Post AdJrBFaclYiBOocZaC by fabrice@fosstodon.org
(DIR) More posts by fabrice@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #AdJbEtw9c7cO8VPVce by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-29T22:11:28.981Z
3 likes, 4 repeats
Okay, listen up:Mozilla is two different entities. The Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation. The second one? That's the social good one you really want focused on important things.The Mozilla Foundation, like all non-profits, publishes their Form 990 annually to disclose compensation. Here it is.You'll see that the top earner there, Mitchell Baker, who is very handsomely rewarded, is actually paid by the Mozilla Corporation, not the Foundation. Put another way, the non-profit is not blowing its funding on a CEO.And the corp, by the way, is what generates revenue that largely funds Firefox.The annual report of the Foundation shows a pretty healthy financial situation, and increased investment in public good projects year-over-year.I don't like everything they do either (e.g. that risible website generator), but I don't actually think they are suffering from a lack of focus. They're suffering from a mature market.
(DIR) Post #AdJbQXlTsK52qTyBE0 by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-29T22:13:34.699Z
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I too used to think Mozilla was all over the map, until I looked at these reports carefully, and had some misunderstandings explained to me. I was wrong, and I'm happy to admit it.
(DIR) Post #AdJrBDdk1015Lu42AC by MarvinFreeman@mastodon.online
2023-12-30T00:31:39Z
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@mttaggart But, if the corporation supports the foundation, and the corporation pays a crazy amount to an employee, isn't that $$ that the foundation doesn't get?
(DIR) Post #AdJrBFaclYiBOocZaC by fabrice@fosstodon.org
2023-12-30T01:04:52Z
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@MarvinFreeman @mttaggart No, because the corporation is far from being short of cash.
(DIR) Post #AdJrBHHCUkMYd9Y5aK by MarvinFreeman@mastodon.online
2023-12-30T01:05:32Z
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@fabrice @mttaggart But the corporation's cash is an asset of the foundation, right?
(DIR) Post #AdJrBJ1K0kqk2U8R72 by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T01:10:03.812Z
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@MarvinFreeman @fabrice The contention is that there's a material difference between business operations paying a (market-competitive) CEO salary, and donations to a non-profit doing so.
(DIR) Post #AdJrHEAuwFaekWRmWO by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T01:11:08.946Z
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@MarvinFreeman @fabrice Now we can have a debate about the justice of all CEO salaries, but that's a separate conversation.
(DIR) Post #AdJsEn5ykUxK8dXU2a by MarvinFreeman@mastodon.online
2023-12-30T01:20:45Z
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@mttaggart @fabrice What's the material difference?
(DIR) Post #AdJsEo7mvFztKXORV2 by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T01:21:56.101Z
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@MarvinFreeman @fabrice If I donate to Mozilla, I know my money isn't going to pay the CEO. Nor is it really funding business ops. The donation is directly funding the operation of the Foundation.
(DIR) Post #AdJsHj1gKpeyO0vcbw by MarvinFreeman@mastodon.online
2023-12-30T01:17:47Z
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@mttaggart @fabrice I think that discussion isn't needed if one believes that an organization can hire a manager to do the job at a much lower salary.
(DIR) Post #AdJsHjrnD5LMzdJEps by fabrice@fosstodon.org
2023-12-30T01:22:10Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@MarvinFreeman @mttaggart Baker founded Mozilla 25 years ago, she's not a "hired CEO" either. And she controls the board, so there is very little chances things will change (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board)
(DIR) Post #AdJsVzpudF64ZnEDdQ by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T01:25:03.523Z
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@fabrice @MarvinFreeman Now that part sucks real bad. It's never good for the CEO to also be the board chair of a non-profit. There's supposed to be a separation of powers there that is dangerous to ignore.
(DIR) Post #AdJugWeHgss798wD20 by MarvinFreeman@mastodon.online
2023-12-30T01:31:51Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@mttaggart @fabrice Hmm. Not sure I agree. I ran an NGO with an income generating arm. That income increased the budget of the NGO. When the income went down, or expenses increased, the NGO's income also went down. I don't see how they aren't interdependent. But you know more about Mozilla.(I was a very early donor to Mozilla and still have a signed t-shirt around here someplace!)
