State of Mozilla
stateof.mozilla.org
stateof.mozilla.org
A few folk commenting on Mozilla's dependence on Google for revenue; it would certainly be easier to reason about reducing that dependence if their expenditure was a little more transparent: killing various projects as cost cutting measures seems odd in the context of their published management salary figures.
I don't mean that in the 'before costs/taxes' sense.
Something more complicated is going on, for instance if you look at the tax filings, page 10, you find that total functional expenses is 30 million, with leadership making up 6.5 of those. On page 7 you can Mitchell that is getting about 7 million total (but not from Mozilla itself apparently) while the rest of the board is only getting around 350 k each.
Also note that on page 2 they put their fellowship and awards programs under the headline "Leadership development", an expense to the tune of 19 million.
*All page numbers refer to the number written on the pages in the pdf.
But they have way better communication around this with more simple tweets and posts of what they ACTUALLY do.
What is even going on, on this page? So much coroprate speak I feel like I am reading my for-profit company intranet page.
It links to one important thing, the 2022 financial statement, https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202.... According to a summary I read elsewhere it's actually good news: Almost the same total income while lowering the percentage that comes from google (a bit) and raising the percentage and total amount that comes from their own projects. Lots of money in the bank.
Still paying way too much to management, but I didn't expect any improvement there anyway - is there even one success story out there about moving a project like this back to a real not-for-profit/reasonable governance, without bloated CEO etc salaries?
Wasn't Thunderbird under Mozilla manglement initially? And, after a few rough years post-spinoff, they're doing pretty well it seems [0]. To the point I'm looking forward to their '23 financial report - I'm happy to continue to donate, and seeing the rise as others join in is pretty nice :)
[0] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
$7bn. 2.66% market share.
"Expanding our Board to create the internet we want"
Sure, as long as the music is playing.
[Edit] Looks like the music will stop earlier than suspected, https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2023/11/firefox-brink/
[0] Mozilla and others might not think they are a tech company but a activist plattform, so this is irrelevant to them from their perspective
Not an Opera user, but from the sidelines it always looked like Opera was innovating more.
I think the developer, developer, developer days of M$ (ha, anyone?) were quite good. I did like MS Basic on CP/M (before using Turbo Pascal, first time I felt like a professional!). I started my Amiga development with AmigaBasic drawing lines and circles (before switching to 68k assembler).
Chris Beard didn't make 4x what Eich did. Mitchell Baker didn't replace Eich and doesn't have an MBA. What would make either of them a trophy CEO?
The record of Mozilla mis-management and CEO over-compensation after I left, about which I'm free to comment, is plain for all to see.
Your vague complaints about Mozilla's statements stopped short of claiming they were false. And a legal agreement allowing 1 party to publish substantial falsehoods without recourse would be extraordinary. The most reasonable inference is Mozilla's statements were substantially true. Even if statements by both parties are assumed incomplete and 1 sided.
Wouldn't that include most employee termination agreements, where the (newly ex-) employee has to keep their mouth shut regardless of what their employer does or did?
Gag contracts I have seen, gag the person leaving and getting the money, not the company. Companies have the challenge that thousands of employees can't say something, it's hard to enforce and easy to trip over and get burned.
I have trouble reconciling this with the information present on the financial statement.
They have net assets of $1.2bn, and revenue for the year was $593mn minus $425mn for expenses.
Income $5bn from 2015 to 2020 + 2021 ($585M),2022 ($828M),2023.
Without the $1bn assets it's $6.000.000.000 spent on ~3% market share, down from 39% in 2009.
Also big kudos for Rust, been playing around with it and it really is a great improvement over archaic languages like C or C++.
> aggressive political stance
These two statements are at odds with each other. Mozilla whole purpose is inherently political.
There is no expertise at managing humanitarian efforts at Mozilla. There is no overlap with their primary purpose and external charitable contributions outside of those supporting open web standards. It’s a waste of everyone’s resources.
What did they actually do here? Host a mastadon instance for gay people? How many of those people wouldn't have a chatroom with like-minded people if not for Mozilla's efforts? There are countless such spaces on the net already, for instance on traditional social media, on other fediverse instances, on discord or reddit, etc... so how much money did Mozilla spend creating yet another chatroom for LGBTQI+ people and how much real world impact did their effort actually have?
(Aside, saying 'individuals' instead of 'people' exemplifies the sort of swarmy weasel language used by cops, corporate PR, and other snakes putting on airs. Why do they do this, don't they know this kind of language betrays them for what they are? I guess they use this language to impress each other and don't really care that normal people perceive it as inauthentic.)
except in the sense that technology/products are political.
Mozilla advocates a free and open internet. Providing a free and open browser is quite essential to that, and in fact any other effort is pretty much wasted if they can't deliver that.
