The narrative Teixeira paints is certainly damning, but with stuff like this it's usually worth waiting a bit to hear the full story before bringing out the pitchforks.
I'd wait for some more details before jumping to any conclusions.
How long has it been around, how quickly does it ship updates after its upstream, how large is the project? In short, how reliable is it and how well is it going to be supported in the future? I don't want to end up on a browser that lags security updates because their patches are so painful to keep rebasing or because there's only one guy who knows how to do it and he's offline this week.
From what I've heard, despite explicitly opting out of telemetry, it often makes requests to “laptop-updates.brave.com” which is actually also used for affiliates.
And on top of that you are directly helping chromium to an even larger marketshare and bringing us closer again to the internet's technical monoculture.
Usage of Brave indirectly helps Chrome become a better product, by significantly increasing stability and security of the chromium-base, sucking up resources that couldve also been spent on a more privacy-friendly browser alternative.
The team's affinity for cryptocurrency projects drives me away personally. If you aren't aware, the Brave team have a "rewards" program where you "earn" their BAT token for viewing ads: https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
I use scare quotes around rewards and earn because those are my trigger words for projects I should walk away from.
But I don't want a pointy stick, I want a program that loads web pages securely and quickly and doesn't log my browsing habits and sell them to advertisers.
This is the day where I ditch Firefox, finally. Whether completely correct or not, the official communication on this from Mozilla sounds not friendly at all, everything that Teixeira says points to a very "evil" company management, and their actions and proposed goals that they've announced over the last years also don't align with what I would wish to hear and see from such a company.
I remember when I decided to fully ditch Google, and today it'll be Mozilla. It's a fucking shame - a company that I've placed A LOT of hope in some years ago.
Just as the other commenter said, I think for a start I will switch to LibreWolf or Waterfox, probably the first, as it's more focused on privacy and seems to be the safer bet.
Completely ditching the Firefox core browser is probably not really possible. I'm not 100% sure how comparable the degoogled Chromium's are to something like LibreWolf, but something in me just doesn't want to switch to anything Google related again.
My hopes are in something completely new, something that Firefox once was, like a browser built from Servo (which was a Mozilla project, https://servo.org/), or Ladybird. But until they're ready to use for day-to-day-use we got to wait some more years, I fear.
I get the idealism, but now you're just using Firefox, which has been bastardized and introduces more annoyances (and privacy, but privacy comes with annoyances...).
Privacy, like security, is a trade-off between being easy to use and painfully annoying. Firefox tends towards the "easy-to-use" side, while things like LibreWorld slide to the "painful" side. That's not a bad thing, but most users won't want to deal with it.
In the end, you're still supporting Firefox, which is really just Google in a clown costume.
In related topic, Do people usually tell their employer about a diagnosis like that if they don't ask for special accommodation? I know that cancer would probably require adjustment in general (Not in this case according to the court case here) but I am talking in general terms.
If I worked somewhere I didn't feel I could tell my employer, it would demonstrate a lack of trust and a toxic relationship. I wouldn't want to work there.
I typically disclose it during interview, and disclose even to recruiters that I need a day off or two once a month for health reasons. ( I don't tend to go into details until later in interview if I feel like it's going well. )
Does it close some doors? Yes, absolutely. I had one recruiter tell me that their client was "startup-y" so perhaps I "wouldn't have the stamina" for it. I insisted I was very capable, but they made their excuses (they lied that they'd send through the job spec) and left.
It's not about sick leave, it's about knowing well ahead of time I'll be off on a regular schedule. Yes of course I can also disappear on short notice and there's no right for them to know beyond "medical", and I certainly take advantage of that too, but if I'm starting a new job I'd rather put upfront the expectation that I'll have every 4th Thursday & Friday off work.
I'd rather negotiate that into my contract than have a lot of sick days.
A Co-worker of mine recently died of cancer, before that there was a long period within which she clearly had a different deal then most of us, but generally it was not known that she had cancer. As I understood it she was not legally required to disclose the illness to her employer (Germany), nor was her employer legally allowed to ask.
Where I live health insurance is often provided by employer. Sometimes the employer opts to manage a separate pool of insured people - employees and their families. Such pool is fairly small so if one person comes down with an expensive disease the cost of everyone’s premiums must increase to cover that. Or the employer can just fire the expensive employee and thus keep the premiums low.
Some may choose to disclose a diagnosis like cancer to maintain transparency or seek support, but others may prefer privacy if the illness doesn't affect their work
In 2021 they had 600m in revenue and spent 199m on software development. I am not sure if they break software development out to Firefox and all the other things (eg. Pocket).
So at least in 2021 at best it was 30% of revenue on developing Firefox. They spent 30m on marketing and branding.
total expenses are 340M, 200M for software dev, 27M for other program services (everyone else working on software but who's not a developer?), 30M for marketing, 81M for "general and administrative"
They have 370M in bank if I read correctly. And further 680M worth of various financial instruments like securities etc.
Honestly, even as it is, I am not very much impressed. I feel like the most of the reaction here is... artificial? I mean, look at him, poor guy, he has cancer, of course we should side with him against evil Mozilla. All these statements that "I am finally ditching Firefox" despite that nothing really has changed are just virtue signaling. Many of the firefox-ditchers in this comments section cannot even properly tell, what they are ditching it for. They just support all good against all evil.