(DIR) Post #AdK6gpiRzwwbjSndpo by cyprianbeaze@hachyderm.io
2023-12-30T04:03:36Z
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@mttaggart So the Corp is a Sub of the foundation and its payments are NOT "blowing its funding ....." This is a little circular for me.🙁
(DIR) Post #AdK6gqcSdhkOXB0N8a by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T04:03:51.756Z
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@cyprianbeaze Okay.
(DIR) Post #AdK70Z7vNz0S4d7kps by Tay0@fosstodon.org
2023-12-30T04:05:34Z
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@mttaggart My beef with leadership at Mozilla, the foundation and the corp, is poor performance. A CEO at any other company or foundation with this loss of market share would have been canned years ago.#MitchellHasGotToGo
(DIR) Post #AdK70aFlCKrtZDnWgi by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T04:07:23.033Z
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@Tay0 Does the difference between a commercial product and a non-commercial one have any impact on that analysis? Put another way, is it in fact the mission of the foundation to increase the browser's market share? Maybe it is; I'm honestly asking.
(DIR) Post #AdKa2GvEwEvorZMBWq by pegdhcp@social.linux.pizza
2023-12-30T09:18:43Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@mttaggart Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering what was going on. Excessive payment to top management is a serious problem in most companies/countries. However knowing that it is isolated in the corporation and not related to the foundation is important. Thanks again.
(DIR) Post #AdKxzJemiEvzNKmdJg by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T14:01:05.554Z
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Lotta folks in these replies seem to think that 6.9M in a CEO salary, paid for entirely by the for-profit wing, is the reason Firefox is not competitive.Go actually read the [annual financial report[(assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf) and tell me again how 6.9M is the difference-maker here.I'd also just point out that wanting Mozilla to be a non-profit public good and wanting it to directly compete on equal footing with Google somewhat conflicted concepts. And for what it's worth, the Mozilla mission says nothing at all about browser market share. It's possible success for Mozilla is not what you think it is.
(DIR) Post #AdL6OmhqdytoLLs6G8 by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T15:35:20.063Z
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I got curious and went through every single State of Mozilla report available. I'm convinced the mission Mozilla is openly espousing is not what most people seem to think it is.For one thing, nowhere is there any discussion of being competitive with other browsers. Only in the 2019 report is "increasing browser impact" even mentioned, and there it was in regard to Firefox for Android.Like, I want Firefox to exist. I'm super glad it does. But the idea that this organization, at any reasonable scale, can fight for market share with the Goog or Microsoft is not only unrealistic, it is separate from Mozilla's stated mission.They want to influence open web standards and make sure there is an open alternative. There is! We can have reasonable debates about focus for the org. This year's State of Mozilla is an AI-riddled dumpster fire, for example. I'm really worried about that seemingly myopic change in stated goals. But we gotta do so on the actual mission, not the imagined one.
(DIR) Post #AdL72oDWRhP0c2lvZw by AAKL@noc.social
2023-12-30T15:41:37Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@mttaggart Fascinating insight.
(DIR) Post #AdLF8EeMOaodfqQKVU by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:04:55Z
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@mttaggart It may be that the mission statement doesn't say anything about making the best possible open browser alternative. But then we should not ask "Is Mozilla fulfilling the goals of the actual mission statement?", but rather, "Why on earth is making Firefox as good as possible not part of the mission statement?".It happens more and more often that I need to switch to chromium/chrome for a particular task. Mozilla fired at least 250 Firefox devs for "financial reasons".1/x
(DIR) Post #AdLF8P9vK60OGdGg5o by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:07:53Z
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@mttaggart Actually, my other points aren't as interesting, so I'm ending this reply early. I'm just sad that Mozilla all but abandons Firefox and focuses on AI.
(DIR) Post #AdLF8TMThMQNIjAlDU by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T17:13:10.150Z
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@maltimore I'm sad about that too.You know, the mission does speak to making a good alternative browser. It just says nothing about market share. That's the distinction I'm making, and why I am so confused why folks get mad that Mozilla "lost" to Chrome/Edge/Safari when...maybe they weren't playing the same game?It's like Mastodon/Fedi. Everyone on here will tell you it's not supposed to compete with X/Threads/whatever. That it doesn't need to scale. It just need to exist as an open alternative; that's the success.Okay, if that's true, why does Firefox not get the same success criteria?
