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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 2 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | 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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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.
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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?
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summerlight ◴[15 Jan 20 21:54 UTC] No.22059166[source]▶
Assuming that Chrome team have thousands of engineers, designers and PMs (which is a pretty reasonable number as a modern browser is comparable to OS), I expect them to spend more than a billion each year. Mozilla is really in short of resources.
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saagarjha ◴[15 Jan 20 22:13 UTC] No.22059356{3}[source]▶
Other browsers do just fine with significantly fewer engineers.
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dblohm7 ◴[15 Jan 20 22:21 UTC] No.22059436{4}[source]▶
Do they ship their own rendering engines?
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saagarjha ◴[15 Jan 20 22:23 UTC] No.22059470{5}[source]▶
Yes.
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banachtarski ◴[15 Jan 20 22:59 UTC] No.22059769{6}[source]▶
Honestly calling BS.

Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers." WebGL stack? WebRTC? Layout engine/compositor? Notifications? You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end.

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1. saagarjha ◴[15 Jan 20 23:59 UTC] No.22060257{7}[source]▶
> Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers."

But it is. You can verify it yourself: https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/commits/master/Source/JavaS...

> You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end.

https://webkit.org/team/, ⌘F "Apple". Balance the people on that list who have left or are assigned to work on something else with those who aren't listed there.

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2. The_rationalist ◴[16 Jan 20 01:04 UTC] No.22060675[source]▶
But webkit is abandonware that is rotting.