> Riseup’s Purpose
> We value, support, and engage in struggles for human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability.
> We organize on the basis of autonomy, mutual aid, resource sharing, participatory knowledge, social advocacy, anti-oppression work
> We empower organizations and individuals to use technology in struggles for liberation
> Meet the Collective
> Cedar Waxwing is a revolutionary hacker and critic of late capitalism. Although deeply skeptical of technology, Waxwing has spent much of his life in a quixotic attempt to use technology for liberation.
> Colibrí Jacobina doesn’t hesitate to use her abilities and radical spirit to fight rich people, men, meat eaters, fascists, monogamy, and the police.
...And so on.
When you look at what this group actually does it's basically a glorified mail host for Queer, Feminist, Anarchist, Socialist, Labor, Unions etc. mailing lists: https://lists.riseup.net/www/
Now I mean I'm not necessarily against all of these causes but WTF is Mozilla doing bankrolling the "fight against monogamy and meat eaters" or "Anarchist and Socialist" groups? They have lost the plot.
This shift of focus has occurred during the reign of a CEO who is a lawyer and has boosted her own comp to $7.5M annually of course, what a true revolutionary socialist she is!
> They stopped being an organization dedicated to furthering the cause of free software, and instead dedicated themselves to promoting radical left wing political causes.
Mozilla's resources are directed at Firefox much more than anything else. Grants and donations were 1% of 2022 expenses. Your claim would be far from true still even if all grants and donations went to communist rebels.
Below the financial statement and form 990 links there's just tons of blank space separated into different color segments. I have no clue if those are supposed to have content?
Update: Desktop browser mode shows that I am missing content. Also I was surprised at the amount that Privacy Badger and Ublock Origin were blocking. Disabling them didn't help the mobile rendering though.
It'd be good to get an informed view on the financial statement. In particular, the oft-spoken view that Mozilla is so critically dependent on Google funding that it is, in practice, prevented from doing anything that would displease big G.
From about $593mil revenue in their income statement (page 4), $510mil is derived from _Royalties_.
Later, on page 13, they explain what _Royalties_ consists of, and I quote:
> Royalties - Mozilla provides the Firefox web browser, which is a free and open-source web browser initially developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Corporation. Mozilla incorporates search engines of its customers as a default status or an optional status available in the Firefox web browser. Mozilla generally receives royalties at a certain percentage of revenues earned by its customers through their search engines incorporated in the Firefox web browser.
Now, I leave it to your judgement if you think that a company that derives 86% of its revenue from the above is dependent on Google ;-)
This looks like its only fluffy aspirational stuff rather than the clear presentation of its current status the title implies.
A "state of the platform" without any kinds of metrics/numbers presented front and center means that they are trying to hide things.
Until they are willing to candidly admit that, it's never going to improve. People that donate to Mozilla need to demand better.
I also use Firefox, and I plan to keep using it while waiting for the current managers to get replaced by someone who actually understands that you need a strong browser to even have a place at the table.
The side projects that some complains about I to some respect think is a good thing as it can help to diversify revenue sources. The only way Firefox is ever going to be a cashcow is how it is a cashcow today which at the end of the day puts Mozilla in a somewhat precarious situation.
First and foremost, allow me to donate to Firefox. Not to the foundation, to Firefox. Second, and related, increase Firefox' budget. Remember how extensions were essentially dead on Android since 2020 until recently? Or how they fired a chunk of the Rust team due to budget cuts? That should not have happened.
Third, put Firefox front and center. The article linked here has exactly one mention of Firefox, and that's in the standard footer at the very bottom. The fact that "State of Mozilla" doesn't talk about Firefox as point one (or at all) worries me.
Fourth, go to the offensive. Stop chasing whatever Chrome is doing and, more important, stop implementing their every dumb idea. I am glad they said no to Manifest V3 but, at the same time, I can't remember when was the last time they stood their ground before that (and even then, they are following Chrome's lead too).
I'm fine with exploring other sources of revenue, but I worry that those sources are benefiting Mozilla more than they are benefiting Firefox. The fact that Firefox' usage has plummeted and yet the CEO has not lost their job over it is, to me, a worrisome indicator of where Mozilla's priorities are.
I’d like to see this too. They already have a donation option for Thunderbird, which is officially under MZLA Technologies Corporation. There could be something similar for Firefox.
Not complete sure on this, but right now the only way to give money to Mozilla Corporation (the one owning and developing Firefox) is by subscribing to Mozilla VPN (offered by Mullvad). I don’t think any subscriptions to Pocket or MDN Plus go towards Firefox development and support. All these paid subscriptions are available only in certain countries though.
Laying off the Servo team is one example I remember, that didn't look like Mozilla cares about Firefox. Personally I keep on using Firefox and can't really complain about the browser itself, even though it's noticeable that incompatibilities increased over the years as the market share decreased.
