Mozilla Firefox – Official GitHub repo

Would have been great if they used an European alternative ( like Codeberg ).

Mozilla is US organization, why would they care to?

lol codeberg is down right now, bad timing

As for European specifically, maybe the commenter was talking about data protection laws. If not, maybe (in many European countries at the moment) less national or business background of ruthlessness.

I was thinking something different: I wonder whether Mozilla considered GitLab or Codeberg, which are the other two I know that are popular with open source projects that don't trust GitHub since it sold out to Microsoft.

(FWIW, Microsoft has been relatively gentle or subtle with GitHub, for whatever reason. Though presumably MS will backstab eventually. And you can debate whether that's already started, such as with pushing "AI" that launders open source software copyrights, and offering to indemnify users for violations. But I'd guess that a project would be pragmatically fine at least near term going with GitHub, though they're not setting a great example.)

I've used Codeberg for some projects and while their work and services are impressive and their progress steady and good, it's really not a proper alternative to Github for many use-cases.

"It depends", as always, but codeberg lacks features (that your use-case may not need, or may require), uptime/performance (that may be crucial or inconsequential to your use-case), familiarity (that may deter devs), integration (that may be time-consuming to build yourself or be unnessecary for your case) etc etc.

Given the Mozilla direction lately, the last thing they want is good data protection laws.

This is a huge exaggeration, borderline dishonest attack.

Time will tell. I would love to be wrong.

You didn't even provide any actual context making it impossible to argue with you. HN should have better conversations than shallow dismissals (according to the guidelines).

I sorta agree with this comment, but would rephrase that to "unclear what direction is being referred to".

(Arguing may come next, but first comes communicating.)

You are completely correct, my comment was shallow and that was my fault.

Here is my opinion on Mozilla and their direction: in the previous decade (or a little bit more) or so their primary money bringer was Google, paying for the default search engine placement in Firefox. Annually, that brought about half a billion US (I don't have the exact amounts, but let's assume in that decade they should have earned a few billions).

At the same time, Firefox continuously lost market share and with that, the power to steer the web in the direction of privacy (1) and open standards (2).

(1) instead, they've acquired Anonym, an ad business which touts itself to be interested in user's privacy. color me sceptic on that one.

(2) it's all Chrome and iOS. Firefox is a lagard.

So, what has Mozilla done with the billions? Have they invested it in Firefox? MDN perhaps? Are they the web champions they have been in 2010s?

You can still argue that these points are shallow. My original comment was motivated by my disappointment in Mozilla's lost opportunity to be a fighter for an open web. Instead they have sold their soul to the highest (and only) bidder.

> color me sceptic on that one.

This is fair but not sufficient to declare "the last thing they want is good data protection laws".

> it's all Chrome and iOS.

> So, what has Mozilla done with the billions?

This is also fair but has nothing to do with the data protection laws.

> Instead they have sold their soul to the highest (and only) bidder.

It seems they can't continue doing this, given the ongoing legal actions against Google. So let's see.

> This is fair but...

> This is also fair but...

Ok, so we can agree that my assesment is fair, but it remains to be seen how the data protection story pans out.

>> Instead they have sold their soul to the highest (and only) bidder.

> It seems they can't continue doing this, given the ongoing legal actions against Google. So let's see.

Just to be clear: I think that Mozilla should have taken that money (and possibly more) and *invest* in Firefox and build a rainy day fund (which are coming soon). Instead, they spent it on whatevers and done a layoff.

> Ok, so we can agree that my assesment is fair

My point is that your assessment is largely irrelevant to your original message about the data protection. It doesn't really support it.

Right. Time will tell.