I never liked Mozilla leadership in many, many years. It never was the point, really. The only thing that matters always was Firefox, and the only real question was if there is anything better. I don't claim to have an answer to that question (let's just say there were multiple occasions when I considered switching, but never did), but I can tell you for sure, whatever it is, it couldn't have changed because of this guy's demise.
Siding with him feels kinda ironic in a way. It was unsightly when it was about Brendan Eich or servo team, because these are technical people, who created something of value, which is why Mozilla exist. But this guy is basically the very same "evil Mozilla leadership" who only turned out on the bottom side of the internal corporate games. He isn't the one who created Firefox, or JavaScript, or Rust, or anything. He worked in Microsoft for 14 years, not in Mozilla. I'm not even sure I can recollect, how exactly Firefox changed in the past 2 years (except for Translate button, this was nice). Which is probably a good sign, but still, I don't know any reason to cheer for this guy. He is just a dude with cancer, that's basically his only "defence". Defence against... being demoted? Oh, come on. I wonder if his compensation decreased by 40% is less than the total cost of the former Servo team. (And just by the way, the fact I am constantly mentioning Servo doesn't mean I am blaming Mozilla for that decision. It surely wasn't nice, but it is understandable. Firefox is free to use, never financially viable, doesn't have any plans to become financially viable. It is a miracle of sorts that Google still agrees to sponsor them.)
And having something like this in his defence speech:
> He questioned the need for the layoffs and raised concerns about the potential to disproportionately impact women and people of color
On the face of it this is another example of poor behaviour by Mozilla. Is there something about the organisation's set-up that encourages this? An inexperienced CEO out of their depth?
Article should maybe point straight to the Geekwire piece at [1].
Mozilla-the-company really has no justification for its continued existence, but Mozilla-the-open-source-project is still rather neat. It's a shame the former completely captured the latter.
On April 24, the suit says, Mozilla formally proposed to demote Teixeira to senior vice president of technology strategy, with a 40% reduction in total compensation. He declined to accept the role change. He had not requested additional flexibility related to his diagnosis, the suit says.
The suit alleges that Chambers [new CEO] pressed ahead, informing other Mozilla leaders about the demotion, and telling Teixeira’s direct reports that “it would be tough for him to continue to run a large team because of his health,” despite lacking his consent to share information about his health with others inside the company.
A) that’s a pretty slam-dunk case if they have witnesses to testify she said such things, and B) you can “decline to accept” a demotion?? I gotta try that next time!
While evil, it's common corporate practice (in the US) to get rid of new mothers and employees with deteriorating health, largely by looking for or fabricating trivial excuses to justify their termination. Corporate HR departments excel at finding legal excuses to dodge liability.
On your B) It seems according to 15 minutes of research, it varies a bit on circumstance and where you live but it can be considered "constructive dismissal" in some places. You may be eligible for severance or unemployment if you refuse the demotion. Of course, IAMNAL etc...
I don't know exactly how it works in the states, but I'm assuming you still sign a contract when accepting a job? That contract has all sorts on it, often including job title, expected responsibilities, work hours, etc.
If a company decides to change that then you must agree to the new contract, or they risk legal action. If you don't then their options are keep you where you are or fire you, and of course firing someone is it's own minefield, as shown here.
I uh… USians don’t do those. When they do, it tends to be a one-sided kind of thing to protect the company’s interests—NDAs, codes of conduct, accept our policies today and whatever we change them to in the future, that sort of thing.
Most places, work happens at the whim of the employer (and, for what little it’s worth, the whim of the employee): employment is “at-will,” states are “right-to-work,” and so on.
Don’t know about others, but I’ve never once in my life signed a contract to work in the US.
Your monetary compensation is in an offer letter you sign to accept the role. Salary exempt status is a fixed value per time period, or separately a hourly rate.
If paid hourly, you're typically entitled to 1.5x pay after 40 hours of work. Salaried exempt status are not mandated overtime pay.
What hours you work depends. Salaried is expecting a job to be done regardless of the hours to complete. Hourly is a mixed bag of "the schedule for next week is posted every Tuesday" (common in restaurants) or routine hours long-term (such as shift work in factories).
You don't sign a contract buying something in the supermarket, yet a contract is still formed. You negotiated or discussed with the employer about pay and responsibilities, of course they are part of any such contract and their option is to dismiss you, not unilaterally change the terms.
>When you hire staff, you should provide them with a written contract or an equivalent written statement confirming their working conditions
The fact it can be a statement rather than a contract may have an impact on the companies ability to change it at any given time without agreement from the employee, but I'm not an EU employment lawyer
That is quite literally illegal where I live. Any annex to the contract (including base salary changes) must be _voluntarily_ signed by the employee. Forcing signing is illegal.
When covid started, my company gave all employees annexes to reduce our pay by 20%, but keep our workload the same. I told 2 bosses, the HR employee and the director of HR mobbing me I will not sign and to piss off. I was the only one to do so out of ~150 employees. I kept my full salary until I quit my job because I don't like working for cunts.
It definitely is the case in the EU. Where did you get the idea it isn't?
In my country, which is in the EU, having someone work for you without a contract is a crime. Because by not having a contract you're denying them rights such as pension contribution, paid vacation, health insurance etc.
Plus you have to pay taxes on salary, so if you hire them "on a handshake" as it were, you're probably doing tax evasion too.
I got the idea from my personal experience where I never was able to refuse what they told me. I'm not saying no contracts, I'm saying that refusing the change means I quit myself, and so no protection.
