Mozilla Foundation Lays Off 30% Staff, Drops Advocacy Division (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0175410395
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/11/05/2039228/mozilla-foundation-lays-off-30-staff-drops-advocacy-division
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/05/mozilla-foundation-lays-off-30-staff-drops-advocacy-division/
> The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has [1]laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a "relentless onslaught of change." When reached by TechCrunch, Mozilla Foundation's communications chief Brandon Borrman confirmed the layoffs in an email. "The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward," read the statement shared with TechCrunch.
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> According to its annual tax filings, the Mozilla Foundation [2]reported having 60 employees during the 2022 tax year. The number of employees at the time of the layoffs was closer to 120 people, according to a person with knowledge. When asked by TechCrunch, Mozilla's spokesperson did not dispute the figure. This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of employees who work on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser. [...] Announcing the layoffs in an email to all employees on October 30, the Mozilla Foundation's executive director Nabiha Syed confirmed that two of the foundation's major divisions -- [3]advocacy and [4]global programs -- are "no longer a part of our structure." The move, according to Syed, is in part to produce a "unified, powerful narrative from the Foundation," including revamping the foundation's strategic communications.
"Our mission at Mozilla is more high-stakes than ever," said Syed. "We find ourselves in a relentless onslaught of change in the technology (and broader) world, and the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical."
"Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus -- and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won't get us to the next peak. Lofty goals demand hard choices."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/05/mozilla-foundation-lays-off-30-staff-drops-advocacy-division/
[2] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200097189
[3] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-welcomes-ashley-boyd-vp-of-advocacy/
[4] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/welcoming-j-bob-alotta-mozilla-foundations-new-vp-global-programs/
LOL well finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally a bit of sense
Advocacy and Global ...
Right really excellent software speaks for itself. Mozilla would be in a much better place today if they had stayed on mission and focused on raising money to write best of breed web software, from user-agents to services and server and a lot of the script and application framework in between.
Instead they forgot they were a technology group and decided to do politics and social issues. Congrats on massive market share losses, and increasing wide technical gulf between the only really free browser engine and its corporate controlled competitors.. bravo...
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Firefox was leapfrogged technology-wise by Google all the way back in 2008. They've been falling behind ever since. Not surprising considering the resources Google has.
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Google's always been much better than Mozilla at spyware and disabling useful extensions.
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> Not surprising considering the resources Google has.
In 2013, Mozilla was using its resources to [1]sponsor a surfing contest in Hawaii [mozilla.org].
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/live-what-you-love-mozilla-firefox-the-vans-triple-crown-of-surfing/
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Doesn't have to have the best tech. Just the tech that people want.
Make it fast, on all platforms
Make it secure
Give it sensible defaults but make it configurable (and extendable)
It does NOT have to be and look like Chrome
There is probably one or two more things that could be added, but I am sure if they managed to get that right, the numbers would speak for themselves.
Thunderbird, on the other hand. This has plenty of opportunities. A better Exchange/x365 client than Outlook, that would be great. Also, coul
Re:LOL well finally (Score:5, Informative)
"Advocacy" has become a dirty word to a lot of people lately, but it can be important.
Mozilla has advocated for:
- Free and open web standards
- Rejection of the Microsoft monopoly of the web browser.
- Rejection of the Google monopoly of the web browser.
- Privacy by default when using the web.
- Preventing the tracking and monitoring of people as they use the web.
- No DRM support (or at least minimal) built into the browser.
- True user control over their browser: user scripts an styles, extensions unfettered by competing corporate interests, open source, etc.
No doubt there's more I'm not coming up with off-hand. You might disagree with some of their positions, but most of these are innately important goals if you want a healthy Internet. They complement, not replace, creating "excellent software".
Re:LOL well finally (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that is true; however a quick look at the linked bio's makes it abundantly clear those were not the topic they advocacy group was really focused on.
They might have also spend their time pushing those things but they were not the passion projects. They should have been sure, but we know they werent. If they were they would have hired someone like RMS, or Bruce Schneier, or someone else with a history in the Open Source or Privacy movements.
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If they were they would have hired someone like RMS, or Bruce Schneier, or someone else with a history in the Open Source or Privacy movements.
Good point.
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> "however a quick look at the linked bio's makes it abundantly clear those were not the topic they advocacy group was really focused on."
^^^ This
It seems they were more interested in social stuff and "equity" nonsense than in pushing for diversity in browers, which is what we really need/needed. I say "seems" because that was quite visible. I don't know what resources were really spent on what.
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These are all good things. EFF and FSF and government antitrust departments do some of these things. None of these things result in an open source browser that is not incentivized to spy on people and that is all avid FF users want.
Still too glib (Score:2)
Too early to say they're gonna focus on software. Sounds like business talk to me. But, credit for the correct inkling of direction.
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This has nothing to do with Mozilla.
FWIW I voted today in PA and it was a very smooth procedure. It helped that it was a short ballot form, with no judges and local county officials on it (unlike what I was used to from being in MN for the past decade.)
Getting back on topic I hope they have fired the people that want to mess with the UI every few weeks instead of just fixing the bugs.
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"Voting tabulator machines in Michigan and Pennsylvania are reporting errors, with many being down. Local officials are telling voters that theyâ(TM)ll scan their ballots for them later in the evening" Could it be the voting machines are being used to cheat?
No, dumbass. What they're doing in PA is sequestering all the ballots in locked, tamper-proof boxes. Once the machines are running they will, with witnesses present, scan all the ballots to get their final tabulations.
