←back to thread

Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 5 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
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?
replies(8): >>22058549 #>>22058571 #>>22058616 #>>22058776 #>>22058914 #>>22059089 #>>22059615 #>>22059626 #
ameshkov ◴[15 Jan 20 21:06 UTC] No.22058571[source]▶
Nowadays, a small team is simply not enough to develop a browser and keep up with the competition. Unless you fork Chrome, of course.
replies(3): >>22058719 #>>22058790 #>>22058856 #
jahlove ◴[15 Jan 20 21:28 UTC] No.22058856[source]▶
They made $450m in revenue in 2018. What fraction of that is actually needed to keep a productive browser team afloat?
replies(2): >>22058910 #>>22059166 #
bzbarsky ◴[15 Jan 20 21:32 UTC] No.22058910[source]▶
How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be?

How big do you think the Chromium team is?

replies(3): >>22059021 #>>22059100 #>>22059397 #
coldtea ◴[15 Jan 20 21:47 UTC] No.22059100[source]▶
>How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be?

I'd say 50 or so people would be fine.

>How big do you think the Chromium team is?

Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc).

replies(2): >>22059165 #>>22059222 #
Yoric ◴[15 Jan 20 21:53 UTC] No.22059165[source]▶
> I'd say 50 or so people would be fine.

With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX.

Not nearly a browser :(

> Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc).

That sounds like a really, really vast underestimation. To the best of my recollection Chromium embedding teams inside Google that are 30+ developers (again, let's forget managers, UX researchers, etc.). I know that there are at least 4 such teams at Google.

I would be very surprised if Google didn't have at least 1000 developers working on Chromium.

replies(2): >>22059379 #>>22062650 #
1. saagarjha ◴[15 Jan 20 22:16 UTC] No.22059379[source]▶
> With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX.

Safari does those two specific things with a quarter of the number you mentioned. The entire team is nowhere near a thousand people.

replies(1): >>22059820 #
2. marcinzm ◴[15 Jan 20 23:06 UTC] No.22059820[source]▶
Safari runs on 1.5 operating systems and a limited set of hardware.
replies(2): >>22060182 #>>22060423 #
3. saagarjha ◴[15 Jan 20 23:50 UTC] No.22060182[source]▶
WebKit runs on a lot more.
4. alwillis ◴[16 Jan 20 00:25 UTC] No.22060423[source]▶
Apple is known for how small their teams are.

WebKit runs on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS across Intel and ARM architectures.

WebKit provides the web views for countless 3rd party apps, including Mail, Calendar, iTunes, etc.

Apple certainly has fewer people who get paid to write code for Safari/WebKit than Google has on Chrome/Blink. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla has more people too, especially since they’re rewriting pieces of the browser engine at the same time.

replies(1): >>22062714 #
5. saagarjha ◴[16 Jan 20 08:43 UTC] No.22062714{3}[source]▶
A number of other companies also contribute support for a variety of other platforms too. Scrolling through a platform header gives a good idea of who's adapted WebKit for their needs: https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/blob/master/Source/WTF/wtf/...