Regarding the EU thing: maybe I've just had an odd experience, but I've always signed employment contracts. Even when I was a student I had a contract from the company I worked at (it was a separate contract, not the usual student contract that I had to get also).
This varies a lot on region, and even (for example in Canada) provincial jurisdiction, but I agree at the core this is a match.
I've seen constructive dismissal discussed for even adding on-call to someone who was hired without on-call requirements, unilaterally. The logic being "You're suddenly asking me to be paged at any time when on call, that wasn't part of the job description", and it is paramount to effectively "firing and re-hiring" a person in another role without their permission.
Why I mention legal jurisdictions, and the above example, is because some US states are 'at will' employment states. In such a state, you can just fire anyone at any time, and thus the whole "fired and re-hired" thing doesn't kick in... as the 'fire' part is a-ok.
People have contracts in such states, typically, especially at a CPO executive level. So I really wonder here, will this be more about breach of contract?
(Of course, there are other issues. The disclosure of medical info... that's just bizarre, and smacks of massive inexperience and lack of judgement, if true)
In Norway this is flatly illegal and the relevant government department would probably get involved. Here in Norway companies are legally required to make accommodations for people who fall ill in order to keep them working, so the new CEO would definitely be in the wrong regardless of whether such additional flexibility had actually been requested.
> B) you can “decline to accept” a demotion??
You probably can't simply decline it but you can certainly argue against it and if necessary sue in the courts depending on what your employment contract says. If he resigns then I think under UK law it is arguable that it is constructive dismissal:
"Constructive dismissal
Constructive dismissal is when you’re forced to leave your job against your will because of your employer’s conduct.
The reasons you leave your job must be serious, for example, they:
- do not pay you or suddenly demote you for no reason
- force you to accept unreasonable changes to how you work - for example, tell you to work night shifts when your contract is only for day work
This is one of the shittiest pieces of behaviour by an employer I've ever read about. Just awful.
Whilst this will make the square root of no difference, I don't want to support Mozilla with this sort of behaviour going on, so what do I do for a web browser now? I switched back to Firefox as my main browser some years ago because, well, Google and privacy concerns related to them. What now? Brave is dicey. Opera? SeaMonkey (which I think may nowadays be independent of Mozilla)?
The thing is I do a lot of web development so I need a browser that offers an at least decent developer experience on macOS.
Brave with the shady features switched off. There’s still some privacy burden on the user, but it’s no comparison with Chrome and they’re pushing the envelope on privacy in other aspects.
Firefox forks are another option, depending on your reasons for avoiding the original.
This is probably a hot take but I’m gonna stay with Mozilla. We don’t have all the details, but it sure seems like a rotten C-suite, and I’m gonna count on the justice system to find the facts and mete out some, well, justice. Coca-Cola literally hired death squads to kill unionizing farmers, Chiquita did the same thing but like a few months ago, and Google is rotten in to the core of its motivations in a way that no amount of C-suite-clearing could help with — and yet I use all of their products, even when I try to avoid them.
But I have the whole “revolution” thing to fall back on, which is a nice emotional safety blanket. Boycotts are already very tough to use effectively, so I don’t have a ton of hope for using them without a real ethical alternative…
For a company so focused on the “Diversity and Inclusion” trope [1] this seems highly hypocritical of Mozilla. I would really like it for them to spell it out what DEI means for them, because, it’s clear it’s not about being inclusive with people like Steve Teixeira.
I hope Steve wins the case in the courts and receives a hefty compensation that includes Mozilla paying for all his medical expenses and several years of wages.
Interesting detail, in my experience DEI is only for Americans. They still haven't been arsed to do simple stuff to "include" other cultures. Like localisation.
DEI is also used by FAANG in India to hire mostly women graduates. There has been reports of campus hiring drives of these companies hiring 80% girls.
A popular conspiracy is that since these companies have to fulfil some amount of diversity quota, they hire mostly graduate girls in India, since that's cheaper than hiring "diverse" candidates in USA or EU. Don't know how true it is.
Interestingly there's no other "diversity" other than gender diversity talked by Indian hiring managers.
While I cannot speak to the truth of the matter, if it so much as brings in an extra penny, they will do it. Nigh, they are obligated to do it. These companies hold more wealth and power than many nation states. At least in the US, law and regulation has been wholly captured by those with said wealth and power. We no sooner live in a democracy than I am Marry Poppins. How can we expect a company like Mozilla to have even a smidge of ethics when they are funded by the same company that somehow made "Don't be evil" a meme. I used to be proud to work in tech. To be a software developer. Now I am disgusted at all the things I have contributed to in the name of progress and profit.
As a general rule, DEI proponents forget that a lot of the authoritarianism around speech and specific desired social behaviour directly interferes with severely autistic people.
Often the people who are fervently in favour of DEI initiatives (rather than in a relaxed way, like ordinary people who wish for equity and inclusion) will make the accommodations only if that person is labelled, diagnosed and if they don't behave “like an asshole”.
The annoying thing is that Autism itself is a disorder, largely because the people suffering find it difficult to follow social cues, steer away from taboo subjects and are largely “too honest”. Which to people who did not grow up with Autists (I did) will seem like they’re “being assholes”.
I find this to be the highest form of hypocrisy, as disorders such as high levels of autism are expressly considered a part of DEI initiatives and DEI branding, and some fervent DEI supporters will cosplay Autism- when in reality, like all people, they’re on the spectrum but not severely impacted.