Everything is a g
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yeah; just so happens to be in reliably red counties. VA just identified 1600 non-citizens on the voter roles. Home land security literally is refusing to tell Iowa about the non-citizens it knows are likely registered there.
Many of these elections DO come down to hundreds of votes or less. We have tons of evidence of online vote swapping ( a crime ) entire exchanges are setup to do it.
A quick google will find you plenty of evidence that people move accross state lines, fail to update their registrations
Interface Destruction Team (Score:3)
Who keeps making usability more difficult?
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> "Who keeps making usability more difficult?"
And, yet, it isn't any worse than the only other significant multi-platform browser, Chrom*. The problem was copying what the competition did instead of sticking to their long-held principles.
[Not directed to the poster] I get tired of people saying they are switching away from Firefox because of UI, when what they are switching TO is (IMHO) considerably worse, or at minimum very similar in that regard.... And in the process of doing so, they throw away priv
"increase agility" (Score:2)
Whenever a company wants to "increase agility" (or the equivalent), what it really means is "we're screwed, we need to lay off a bunch of people because we can't afford to keep them".
They lost the mobile market (Score:2)
Only 0.5% of mobile users are on Firefox, and I am not one of them because they refuse to fix a major bug despite promising to fix it in a Firefox AMA. I actually did buy a Firefox phone at one point yet they abandoned that market too. Meanwhile desktop Firefox's only feature left of note is ublock support, once alternative browsers like Zen and Floorp take off there will be no reason to use Firefox just like Seamonkey got abandoned. Mozilla drunk too much Google Koolaid and now is dealing with the conseque
Re:They lost the mobile market (Score:5, Insightful)
> Meanwhile desktop Firefox's only feature left of note is ublock support, ...
I disagree. Firefox's cookie management is head and shoulders above that of every other web browser.
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I'm afraid to agree, people really don't see the problems with Chrome and Edge.
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The mobile Firefox browser works for me but I hardly ever use it.
But I sure hope they continue supporting it because it is the basis for the DuckDuckGo browser that I prefer.
I'll be damned to use Chrome or Edge, there is already enough spying on an Android phone.
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Making and maintaining a secure performant web browser is a major investment. Oodles bigger than making say an entire desktop environment. I would want to see pledged support from some large organizations that could really keep up with patches. People do banking and shit online, yo.
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> "Meanwhile desktop Firefox's only feature left of note is ublock support"
Strongly disagree.
* Firefox is more permissive with addons (what you already mentioned, indirectly; but it is more than just uBlock Origin).
* Firefox is more configurable through about:config
* Firefox is more customizable with userChrome
* Firefox has better privacy
* Firefox has better cookie management options
* Some would argue it has a smaller memory footprint
I am sure I missed some. And that is while being at least as secure and
They need to get a clue (Score:1)
What they need right now is a department of "Manifest v3 sucks, we block ads better" aka marketing. All of their remaining money should be dumped into marketing this! The time to strike is NOW. I'm dailying Firefox, always have been, and I'm starting to see sites not compatible with it. I am not letting Google get a monopoly on basically the internet itself.
There we go: (Score:5, Interesting)
> [...] the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical.
Oops. Somebody said the quiet part out loud. This should just be stamped on all our foreheads at birth at this point. It seems to be the focus of our entire species now.
Greed is God. Profit before all.
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Well, that seems like a false choice. Putting "people before profit" doesn't mean they have to spread out into all sorts of other time-and-energy-wasting channels. Focussing on Firefox and Thunderbird might be the best "people before profit" thing they can do.
Mozilla's always seemed like it was afflicted with a weird corporate manifestation of [1]Zawinsky's Law [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law
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Zawinsky's Law always makes me think of Emacs. It can be a good editor. It's also a toaster, a coffee maker, and a breakfast cereal.
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If you make a browser you’re just a geek.
If you advocate for global change you’re a thought leader or something. I assume it gets more chicks than improving your JavaScript VM benchmark performance. More cocktail parties and less thinking anyway.
Re:There we go: (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago, Google started paying Mozilla a lot of money to be the default search in Firefox. The amount has gradually increased over the years and I think it it somewhere around $450 Million a year at this point. The total amount that Google has paid to Mozilla over the years has to be at least $3 Billion, if not more. Essentially, this is anti-trust insurance. If Mozilla goes out of business and there is only one browser, Google will face a lot of scrutiny.
And what has Mozilla done with all that money? Fancy offices in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the country, lots of pointless bullshit ("advocacy" and "global programs") and not much else. Meanwhile, the Thunderbird e-mail client is reduced to begging for money from the public because Mozilla's brain-dead management can't be bothered to throw them a few dollars.
Dear Mozilla,
Fuck you.
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Good summary. Imagine getting $3B from your main competitor and then crying like you're the victim.
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I wonder what the CEO's salary is. In non-profits, all the employees get screwed because "we don't have the money" but the people at the top are always exempt, and almost always are the cause of most of the problems.
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> I wonder what the CEO's salary is. In non-profits, all the employees get screwed because "we don't have the money" but the people at the top are always exempt, and almost always are the cause of most of the problems.
Typically, non-profits run on the same premise as any other business, just that at the end of the year, anything left over goes right to the C-Suite bonus pool so as not to leave any pesky profits laying around for the auditors to find.
Hindsight is 20/20 but... (Score:2)
Money is social status. It's social power. And political power. But for most, it is the only means of acquiring the basic necessities for survival.
We have made a pretty F'd up system for ourselves.