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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 1 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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jahlove ◴[15 Jan 20 20:56 UTC] No.22058463[source]▶
I don't understand Mozilla. How did the go from a lightweight Mozilla Browser alternative to a company that spends $450m annually and dedicates $43m just for future endeavors? Why couldn't they just focus on making the best browser possible with a small dedicated team?
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jen20 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:05 UTC] No.22058549[source]▶
Would you cut, say, Rust?
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echelon ◴[15 Jan 20 21:15 UTC] No.22058675[source]▶
Rust is perhaps the best thing to come out of any corporation in years. Protobuf, Envoy, Kubernetes, ... -- I struggle to think of anything better for our industry than Rust.
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throwaway17_17 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:26 UTC] No.22058836[source]▶
You could feel that Rust as a programming language is the greatest thing to ever happen to computer science, the big question for a corporation’s C-suite is can it make money. I’d assume (perfect possible that I’m wrong) that Rust does nothing but cost money for Mozilla. This is not to say I think it will be cancelled or force to expatriate and become a separate legal entity, but management is beholden to shareholders, not the tech community at large.

And yes I know that Rust does receive some corporate funding from other entities, but it is still a Mozilla product.

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1. epage ◴[15 Jan 20 22:01 UTC] No.22059249{3}[source]▶
I'd go the opposite and say that Rust is a competitive edge for Firefox to beat other browsers, architecturally. There were things they tried and failed many times to do to improve Firefox's performance and it wasn't until Rust that they were achievable.