I find it hard to take this group seriously when they so blatantly disregard broader, universal, accommodations around reading speech charitably to include people so supposedly core to their endeavours.
Sidenote: Often those who are loudest here are the least likely to try to understand; I’m 100% certain they will downvote this rather than telling me I am wrong, because I’m not wrong and it makes them uncomfortable.
I don't know what DEI training is like elsewhere, but where I work the focus is on hiring the most qualified person for the job, and making sure that ones biases don't get in the way of that.
It feels like those with ASD who aren't severe are forgotten about, or maybe it's because I seem semi-"normal" I just tend to be hit with the "asshole" label for being clueless about whatever stuff normal people do that I don't. I am having tons of trouble now with job searching because I have no idea what to do, socially, to improve my network, and it seems like that's literally all that matters these days. I don't know if other people who are not severely disabled with ASD have the same problems as me or not, so maybe I just am an asshole!
I've come to find that the best people are the guys who say "good afternoon" and "god bless you" to me when we're just randomly passing each other down the grocery aisle. Small things that might brighten someone's day; I do my best to return the favour and pay it forward too. It really does cost nothing to be nice.
On the other hand, I've come to find the people who scream about discrimination and equity and other nonsense are almost always the most discriminatory and unfair individuals. Utter hypocrisy.
Is your argument that organizations should not have a work place anti-discrimination policy and enforcement, because proponents of such policies are all bad people and we should just trust in inherent human kindness? Are you advocating that people do not speak up about discrimination? I am not sure what you are advocating?
I'm not sure how much clearer I can be about it: The more loudly someone complains about racism, the more likely they are racist. Likewise the other -ists and -isms.
Mozilla is essentially just a sock puppet for Google. It’s where a ton of their funding comes from and Google funds them if only to say “hey look there’s another browser” (re: antitrust).
Mozilla, the company, has been a dumpster fire for a long time.
Mozilla is appalling. Not only are the disgusting people in charge running Firefox towards a slow decay into obscurity, they're also treating their fellow human beings as garbage.
Not surprising, but still.
I can't wait for Ladybird and the Servo web browser to mature so I can distance myself from this garbage company.
(No, Chrome-based browsers aren't a compelling alternative and I don't use Apple devices.)
I had to witness my mother suffer through stage 4 gastric cancer before inevitably passing away. My grandma on my mother's side also passed from gastric cancer, and my grandpa on my mother's side suffered from complications of colorectal cancer though he fortunately survived it.
So if this story is true, believe me when I say with the utmost conviction that Mozilla is fucking evil.
I’ve tolerated their corruption and incompetence, but downright evil I cannot condone. Fuck it, might as well uninstall firefox and install chrome (despite knowing about its issues). I won’t bother with Mozilla anymore.
Mozilla has an open source product, but a SF startups work plan and a NY hedgefunds ethics.
Maybe I should donate some time and money to Ladybird...
>Mozilla has an open source product, but a SF startups work plan and a NY hedgefunds ethics
Plus early 2010s Nokia management.
Painfully true
The narrative Teixeira paints is certainly damning, but with stuff like this it's usually worth waiting a bit to hear the full story before bringing out the pitchforks.
I'd wait for some more details before jumping to any conclusions.
Mozilla really has fallen deeply. The writings were on the wall for quite some time, it is just sad to have it confirmed.
I hope Firefox/Thunderbird survives current day Mozilla.
Zen Browser is where your donations should go to:
https://zen-browser.app/
That site is not as informative as I would have liked. Pray tell, why?
Pray tell what information do you need?
How long has it been around, how quickly does it ship updates after its upstream, how large is the project? In short, how reliable is it and how well is it going to be supported in the future? I don't want to end up on a browser that lags security updates because their patches are so painful to keep rebasing or because there's only one guy who knows how to do it and he's offline this week.
Pray tell, what browser has had these problems?
This could be a way to support a more ethical approach to tech
> This could be a way to support a more ethical approach to tech
Replace "tech" with "business" (because it is), and there'll be the answer. And it is probable "Rarely, but usually no".
Support Brave if you really want to stick it to them. Brave was founded by ousted Mozillians.
> Brave was founded by ousted Mozillians.
> resigned shortly after his appointment due to pressure over his firm opposition to same-sex marriage[0]
No thanks.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
Brave is a fake privacy browser.
From what I've heard, despite explicitly opting out of telemetry, it often makes requests to “laptop-updates.brave.com” which is actually also used for affiliates.
And on top of that you are directly helping chromium to an even larger marketshare and bringing us closer again to the internet's technical monoculture.
Usage of Brave indirectly helps Chrome become a better product, by significantly increasing stability and security of the chromium-base, sucking up resources that couldve also been spent on a more privacy-friendly browser alternative.
The team's affinity for cryptocurrency projects drives me away personally. If you aren't aware, the Brave team have a "rewards" program where you "earn" their BAT token for viewing ads: https://brave.com/brave-rewards/
I use scare quotes around rewards and earn because those are my trigger words for projects I should walk away from.
Brave is a Chromium fork though?
Different stick; just as pointy.
But I don't want a pointy stick, I want a program that loads web pages securely and quickly and doesn't log my browsing habits and sell them to advertisers.
This is the day where I ditch Firefox, finally. Whether completely correct or not, the official communication on this from Mozilla sounds not friendly at all, everything that Teixeira says points to a very "evil" company management, and their actions and proposed goals that they've announced over the last years also don't align with what I would wish to hear and see from such a company.
