Mozilla Say Google Search Deal Vital to Firefox's Survival
Mozilla Say Google Search Deal Vital to Firefox's Survival

Mozilla Say Google Search Deal Vital to Firefox's Survival

Mozilla Say Google Search Deal Vital to Firefox's Survival
Mozilla Say Google Search Deal Vital to Firefox's Survival
The CEO is begging for Google to be kept alive. What a joke. How can we take Mozilla seriously when it's being led by such a person. It's like VW praying the Nazis to win so that they don't lose funding.
And here we see the self-Godwin in the wild. Masterful play, sir.
Neither the CFO nor CEO are saying that Google ought to be not broken up. They are saying that Mozilla existentially depends on Google. This is actually more of a central point in the lawsuit than you think; in the original complaint, part 6 of the background is about revenue-sharing agreements (RSAs) between Google and various other companies who would normally compete in search, browsers, and other venues. That is, nobody is disputing that:
Today, Google has RSAs with nearly every significant non-Google browser (other than those distributed by Microsoft) including Mozilla's Firefox, Opera, and UCWeb. These agreements generally require the browsers to make Google the preset default general search engine for each search access point on both their Web and mobile versions.
If Mozilla did want to petition the court, then they are welcome to file as amici, but they haven't! Nor have any court filings included a reference to the CFO's testimony so far, although to be fair the testimony isn't yet available to read. There is no evidence that Mozilla will stand in the way of whatever the court decides to do with Google. Rather, in their post, the CEO is asking lawmakers to figure out some way to ensure that the browser market remains competitive:
Mozilla calls on regulators and policymakers to recognize the vital role of independent browsers and take action to nurture competition, innovation, and protect the public interest in the evolving digital landscape.
Courts aren't regulators or policymakers. The complaint before the court is not the same as the underlying principles of antitrust which motivated the complaint. A request to improve the future is not the same as a request to forestall the present.
I need Firefox to survive till ladybird is ready to use.
Nah, it's vital for the CEO's pay. Firefox can survive on its just fine. Perhaps even better.
I agree that the executive pay is ridiculously high, but Mozilla does a lot more than fund Firefox. Off the top of my head, there's contribute to research and standards (occasionally standing up to Google and Apple), run MDN and similar sites, lobby for user-friendly regulations, fund other projects (maybe that's in the past?), and advocate without corporate bias.
I know there's a Mozilla foundation and a Mozilla corporatilla foundation and a Mozilla corporation and I'm not clear which one does what tbh.
From what I hear about the Firefox code base, I think the best thing we can hope for is at Firefox manages to hold on until one of the new browser engines is mature enough to take over.
The pay isn't the only problem, it's not even the main problem. The problem is that Google money comes with strings attached. There's obvious corruption in the Mozilla corporation. Just as an example, Firefox was at the forefront of implementing PWA, before everyone else, before it was called PWA even. Google's money started really pouring in, and they dropped it. Then they kept axing features and not listening to their community, stopped doing research in things that users cared about and went off on tangents no one wanted (and are still doing that with AI). Mozilla kept losing market share at the same rate C-suite bonuses climbed.
Google's money is a cancer that needs to be excised. Mozilla can still go back to being the amazing company it was before, but only if that money is gone.
I'm glad when the google money goes away. I like using firefox but mozilla needs to get off their money addiction.
But it will almost certainly result in reduced browser competition, handing more market share over to the likes of, er, Google, Apple, Microsoft and OpenAI, if they’re able to buy Google Chrome — companies with questionable interest in furthering the “open web” Mozilla fights for.
I missed this one go by:
Oh no! Anyway.gif