Discussion
I'm still of the opinion that we need an organisational fork of Mozilla, preferably not domiciled in the US.
We have technical forks like librewolf, that's not what I'm asking for. I'm asking for new stewards of the upstream code. Although perhaps if the forks want to consider how they'd become a hard fork, with an organisational structure that would work too.
Mozilla is a product of it's surroundings. It's surroundings was silicon valley and well 🤷♀️
@onepict @dennyhenke Given all of Mozilla's AI and data collection practices I think this is an excellent idea.
@onepict I wonder if Mozilla the company needs to be allowed to fail for that to happen.
There was someone earlier in the week observing that the more expensive elections become, the more politicians become dependent on their donors and bend to their will.
Is the current situation with Mozilla partly caused by browsers getting so expensive to maintain, so Mozilla becomes more dependent on Google etc?
If this is the case, is there any way to reduce the cost of maintaining a browser? Is the web too bloated and overcomplex at the moment?
@caitp @chessert That would be nice.
We need the kinda impetus that drove @libreoffice and @tdforg to exist.
Like you could try and suggest folks like our grant bodies in Europe. But it would need a long term bunch of folks to commit to it.
Then there's governance to consider. It's not enough to fork the code, you want to think about the long term organisation of the project. So the idea of colleges and students learning is great. But we also need some long termers.
@onepict @caitp @chessert @tdforg@fosstodon.org
Waterfox is a fork that - I believe - is based in the UK. While it makes different choices than Librefox it has the same ultimate problem in that it's a downstream fork disabling mozilla's crap.
Mozilla.org is beholden to Mozilla.com and Mozilla.com is just trying to make 💰 instead of trying to make the thing users want.
I think it's beyond time for a hard fork. I'd love to see Librefox and Waterfox devs work together on it.
@onepict I am surprised that the EU hasn't stepped up and funded this, not just a Mozilla fork but all of it. Being subservient to US tech right now, when US tech is in turn subject to the whims of a malignant fascist, seems insane. The money is there to fund thousands of developers, and there is so much open source code to start with (and yes, it will need serious investment to able to dump the big US companies).
I am American. But please just crush us.
@not2b yeah EU funding is kinda focused on AI at the moment sadly. Although we do have some funding bodies like the Sovereign Tech fund and NLNet.
True, but how do you fork the billion dollar a year funding from google ?
@onepict Right, and silicon valley endowed Mozilla with billions of dollars. Who is going to fund the alternative? Wikipedia?
@tasket Yeah it's a browser. It's never needed that much funding.
An organisation outside the expense of the Valley would be cheaper.
@onepict
Actual software development expenses are not that large. It's around 250 millions a year. About half of the expenses of Mozilla corp. But they actually closed most of the offices outside of the US, so yeah could be cheaper outside of the silicon valley but it seems that they don't want to go this way.
@tasket
@onepict I would argue its worth that much funding just on the grounds of having experts that understand actual (not hype) web technology and what consumers need from it.
Most tech geeks typically think they understand this area when IMO they do not (I could even use LibreWolf as an example).
Furthermore, such a project will be actively fighting the ads-in-everything corporate interests. It will need an institution-sized budget and to build an endowment, which is why I mentioned Wikipedia. Or maybe sfconservancy, apache, or ??
@tasket It's the kinda thing where I think it's worth asking @sovtechfund and @nlnet (commons conservancy) for some guidance. Perhaps a good enough group of folks could make the argument for initial grant funding, then find a way for us to emulate the Wikipedia and OTF (archive of our own) crowdfunding models.
@onepict Exactly. After decades as a Firefox loyalist, Vivaldi (lovely Scandinavian worker-owned anti-AI initiative that it is, still based on Chromium) is what I now rely on for workspaces and synchronisation and tab sharing and while I miss containers, the Firefox forks that I know of don't offer me that via account sign-in. So yes, I totally agree! Not least because Google's little "Look, we can't be monopolists, we're funding Mozilla" project isn't cutting it any more, not by a long shot, and not for a long while now. It's almost as if they *want* to seal their fate by alienating the ~5% of browser users they had left.
@onepict yep. been saying this for years.
For some time (2 - 3 yrs?) I've worried about the "veteran tech" folks who've taken senior roles at Mozilla.
Putting folks from #Google, #MS, #Salesforce, #Airbnb, #Meta, etc in charge seems antithetical to Mozilla's mission of "building a better internet."
I'd installed FF when Google was paying users to install FF circa 2005.*
And after 20 years, I switched to Vivaldi early this year.
* Haven't found much info about this bounty program except for a Slashdot post in 2005:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/05/11/05/1436226/google-paying-for-firefox-installs
EDIT: much more info about the referral program here
https://leonidasv.com/til-google-paid-websites-for-referring-firefox/
@onepict forking yes
@onepict that's what PaleMoon did: went hard-fork when Mozilla droped XUL, and they've been maintaining the code and adding support for more recent standards, without deprecating the old ones. It could benefit from a bit of an UI polish, but with my latest checks it's definitely looking like my next fallback when Firefox goes off the deep end.
@onepict some say this has already happened: https://servo.org (they’re still early but making progress, I contribute a monthly small amount)
@onepict hey @EUCommission theres topic for you
@onepict
Tbh I've been thinking of contributing nee features to librewolf to help encourage that
@onepict yep, just another VC money seeking hustle. Like so many other SillyCon Valley denizens, they were great at spending money and poor at producing anything good.
@hyc @onepict the "AI" stuff is half of the mess—the other area to be really concerned about is that they're adding "programmatic advertising" and "attribution tracking"
For now you can turn this stuff off (and I think you will be able to use a blank new tab page to prevent ads from loading) but the list of preferences to check keeps getting longer.
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