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Comment by sam_goody | Hacker News Reader

Well, you know, Brendan Eich was CEO of Mozilla and they were flying high.

Then he got cancelled, and with it was cancelled the dream of having a real platform that can compete with Google. (Brave, with all of its advantages, is still a fork of Chrome and in that way promotes the Chrome monopoly.)

Since then, the new CEO of Mozilla has made herself a lot of money, and she seems perfectly happy to destroy the long term viability of the company for some quick injections of cash that can justify her bonuses.

And Eich single-handedly created the only other viable browser in the market starting from scratch [market wise, not technology wise]. Yet, somehow, people still think this was better than leaving Eich as head of Mozilla.

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>they were flying high.

Per StatCounter, Mozilla's market share decline started in early 2010 (including mobile, late 2010 for desktop only) and Eich was fired (resigned, but that's BS) in early 2014.

Eich was still at Mozilla (not CEO) when Mozilla under-invested in desktop performance, failed to get Firefox OS off the ground, and most likely laid the groundwork to switching to Yahoo.

I was influencer only until 2013 when I took over engineering, so I’ll take some blame for desktop, especially from then till I left.

Mozilla bungled Firefox OS after I left, lost Andreas Gal and most of the top talent, lost Li Gong, while KaiOS based on same code and business plan, with some of the talent, took over and grew to over 200M phones. Blame Mozilla there.

I had nothing to do with the switch to Yahoo. That deal was a gleam in someone else’s eye and I left before it was done.

Last thing: how did not-me leadership do after I left, and I started Brave and grew it to 40M users while Firefox lost over 50M? You may dislike me, but your fantasy blame game cannot excuse Mozilla outcomes lately.

Any thoughts on rebasing Brave to Rust, or else picking up the now-defunct Servo project?

> Brendan Eich was CEO of Mozilla and they were flying high

flying high for all eleven of those days or just some of them? :P

> And Eich single-handedly created the only other viable browser in the market starting from scratch [market wise, not technology wise].

This is a bizarre re-writing of the history of Mozilla. Brendan Eich was obviously very important but he definitely wasn't alone, their corporate owner at the start was AOL, then a gigantic company, and he wasn't originally involved in Firefox when it started, it was a rebellious offshoot from the rest of Mozilla's large number of existing products, some dating back to the Netscape days.

I was involved with the mozilla/browser team from the start, we shared an irc channel and knew how to use it to take down Netscape inside AOL and then restart the browser market.

Who are you and where were you inside Netscape then? Or are you just lying about me?

> Or are you just lying about me?

Leaving aside the whole "please don't fulminate" thing, you're going to have to be specific about which part is incorrect. Is it just the "he wasn't originally involved in Firefox when it started" word choice and you'd like that amended to "he didn't start Firefox (though was aware of it and soon incorporated it into Mozilla's strategic plans)"?

The righteous demand for truth would be a bit more inspiring if you'd similarly correct the GP for "lying" about you being the one true Mozillian, though.

edit: also, rereading my original post, I'm sorry if the first line reads as mean spirited. The ":P" was meant for the poster's inconsistent recollection of events.

I reject your false dilemma split across a parenthetical aside (which shows your prose skills :-P). No, it's not either "he didn't start Firefox (though was aware of it and soon incorporated it into Mozilla's strategic plans)". I was close with all the principals, we talked about doing it from the very start, we strategized on how to get it out under Netscape management radar.

Ask Dave Hyatt, Blake Ross, Ian Hickson, or others if you dare. Unlike you (I have to presume), I have friends who support me and will testify if you bug them and they are willing to answer HN anon hostiles like you.

I never said I was "the one true Mozillian", that's another false dichotomy from you, and a jerk move. You didn't answer my question about the basis for your hot take here. I doubt you were there at Netscape. Did you just make it up, or get it third hand?

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