(DIR) Post #AdLI5J8xX3GObW21ya by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:22:40Z
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@mttaggart It's a fair enough distinction, but I think there are some arguments actually:Mozilla can only fulfill its mission of providing an open alternative browser and establishing open internet standards if it makes sure FF and other alternatives retain significant market share. Otherwise Google will just adhere to their own protocols for Chrome more than they already do and make FF etc obsolete (i.e. *not* a real alternative), because FF etc just won't work with most websites.1/x
(DIR) Post #AdLI5K5S1a3FWvOk9A by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:25:10Z
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@mttaggart Also, for Mozilla, retaining FF market share is vital for their survival because one of their main sources of income, if not *the* main source, is from search engine providers. They get paid for having a particular search engine be the default. Without market share, that source of income is gone.2/x
(DIR) Post #AdLI5KuUxmsu5FHViK by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:29:07Z
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@mttaggart Losing FF market share for Mozilla starts a downward spiral, where they get less income due to losing market share, which causes them to fire FF developers, which makes FF fall further behind and lose even more market share.3/x
(DIR) Post #AdLI5Lfe8UbARTLACe by maltimore@social.tchncs.de
2023-12-30T17:34:17Z
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@mttaggart Regarding why we don't care so much about market share for the fediverse: first of all, we kind of do, right? The utopic vision would be to have everyone on some kind of open source website that federates via ActivityPub.Other than that: the fediverse is *not* subject to the same vicious cycle I sketched above. The fediverse software doesn't automatically get worse if the proprietary competitors get more dominant. As long as the Fediverse sticks to ActivityPub, we're fine.4/4
(DIR) Post #AdLI5MGVvQ5aHoabfU by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-30T17:46:15.215Z
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@maltimore Define "significant market share." A look at the financial reports I linked demonstrates a healthy cash flow. So, I'm not certain where we're getting the idea that Mozilla is about to fold unless it grows. Unless you actually want to compete at the Google/Microsoft scale, at which point, you're not talking about a structure that looks anything like a public benefit corp.This focus on market share also presupposes that the only way open standards are maintained and advocated is via the browser. This is not the case, as every one of these reports will tell you. Partnering with standards orgs, and even working with Google, etc., is part of how Mozilla fulfills its mission.The layoffs you cite were in 2020 and caused in part by the economic impact of the pandemic. Do note that Mozilla did not participate in the latest round of layoffs other big tech companies did, in the midst of a fairly excellent economy.As far as Fedi goes, it would be silly to imagine there's one single utopic vision of what it is or should be. Plainly though, success for a good portion of it has nothing to do with growth. But if you like, we can use Linux instead. Need desktop Linux compete with Windows and macOS to be successful? Or does it simply have to exist as an open alternative to be successful?
(DIR) Post #AdLKOFpEIEilitxvDU by ErictheCerise@kolektiva.social
2023-12-30T17:35:57Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@mttaggartGood clarification.I still have gripes, but this helps.@sollat
(DIR) Post #AdN408n5aNlA0PMdMm by Ash_Crow@mastodon.social
2023-12-31T14:04:03Z
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@mttaggart "Like, I want Firefox to exist. I'm super glad it does. But the idea that this organization, at any reasonable scale, can fight for market share with the Goog or Microsoft is not only unrealistic" Why? Firefox used to have about 25% market share, on par with Chrome at the time and only a bit below Microsoft.
(DIR) Post #AdN409rjab4NL6XrFI by mttaggart@infosec.town
2023-12-31T14:17:50.401Z
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@Ash_Crow That's a mischaracterization of history.What actually happened is that Firefox ate a bunch of Internet Explorer's market share because it was objectively a better browser. Then Chrome came a long and, in an era when application speed was still easy to "feel," blew Firefox's performance out of the water. People switched because there was no reason not to. It was an elastic market, without vendor lock-in. Then what did Google do? They did everything in their power to establish that Chrome was the browser. The word became synonymous with web browsing for many people.It's only Edge's default-in-Windows status that gives it an...edge...in the fight. Firefox lost mindshare and marketshare outside of tech enthusiast circles. You know what people hate? Losers. It is nigh impossible to come back from a fall like this. It would require some insane misstep on Google's part. The adblocker thing is bad, but I suspect not the mover that tech enthusiasts think it will be. Most non-tech savvy users experience an internet with ads. They don't know it gets better, so they won't notice when Chrome removes that option from them.Anyway, _that's_ why. The history matters.