
Everything else was just CSS
What does it mean that the image can be shifted from left to right? Just out of curiosity, because I thought at some examples such as a circle, but maybe not some complex shape?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/
I hope your project doesn't run afoul of this :)
My goal was to create a public site trying to help newly-displaced former coworkers connect, not exclude anyone. Many of these people worked on making the web a better place for a decade. Mozilla's network is intentionally inclusive – the code is open source and can be contributed to by anyone who wants to get involved.
None of these companies are hiring exclusively Mozillians, so feel free to apply either way!
The policy explains when they give permission, but nothing it says has any effect on which situations need permission.
Anyone can make a page with guidelines. If I say someone "photoshopped" an image then I'm violating Adobe guidelines. If "subject to" means I'm acting inside that scope, then I'm subject to them. But if "subject to" means they can do anything about it, then I'm not subject to them.
The way you're talking about the policy isn't making it clear which meaning you intend, but it's very important to distinguish between those meanings.
There's no need to be stubborn about clarifying what you meant. If you use a term, and someone asks what you mean by that term, "I don't need to answer that" is a very strange response.
They'll send a nasty-gram to enforce their rights as the trademark holder, and the potential resolution could be an ICANN UDRP complaint. Again, I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, I could be wholly incorrect here.
Not in the slightest. Adobe cannot do a single thing at all about people misapplying the word photoshop. Trademark law only applies when someone could conceivably become confused about who is offering a product or service. If you avoid that problem then you can completely ignore the wishes of the trademark owner. Could you argue that this site is causing that confusion? Yes, you could. But you're greatly overstating what other uses trademark could effect. If I look at those brand guidelines and decide to talk about "the firefox" and put their logo uncomfortably close to other logos, I'm going against their desires but they can't stop me in any way.
https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
Literally cutting everything important to their browser -- future improvements, dev support, and security. That's not the kind of move you make unless you're about to be cutting a project.
Are there other sites springing up to help the other 10 million unemployed and recently laid off people in the US who didn't work at high profile tech firms?
> What PartnerStack is hiring for: Infra devs, Python devs, JS devs, Product, Marketing
Yet on their actual Lever.co jobs page the only technical role is a Senior Infrastructure Engineer?
This isn't meant to be sneaky. It's just people trying to help out newly-unemployed, qualified people find a new job in a tough time. And I made it public for a reason – so anyone can find out about and apply for any of the jobs!
> nepotism: Favoritism shown to nephews and other relatives; patronage bestowed in consideration of family relationship and not of merit.
Well, they seem to have lost the focus of making an extensible browser (and mail client etc.)
But then, this decline was somewhat noticeable a decade ago alreadt, IMHO.