I remember when I decided to fully ditch Google, and today it'll be Mozilla. It's a fucking shame - a company that I've placed A LOT of hope in some years ago.
So what browser are you using? I'm in the same boat, but all I see is chrome clones.
Just as the other commenter said, I think for a start I will switch to LibreWolf or Waterfox, probably the first, as it's more focused on privacy and seems to be the safer bet.
Completely ditching the Firefox core browser is probably not really possible. I'm not 100% sure how comparable the degoogled Chromium's are to something like LibreWolf, but something in me just doesn't want to switch to anything Google related again.
My hopes are in something completely new, something that Firefox once was, like a browser built from Servo (which was a Mozilla project, https://servo.org/), or Ladybird. But until they're ready to use for day-to-day-use we got to wait some more years, I fear.
I'm eying Ladybird but it's still a ways off. I think they expect to launch in 2026.
just swap to one of the clean-up soft-forks, like LibreWolf
I get the idealism, but now you're just using Firefox, which has been bastardized and introduces more annoyances (and privacy, but privacy comes with annoyances...).
Privacy, like security, is a trade-off between being easy to use and painfully annoying. Firefox tends towards the "easy-to-use" side, while things like LibreWorld slide to the "painful" side. That's not a bad thing, but most users won't want to deal with it.
In the end, you're still supporting Firefox, which is really just Google in a clown costume.
TL;DR: We need more browser engine choice.
In related topic, Do people usually tell their employer about a diagnosis like that if they don't ask for special accommodation? I know that cancer would probably require adjustment in general (Not in this case according to the court case here) but I am talking in general terms.
My prayers goes to steve for a healthy recovery.
Yes, of course.
If I worked somewhere I didn't feel I could tell my employer, it would demonstrate a lack of trust and a toxic relationship. I wouldn't want to work there.
I typically disclose it during interview, and disclose even to recruiters that I need a day off or two once a month for health reasons. ( I don't tend to go into details until later in interview if I feel like it's going well. )
Does it close some doors? Yes, absolutely. I had one recruiter tell me that their client was "startup-y" so perhaps I "wouldn't have the stamina" for it. I insisted I was very capable, but they made their excuses (they lied that they'd send through the job spec) and left.
But that's their loss.
Such a weird place to live where you are asking permission to get a day off for health reasons.
In EU you just go and take a sick leave from the doctor, no one at work needs to know what health issue you have.
It's not about sick leave, it's about knowing well ahead of time I'll be off on a regular schedule. Yes of course I can also disappear on short notice and there's no right for them to know beyond "medical", and I certainly take advantage of that too, but if I'm starting a new job I'd rather put upfront the expectation that I'll have every 4th Thursday & Friday off work.
I'd rather negotiate that into my contract than have a lot of sick days.
As you said, it's their loss
A Co-worker of mine recently died of cancer, before that there was a long period within which she clearly had a different deal then most of us, but generally it was not known that she had cancer. As I understood it she was not legally required to disclose the illness to her employer (Germany), nor was her employer legally allowed to ask.
Where I live health insurance is often provided by employer. Sometimes the employer opts to manage a separate pool of insured people - employees and their families. Such pool is fairly small so if one person comes down with an expensive disease the cost of everyone’s premiums must increase to cover that. Or the employer can just fire the expensive employee and thus keep the premiums low.
In the US, this is called being a “self-insured” employer: https://www.reddit.com/r/HealthInsurance/comments/1c9ifi8/wh...
*sacrifice the expensive employee
That sounds like a plot from a dystopian novel, do you mind if I ask where?
Some may choose to disclose a diagnosis like cancer to maintain transparency or seek support, but others may prefer privacy if the illness doesn't affect their work
How hard would it be for Firefox to exist on it's own without Mozilla?
I don't like Mozilla.
> How hard would it be for Firefox to exist on it's own without Mozilla?
It exists due to Google's funding. Mozilla barely makes much else otherwise.
So not very hard, assuming Google continues to sponsor it.
> It exists due to Google's funding. Mozilla barely makes much else otherwise.
Does Mozilla breakdown what % of Google revenue is going towards Firefox development?
> what %
~80%
In 2021 they had 600m in revenue and spent 199m on software development. I am not sure if they break software development out to Firefox and all the other things (eg. Pocket).
So at least in 2021 at best it was 30% of revenue on developing Firefox. They spent 30m on marketing and branding.
https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-202...
I'm on mobile and this PDF is notoriously hard to navigate here. What did they spend the other $370m on!?
total expenses are 340M, 200M for software dev, 27M for other program services (everyone else working on software but who's not a developer?), 30M for marketing, 81M for "general and administrative"
They have 370M in bank if I read correctly. And further 680M worth of various financial instruments like securities etc.
For starters a nice CEO pay package so that they do not have to live in squalor of course!
Does Mozilla provide more than just funding?
> Does Mozilla provide more than just funding?
"governance", "marketing" and drama.
Funding Mozilla, not Firefox directly, would appear to be money well spent.
Remember that this is one side of the story, and since there is a lawsuit, we might want to wait for its results before jumping into conclusions
Honestly, even as it is, I am not very much impressed. I feel like the most of the reaction here is... artificial? I mean, look at him, poor guy, he has cancer, of course we should side with him against evil Mozilla. All these statements that "I am finally ditching Firefox" despite that nothing really has changed are just virtue signaling. Many of the firefox-ditchers in this comments section cannot even properly tell, what they are ditching it for. They just support all good against all evil.
