[HN Gopher] Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocac...
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       Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocacy division
        
       Author : atestu
       Score  : 87 points
       Date   : 2024-11-05 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
        
       | pjmlp wrote:
       | All they had to do was to focus on doing the best browser, and
       | email client.
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | Unfortunately in the world of OSS, neither of those are enough
         | to pay the bills unless you have a lucrative partnership (i.e.
         | Google paying to be the default search engine in Firefox, which
         | is now no longer the case).
        
           | mossTechnician wrote:
           | If Mozilla cares about their pocketbook, they could
           | reevaluate how much they are spending on their CEO and AI
           | companies. The victims of their monetary incompetence are
           | always their own employees. I'd say Mozilla is just another
           | company now, but even the average for-profit will lower the
           | CEO salary if the company underperforms.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Fully agree, that is why I usually put money on the software
           | I care about, it isn't about using stuff from others freely
           | while expecting to be paid myself.
           | 
           | However, there is the whole issue about the money that they
           | were spending on CEO salary, the related bonus, and all the
           | activities about who knows what, instead of Firefox and
           | Thunderbird.
        
       | b3ing wrote:
       | Not surprising as the CEO and board prevented the should=be-CEO
       | from having the position because that person was recovering from
       | cancer treatment.
        
         | Onavo wrote:
         | He should go start a competitor. I have a company name
         | suggestion for him, maybe he can call it "Courage", it's a very
         | cool hipster name for a browser startup.
        
       | alach11 wrote:
       | This is largely in anticipation of the devastating drop in
       | revenue if Google can no longer pay them to be the default search
       | engine. That's where they get 86% of their revenue [0].
       | 
       | [0] https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-
       | poten...
        
         | eigenspace wrote:
         | Wouldn't that affect their for-profit company arm, not the non-
         | profit Mozilla Foundation?
         | 
         | Or does the for-profit arm fund the non-profit?
        
           | riedel wrote:
           | >Revenue consists of the following: x Royalties - Mozilla
           | provides the Firefox web browser, which is a free and open-
           | source web browser initially developed by Mozilla Foundation
           | and the Corporation. Mozilla incorporates search engines of
           | its customers as a default status or an optional status
           | available in the Firefox web browser. Mozilla generally
           | receives royalties at a certain percentage of revenues earned
           | by its customers through their search engines incorporated in
           | the Firefox web browser.
           | 
           | [0] https://stateof.mozilla.org/
           | 
           | Based on the audit numbers I a bit puzzled about the reported
           | amount of staff. Maybe I am reading it completely wrong
        
         | deburo wrote:
         | > ruled that the tech giant has illegally maintained a monopoly
         | through the billions of dollars in annual payments it makes to
         | partners
         | 
         | Wow. Are they serious? that's illegal?
        
         | jowea wrote:
         | I wonder if Firefox will even survive this. Maybe the main FOSS
         | browser will be a Chromium fork so it's cheaper to maintain?
        
       | dangobanned wrote:
       | Mozilla, freeloader since start. Uses free labor and privatizes
       | profits.
       | 
       | They don't stand a chance in front of Brave and other awesome
       | browsers.
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-05 23:02 UTC)