How else would you like for Mozilla and Firefox to diversify their revenue and remain relevant?
You can’t complain about them advertising their own services while still producing a leading browser.
You can’t complain about them advertising their own services while still producing a leading browser.
this is not some small charity, they were generating $500 MILLION a year from the search deals
they should have shoved the the billions of dollars into an endowment
from that they could have funded a medium sized team focusing on the browser in perpetuity
but no, they blew it on obvious boondoggles (like Firefox OS)
Mozilla could have done the same thing if they had a little foresight and didn't just assume the piles of cash would keep flowing in forever.
And that is why I'm very annoyed by the fact that every year the donation begging is more in my face. Bigger, louder, harder to block.
Since they don't need the money that bad, why not keep it to a small banner and respect the users FFS.
Mozilla should have done everything in its power to gain it's independence(and still should).
I have been a Firefox user since day 1. I rememember, it was Phoenix, then Firebird, and for the last few years, Firefox.
I still use Firefox, which makes me so sad to see how incompetent(or potentially just greedy) the Mozilla leadership is.
Great product, poor stewards.
The glimmers of technical hope within Gecko like Servo and Rust were chopped.
> but no, they blew it on obvious boondoggles (like Firefox OS)
I agree they wasted money on a heap of useless things (as we see plenty of failed companies do - like Borland).
But I thought Firefox OS was one of the most promising ideas. I'd still like to see a vendor try and produce a phone that supported browser-tech for Apps - the idea is clearly valuable for Apps delivered using WebViews on iPhone and Android.
Personally I think the rot is throughout the org - and blaming one section is pointless - it weren't just management or tech. Watching previously successful corporations die has a similar feel to me.