I never liked Mozilla leadership in many, many years. It never was the point, really. The only thing that matters always was Firefox, and the only real question was if there is anything better. I don't claim to have an answer to that question (let's just say there were multiple occasions when I considered switching, but never did), but I can tell you for sure, whatever it is, it couldn't have changed because of this guy's demise.
Siding with him feels kinda ironic in a way. It was unsightly when it was about Brendan Eich or servo team, because these are technical people, who created something of value, which is why Mozilla exist. But this guy is basically the very same "evil Mozilla leadership" who only turned out on the bottom side of the internal corporate games. He isn't the one who created Firefox, or JavaScript, or Rust, or anything. He worked in Microsoft for 14 years, not in Mozilla. I'm not even sure I can recollect, how exactly Firefox changed in the past 2 years (except for Translate button, this was nice). Which is probably a good sign, but still, I don't know any reason to cheer for this guy. He is just a dude with cancer, that's basically his only "defence". Defence against... being demoted? Oh, come on. I wonder if his compensation decreased by 40% is less than the total cost of the former Servo team. (And just by the way, the fact I am constantly mentioning Servo doesn't mean I am blaming Mozilla for that decision. It surely wasn't nice, but it is understandable. Firefox is free to use, never financially viable, doesn't have any plans to become financially viable. It is a miracle of sorts that Google still agrees to sponsor them.)
And having something like this in his defence speech:
> He questioned the need for the layoffs and raised concerns about the potential to disproportionately impact women and people of color
Well, it surely doesn't make me more sympathetic.
Everybody here seem to have strong opinions on the employer without having heard anything about their side on this.
Probably because Mozilla has burned any goodwill in the community that they had left long ago.
Good. Corporations should be held to a higher burden of proof, especially with their track record.
On the face of it this is another example of poor behaviour by Mozilla. Is there something about the organisation's set-up that encourages this? An inexperienced CEO out of their depth?
Article should maybe point straight to the Geekwire piece at [1].
[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2024/mozillas-product-chief-sues-th...
Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better if Mozilla wasn't a thing anymore.
Mozilla-the-company really has no justification for its continued existence, but Mozilla-the-open-source-project is still rather neat. It's a shame the former completely captured the latter.
Mozilla isn't an open source project. Firefox, Thunderbird, and Bugzilla are moz projects.
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On the face of it this is appalling. I don't suppose anyone inside of Mozilla would like to comment (anonymously obviously) ?
Wow, WILD story. Any armchair lawyers around to fill me in on the legality of firing someone in retaliation for suing you for discrimination…?
The details are here, he posted this link a while back: https://www.geekwire.com/2024/mozillas-product-chief-sues-th...
With some crazy quotes;
A) that’s a pretty slam-dunk case if they have witnesses to testify she said such things, and B) you can “decline to accept” a demotion?? I gotta try that next time!While evil, it's common corporate practice (in the US) to get rid of new mothers and employees with deteriorating health, largely by looking for or fabricating trivial excuses to justify their termination. Corporate HR departments excel at finding legal excuses to dodge liability.
On your B) It seems according to 15 minutes of research, it varies a bit on circumstance and where you live but it can be considered "constructive dismissal" in some places. You may be eligible for severance or unemployment if you refuse the demotion. Of course, IAMNAL etc...
I don't know exactly how it works in the states, but I'm assuming you still sign a contract when accepting a job? That contract has all sorts on it, often including job title, expected responsibilities, work hours, etc.
If a company decides to change that then you must agree to the new contract, or they risk legal action. If you don't then their options are keep you where you are or fire you, and of course firing someone is it's own minefield, as shown here.
Contracts? In the states? Haha.. that's a good one.
Wait what? No employment contract?? Can you unpack this a little bit?
I uh… USians don’t do those. When they do, it tends to be a one-sided kind of thing to protect the company’s interests—NDAs, codes of conduct, accept our policies today and whatever we change them to in the future, that sort of thing.
Most places, work happens at the whim of the employer (and, for what little it’s worth, the whim of the employee): employment is “at-will,” states are “right-to-work,” and so on.
Don’t know about others, but I’ve never once in my life signed a contract to work in the US.
Wtf? So how do you know your current salary? How do you know your work hours?
Your monetary compensation is in an offer letter you sign to accept the role. Salary exempt status is a fixed value per time period, or separately a hourly rate.
If paid hourly, you're typically entitled to 1.5x pay after 40 hours of work. Salaried exempt status are not mandated overtime pay.
What hours you work depends. Salaried is expecting a job to be done regardless of the hours to complete. Hourly is a mixed bag of "the schedule for next week is posted every Tuesday" (common in restaurants) or routine hours long-term (such as shift work in factories).
It's awkward to try to explain, but here are some pros and cons from other people. https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditForGrownups/comments/16606tt/...
This info often comes in the form of an offer letter that is accepted verbally or in writing.
In most cases employment in the US is at-will and does not involve a formal employment contract: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
You don't sign a contract buying something in the supermarket, yet a contract is still formed. You negotiated or discussed with the employer about pay and responsibilities, of course they are part of any such contract and their option is to dismiss you, not unilaterally change the terms.
This isn't the case even in EU, much less in US where they often don't sign any employment contract.
I can only speak to the UK where I have always been given a employment contract but it appears that something similar is a requirement in the EU
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employ...
