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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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sstangl ◴[15 Jan 20 23:42 UTC] No.22060115[source]▶
I'm one of the 70. There were no signs that this was imminent, although Mozilla has been struggling financially for many years. I expected that it would happen eventually; I'm relatively well-prepared for it; and it's not too shocking. I did however expect that there would be some warning signs in the lead-up, but that was not the case.

I was working on Cranelift, the WebAssembly compiler that is also a plausible future backend for Rust debug mode. Before that, I worked on the SpiderMonkey JITs for 9 years. If anyone has need for a senior compiler engineer with 10 years of experience writing fast, parallel code, please do let me know.

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_kp6z ◴[16 Jan 20 00:22 UTC] No.22060406[source]▶
Sounds like a pretty clueless layoff, I guess I expected better from Mozilla than usual corporate derp. If there was truly no dead weight, surely the management could have scaled back their own comp for misdirecting the company? Very few people understand what it means to be a leader in corporate world.
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ksec ◴[16 Jan 20 04:13 UTC] No.22061633[source]▶
> for misdirecting the company?

As someone who has been using Netscape before even Internet Explorer exists, and followed all of its development through to Firefox till recent few years. I am not surprised.

At first you give them benefits of doubt, because their ideal were good. Then it happened again, again, and again.

>Mozilla Corporation (as opposed to the much smaller Mozilla Foundation) said it had about 1,000 employees worldwide.

Yes, you do need lots of people for making something as complex as browser, But 1000? Out of the 70 employees, they decided to lay off more than a few senior engineers with a decade of experience.

I dont know if this will change HN's perspective on Firefox and Mozilla. Every time I pointed something negative on Mozilla there are someone quick to defend it. As someone who used to religiously defend Netscape and Mozilla when I was much younger. I get it. I could understand the appeal, the ideal. Until you grow older and realise, You didn't have that ideal, the ideal had you.

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pergadad ◴[16 Jan 20 05:01 UTC] No.22061789[source]▶
What's the alternative? Google? Not really better even if this disappoints about Mozilla.
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qbaqbaqba ◴[16 Jan 20 06:28 UTC] No.22062143[source]▶
Edge or Brave. Different business models than Google's and to some extent Mozilla's.
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m3adow ◴[16 Jan 20 06:58 UTC] No.22062228[source]▶
Still 100% depending on Google, still supporting a near monopolistic position for the browser. Every Chromium fork is part of the problem, not the solution.
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BrendanEich ◴[16 Jan 20 07:34 UTC] No.22062377[source]▶
Engine consolidation happened, the fight now is over privacy. When and if Brave is big enough we will chart our own engine course.
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m3adow ◴[16 Jan 20 12:34 UTC] No.22063895[source]▶
To stay in the martialistic metaphor: In this fight you merely wield the weapons your opponent forges for you. If Google decides to dull your edge in the fight for privacy, you have little influence to sharpen it again.

The only reason you are even able to fight this battle is because of the existance of Firefox. All of the Chrome based browsers are toothless tigers without Mozilla.

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1. BrendanEich ◴[16 Jan 20 16:28 UTC] No.22066042{7}[source]▶
On engine futures, slow forking works, that is how chromium/Blink emerged from from WebKit. New engines taking lots of capital may happen, probably when there is a massive Bell’s Law device class shift. To argue for others without deep pockets dying on the last war’s hill is to wish those others ill (whether you mean it or not). Users deserve better browsers, and the big user value fight is truly a level up from the engine.