I also agree, that it's the correct approach for Mozilla to search for different revenue streams. They just haven't been succesful with that for years, which together with the fact, that market share is declining drastically, paints a bleak future for Mozilla.
A lot of people care about Mozilla's declared goal of an "open internet" (for which a browser monoculture is the greatest risk). That's why you hear so many complains.
I do, despite the useless manager parasites who are intent to bleed Firefox dry to fatten themselves up.
If I didn't use Firefox then I'd have no motivation to care that Firefox is grossly mismanaged. It would be not my problem.
There are two complaints I see in this thread: they are being distracted by social justice stuff, and they are overpaid and wasting money they desperately need for technical matters.
IMO the former is not really all that consequential to most people. If you are just a user, you don’t have to abide by any of their contributor guidelines.
The money thing seems troubling, though.
It would be preferable if the web wasn’t so over complicated that it required a multi-billion dollar company to make a browser.
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...
I personally abhor Donald Trump, by the way. But I still think deplatforming and censorship are wrong.
Should you publish the manifesto of a terrorist? Should you allow people to create millions of accounts? Who should you amplify with your algorithm?
Mozilla's entire purpose is political.
Firefox is never going to be a thing as long as humanity moves from desktops to mobiles where changing the built in browser is very uncommon.
I have never had mobile FF crash on me, largely been a good experience.
A few months ago they released a version of Nightly that would crash for most users on startup every time. It was up on the Play store for several days.
That would normally be a buyer-beware situation as with any dev build, but Mozilla had purposely locked several important features - such as about:config configuration and loading any extension - behind the Nightly version, forcing users into that kind of experience.
That might change soon. Seems the EU is planning to mandate allowing the browser to be changed on iOS.
In the "mission" statement they're doubling down on a total lack of self-reflection. They actually think they're in the position to "shape" markets and the internet in general.
How so? Just look at AI. How is a 10M Mozilla proof of concept going to move the needle against Google and OpenAI/Microsoft throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it? Where exactly is Mozilla's relevance in influencing anything at all?
And yes, the political brand is annoying and distracting. The "do-good" internet traditionally aligns to liberal, moderate progressive politics. Mozilla's current "woke" brand is not the same thing. It reeks of DEI, identity politics, intersectional feminism, anti-whiteness.
I don't care if you subscribe to these politics, I'm saying it's not moderate nor neutral. It's sub brand of highly polarized US politics that is widely unpopular outside of it. If you claim to stand for the worldwide internet, this is not "inclusive".
Luckily though, it turns out to be a case of woke capitalism. The budget for software development is 221M, the budget for "leadership" 109M.
They do a lot of leading at Mozilla. Nobody knows what exactly is led as zero promises or roadmaps are tangible or deliver anything. When you check board members, fellows and grants...it just leaves you puzzled at what these people do, how it helps, and how it moves the needle.
They can't help themselves. They are used to getting free money by literally doing nothing: keeping the search box aimed at Google. Next they piss it all away on useless initiatives where failure has no consequences.
For bonus points, this would also silence their critics who say Mozilla is Google's lapdog. But of course they cannot do this because the critics are correct.
"....leading the charge towards realizing a more safe, kind internet..." - really?
That's because Mozilla are an explicitly political organisation...
Looks like Eich might have been Mozilla’s hidden force keeping the project on the rails.
Your obsession with me, evident in the need to well-ackshually almost every HN post that might be considered positive about my work, is frankly creepy. I've already been erased from Mozilla's site, a la Stalin-era pre-photoshop photo touchups. No worries -- let it go, the past is in the past.
I would just like to thank you for continuing to stand up for what you believe in and fighting the good fight. Blessings be upon you :)
> Your obsession with me, evident in the need to well-ackshually almost every HN post that might be considered positive about my work, is frankly creepy.
This is nonsense. My comments about Brave have been infrequent and neutral or slightly positive mostly. Recently I did list common criticisms to correct a claim about why people disliked Brave. My criticisms of Mozilla and Firefox have been non technical decisions made after you left mostly if not only. And even pointing out when Firefox's decline began wasn't all about you. Any future for Firefox depends on understanding its decline.
> I've already been erased from Mozilla's site, a la Stalin-era pre-photoshop photo touchups.
Were you removed from any photos in this way? Or was it histrionic exaggeration?
Mozilla's site hosts posts by you, posts by others mentioning you, historical documents by you, and credits for your work.
> No worries -- let it go, the past is in the past.
I hope you believe this some day. For your sake.
https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-s...
Wasting capital on mozilla vpn, ui overhauling the browser to make it corporate appealing never were the problems.
Sad to see where they are now… they still haven’t even made containers part of core…
AKA Google employees, heh