>When you hire staff, you should provide them with a written contract or an equivalent written statement confirming their working conditions
The fact it can be a statement rather than a contract may have an impact on the companies ability to change it at any given time without agreement from the employee, but I'm not an EU employment lawyer
Every company I ever worked for had a "any changes are permitted, refusing means quitting" clause.
That is quite literally illegal where I live. Any annex to the contract (including base salary changes) must be _voluntarily_ signed by the employee. Forcing signing is illegal.
When covid started, my company gave all employees annexes to reduce our pay by 20%, but keep our workload the same. I told 2 bosses, the HR employee and the director of HR mobbing me I will not sign and to piss off. I was the only one to do so out of ~150 employees. I kept my full salary until I quit my job because I don't like working for cunts.
It definitely is the case in the EU. Where did you get the idea it isn't?
In my country, which is in the EU, having someone work for you without a contract is a crime. Because by not having a contract you're denying them rights such as pension contribution, paid vacation, health insurance etc.
Plus you have to pay taxes on salary, so if you hire them "on a handshake" as it were, you're probably doing tax evasion too.
I got the idea from my personal experience where I never was able to refuse what they told me. I'm not saying no contracts, I'm saying that refusing the change means I quit myself, and so no protection.
Regarding the EU thing: maybe I've just had an odd experience, but I've always signed employment contracts. Even when I was a student I had a contract from the company I worked at (it was a separate contract, not the usual student contract that I had to get also).
This varies a lot on region, and even (for example in Canada) provincial jurisdiction, but I agree at the core this is a match.
I've seen constructive dismissal discussed for even adding on-call to someone who was hired without on-call requirements, unilaterally. The logic being "You're suddenly asking me to be paged at any time when on call, that wasn't part of the job description", and it is paramount to effectively "firing and re-hiring" a person in another role without their permission.
Why I mention legal jurisdictions, and the above example, is because some US states are 'at will' employment states. In such a state, you can just fire anyone at any time, and thus the whole "fired and re-hired" thing doesn't kick in... as the 'fire' part is a-ok.
People have contracts in such states, typically, especially at a CPO executive level. So I really wonder here, will this be more about breach of contract?
(Of course, there are other issues. The disclosure of medical info... that's just bizarre, and smacks of massive inexperience and lack of judgement, if true)
In Norway this is flatly illegal and the relevant government department would probably get involved. Here in Norway companies are legally required to make accommodations for people who fall ill in order to keep them working, so the new CEO would definitely be in the wrong regardless of whether such additional flexibility had actually been requested.
> B) you can “decline to accept” a demotion??
You probably can't simply decline it but you can certainly argue against it and if necessary sue in the courts depending on what your employment contract says. If he resigns then I think under UK law it is arguable that it is constructive dismissal:
"Constructive dismissal
Constructive dismissal is when you’re forced to leave your job against your will because of your employer’s conduct.
The reasons you leave your job must be serious, for example, they:
- do not pay you or suddenly demote you for no reason
- force you to accept unreasonable changes to how you work - for example, tell you to work night shifts when your contract is only for day work
- let other employees harass or bully you "
https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/unfair-and-constructive-dismiss...
This is one of the shittiest pieces of behaviour by an employer I've ever read about. Just awful.
Whilst this will make the square root of no difference, I don't want to support Mozilla with this sort of behaviour going on, so what do I do for a web browser now? I switched back to Firefox as my main browser some years ago because, well, Google and privacy concerns related to them. What now? Brave is dicey. Opera? SeaMonkey (which I think may nowadays be independent of Mozilla)?
The thing is I do a lot of web development so I need a browser that offers an at least decent developer experience on macOS.
>so what do I do for a web browser now?
Keep using Firefox (with uBO installed), but disable "Pocket" and switch off all the telemetry.
Brave with the shady features switched off. There’s still some privacy burden on the user, but it’s no comparison with Chrome and they’re pushing the envelope on privacy in other aspects.
Firefox forks are another option, depending on your reasons for avoiding the original.
>Brave with the shady features switched off
any examples? if you mean crypto and ads then these are opt in last time i checked.
https://zen-browser.app/ is a browser based on the Firefox engine.
zen browser never successfully installed even after multiple tries on my computers.
Ladybird
Sure but Ladybird won't be released before Summer 2026...
This is probably a hot take but I’m gonna stay with Mozilla. We don’t have all the details, but it sure seems like a rotten C-suite, and I’m gonna count on the justice system to find the facts and mete out some, well, justice. Coca-Cola literally hired death squads to kill unionizing farmers, Chiquita did the same thing but like a few months ago, and Google is rotten in to the core of its motivations in a way that no amount of C-suite-clearing could help with — and yet I use all of their products, even when I try to avoid them.
But I have the whole “revolution” thing to fall back on, which is a nice emotional safety blanket. Boycotts are already very tough to use effectively, so I don’t have a ton of hope for using them without a real ethical alternative…
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wow
I am frustrated with Mozilla's actions this year a little
For a company so focused on the “Diversity and Inclusion” trope [1] this seems highly hypocritical of Mozilla. I would really like it for them to spell it out what DEI means for them, because, it’s clear it’s not about being inclusive with people like Steve Teixeira.
I hope Steve wins the case in the courts and receives a hefty compensation that includes Mozilla paying for all his medical expenses and several years of wages.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/careers/
Interesting detail, in my experience DEI is only for Americans. They still haven't been arsed to do simple stuff to "include" other cultures. Like localisation.
