> The window into the internet shouldn’t be controlled by big companies. It’s a principle thing for me.
That's exactly why I stopped with Mozilla. They are just a proxy for corporate controlled interests. And it is heartbreaking.
Every single battle, they have folded. Nearly every decision they have made has aligned with corporate interests. And then they issue a paternalistic statement saying that selling out is in our best interest.
- They embraced EME web DRM. They didn't have to. They could have taken the position that if someone wants DRM they should do it via Flash or Silverlight, or some other external means. They could have just done nothing. They didn't have to legitimize it as a concept. It would have been so powerful if they had just done nothing.
- They killed off RSS support for no good reason. The cost to maintain it would have been less than their office carpet cleaning budget. They don't see RSS as an integral part of the web. They see it as a toy, not worth including by default. And thanks to their attitude, RSS is actually becoming that way.
- They killed off XUL based extensions, and embraced a much more limited extension system (but at least it is more compatible and less differentiated with Google!). The functionality that was lost has not been restored.
The job of Mozilla was to be an EXAMPLE, more than to be popular. And they have accomplished neither.
I was with them since the start. Firefox was amazing when it was NOT compatible with Internet Explorer 6, and not trying to be! I'm so glad that they had enough faith in their own vision of the web to risk turning off less technical users. And we were all better for it.
Mozilla has failed us, and the best outcome is for the Mozilla foundation to go bankrupt, so that maybe we can pick up the pieces.
They did not. They fought against it until it was clear they weren't going to win the fight.
> They didn't have to. They could have taken the position that if someone wants DRM they should do it via Flash or Silverlight, or some other external means.
That is not a reasonable position. Adobe was already in the process of killing Flash and Microsoft is the developer of Silverlight, and they were pro-EME. That's setting aside the multi-decade history of security disasters those plugins caused.
> They didn't have to legitimize it as a concept. It would have been so powerful if they had just done nothing.
It would not, it would have killed them overnight. 99% of the population doesn't give a shit, they just want to watch Netflix (etc.), and they'd stop using Firefox the day Netflix (etc.) stopped working. That's true even of most Linux users which is the only population that might would care whatsoever.
> They killed off XUL based extensions, and embraced a much more limited extension system (but at least it is more compatible and less differentiated with Google!). The functionality that was lost has not been restored.
XUL extensions were horrifically insecure and often caused terrible memory leaks that got blamed on Firefox - they also prevented proper sandboxing and multiprocess functionality from being implemented.
Although your defense of Flash and Silverlight leads me to believe you don't care much about security.
>the best outcome is for the Mozilla foundation to go bankrupt, so that maybe we can pick up the pieces.
You're delusional if you think that anything good would come of that. If that's how you feel, why wait? Go build something now.
> They did not. They fought against it until it was clear they weren't going to win the fight.
What a losing attitude. Nobody forced them to do anything. They chose it.
I would argue that Firefox is what held back DRM from becoming more common. Even if 20% of users were not supported, that was significant. Even if it was inevitable, they should have done the right thing and refused to directly support DRM at all. It's not like there was any economic pressure on them. The whole point of non profit organizations is that they can afford to be principled. That was their one job. And instead they stabbed us in the back, over some hypothetical userbase that didn't exist.
> It would not, it would have killed them overnight. 99% of the population doesn't give a shit, they just want to watch Netflix (etc.), and they'd stop using Firefox the day Netflix (etc.) stopped working. That's true even of most Linux users which is the only population that might would care whatsoever.
That is your problem. You are hyperfocused on people who don't care what browser they use, and just want to watch TV. That is a terrible strategy.
You will never ever win those people over. Ever.
I don't think it is worth ruining everything that makes you special just to be popular.
I'm so glad they didn't try to out Microsoft Microsoft in 2006.
They are completely ceding to these corporations and letting them make the rules. How can any headway be made like that?
> XUL extensions were horrifically insecure and often caused terrible memory leaks that got blamed on Firefox - they also prevented proper sandboxing and multiprocess functionality from being implemented.
The lost functionality from removing XUL has not been restored. Firefox remains less useful than it was.
Blamed? Why are you so concerned about branding?? What world are you living in?
And again, on a macro level, the UX is worse now because it is less functional. Am I supposed to care that Tree Style Tabs is gone, but at least it performs better? That's not an upgrade. Instead, effort should have been diverted to improving the existing model.
There was a lot of room for compromise that they didn't use.
> Although your defense of Flash and Silverlight leads me to believe you don't care much about security.
No, I have using sandboxing in one form or another for over a decade. Are you? Maybe Mozilla should have focused on making sandboxing more accessible.
It isn't exactly hard on Linux.
> You're delusional if you think that anything good would come of that. If that's how you feel, why wait? Go build something now.
That's exactly why I stopped with Mozilla. They are just a proxy for corporate controlled interests. And it is heartbreaking.
Every single battle, they have folded. Nearly every decision they have made has aligned with corporate interests. And then they issue a paternalistic statement saying that selling out is in our best interest.
- They embraced EME web DRM. They didn't have to. They could have taken the position that if someone wants DRM they should do it via Flash or Silverlight, or some other external means. They could have just done nothing. They didn't have to legitimize it as a concept. It would have been so powerful if they had just done nothing.
- They killed off RSS support for no good reason. The cost to maintain it would have been less than their office carpet cleaning budget. They don't see RSS as an integral part of the web. They see it as a toy, not worth including by default. And thanks to their attitude, RSS is actually becoming that way.
- They killed off XUL based extensions, and embraced a much more limited extension system (but at least it is more compatible and less differentiated with Google!). The functionality that was lost has not been restored.
The job of Mozilla was to be an EXAMPLE, more than to be popular. And they have accomplished neither.
I was with them since the start. Firefox was amazing when it was NOT compatible with Internet Explorer 6, and not trying to be! I'm so glad that they had enough faith in their own vision of the web to risk turning off less technical users. And we were all better for it.
Mozilla has failed us, and the best outcome is for the Mozilla foundation to go bankrupt, so that maybe we can pick up the pieces.