DEI is also used by FAANG in India to hire mostly women graduates. There has been reports of campus hiring drives of these companies hiring 80% girls.
A popular conspiracy is that since these companies have to fulfil some amount of diversity quota, they hire mostly graduate girls in India, since that's cheaper than hiring "diverse" candidates in USA or EU. Don't know how true it is.
Interestingly there's no other "diversity" other than gender diversity talked by Indian hiring managers.
This industry is a joke.
While I cannot speak to the truth of the matter, if it so much as brings in an extra penny, they will do it. Nigh, they are obligated to do it. These companies hold more wealth and power than many nation states. At least in the US, law and regulation has been wholly captured by those with said wealth and power. We no sooner live in a democracy than I am Marry Poppins. How can we expect a company like Mozilla to have even a smidge of ethics when they are funded by the same company that somehow made "Don't be evil" a meme. I used to be proud to work in tech. To be a software developer. Now I am disgusted at all the things I have contributed to in the name of progress and profit.
As a general rule, DEI proponents forget that a lot of the authoritarianism around speech and specific desired social behaviour directly interferes with severely autistic people.
Often the people who are fervently in favour of DEI initiatives (rather than in a relaxed way, like ordinary people who wish for equity and inclusion) will make the accommodations only if that person is labelled, diagnosed and if they don't behave “like an asshole”.
The annoying thing is that Autism itself is a disorder, largely because the people suffering find it difficult to follow social cues, steer away from taboo subjects and are largely “too honest”. Which to people who did not grow up with Autists (I did) will seem like they’re “being assholes”.
I find this to be the highest form of hypocrisy, as disorders such as high levels of autism are expressly considered a part of DEI initiatives and DEI branding, and some fervent DEI supporters will cosplay Autism- when in reality, like all people, they’re on the spectrum but not severely impacted.
I find it hard to take this group seriously when they so blatantly disregard broader, universal, accommodations around reading speech charitably to include people so supposedly core to their endeavours.
Sidenote: Often those who are loudest here are the least likely to try to understand; I’m 100% certain they will downvote this rather than telling me I am wrong, because I’m not wrong and it makes them uncomfortable.
I don't know what DEI training is like elsewhere, but where I work the focus is on hiring the most qualified person for the job, and making sure that ones biases don't get in the way of that.
I believe you mean "social cues", not "queues".
It feels like those with ASD who aren't severe are forgotten about, or maybe it's because I seem semi-"normal" I just tend to be hit with the "asshole" label for being clueless about whatever stuff normal people do that I don't. I am having tons of trouble now with job searching because I have no idea what to do, socially, to improve my network, and it seems like that's literally all that matters these days. I don't know if other people who are not severely disabled with ASD have the same problems as me or not, so maybe I just am an asshole!
Note: I'm Japanese-American.
>I find this to be the highest form of hypocrisy
I've come to find that the best people are the guys who say "good afternoon" and "god bless you" to me when we're just randomly passing each other down the grocery aisle. Small things that might brighten someone's day; I do my best to return the favour and pay it forward too. It really does cost nothing to be nice.
On the other hand, I've come to find the people who scream about discrimination and equity and other nonsense are almost always the most discriminatory and unfair individuals. Utter hypocrisy.
Is your argument that organizations should not have a work place anti-discrimination policy and enforcement, because proponents of such policies are all bad people and we should just trust in inherent human kindness? Are you advocating that people do not speak up about discrimination? I am not sure what you are advocating?
False dichotomy.
I did not state a dichotomy. I did not even assert an opinion. I am asking clarifying questions based the points the previous poster made.
I'm not sure how much clearer I can be about it: The more loudly someone complains about racism, the more likely they are racist. Likewise the other -ists and -isms.
>I would really like it for them to spell it out what DEI means for them
Dividends and Equities with Interest for Mitchell Baker?
Look, this was such a cheap shot I would be offending Mozilla to not take it.
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Mozilla is inching ever closer to Google ethics. First them removing compact mode and the nice, clean interface,
then them moving towards advertising "[looking to hire someone] passionate about display advertising in Mozilla products",
then starting to abandon the whole reason they exist (https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/12/remember-when-mozilla-made-...), and now this kind of shit.
Mozilla is essentially just a sock puppet for Google. It’s where a ton of their funding comes from and Google funds them if only to say “hey look there’s another browser” (re: antitrust).
Mozilla, the company, has been a dumpster fire for a long time.
Mozilla is appalling. Not only are the disgusting people in charge running Firefox towards a slow decay into obscurity, they're also treating their fellow human beings as garbage.
Not surprising, but still.
I can't wait for Ladybird and the Servo web browser to mature so I can distance myself from this garbage company.
(No, Chrome-based browsers aren't a compelling alternative and I don't use Apple devices.)
You might not use Safari, but webkit is open source still and used by a few browsers.
I was about to suggest Midori, but it seems that it’s a firefox derivative now. :/
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I had to witness my mother suffer through stage 4 gastric cancer before inevitably passing away. My grandma on my mother's side also passed from gastric cancer, and my grandpa on my mother's side suffered from complications of colorectal cancer though he fortunately survived it.
So if this story is true, believe me when I say with the utmost conviction that Mozilla is fucking evil.
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I’ve tolerated their corruption and incompetence, but downright evil I cannot condone. Fuck it, might as well uninstall firefox and install chrome (despite knowing about its issues). I won’t bother with Mozilla anymore.