
Layoffs strike as Firefox's Mozilla reworks Asian operations - espadrine
https://www.cnet.com/news/layoffs-mozilla-taiwan-changes-firefox-work-in-asia/
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fabrice_d
About ~70 people are impacted, mostly platform engineers. That means that they
are getting rid of ~10% of their engineering, including Gecko module owners
and people with very hard to find skills. But they keep failed VPs on the
payroll.

Of course they give no explanation, because MoCo leadership is one of the
worse you can think of, with their actions in total contradiction with their
PR. They are betraying their own employees, and the Mozilla community at
large.

After spending a year claiming that they were back with a rebuilt web runtime,
they do that...

RIP Gecko

~~~
acqq
Looking who was fixing bugs in the "Core" of Firefox, there were a lot of
Chinese names. It seems that's "the Taiwan office" mentioned, and it also
seems Mozilla executives killed exactly those who improved the browser day to
day.

Nobody should believe the PR -- even with the latest "new" stuff added it's
still the "old" stuff that has to be improved as the "new" stuff is still just
the "leaves" of the whole "tree." Firefox still eats significantly more
battery than any other browser during typical browsing sessions.

~~~
pcwalton
> Nobody should believe the PR -- even with the latest "new" stuff added it's
> still the "old" stuff that has to be improved as the "new" stuff is still
> just the "leaves" of the whole "tree."

The Servo CSS style system, which was practically the headline feature of
Quantum, is about as far from the "leaves of the tree" as you can get. Claims
like yours are kind of insulting to those of us who worked really hard on it,
to be honest.

~~~
acqq
The old infrastructure is still big and it dominates that what eventually
makes the browser. Don't react with "being insulted" when there are techical
claims that are either true or not. When Firefox takes twice as much power
than other browsers all the time while displaying the whole page, it's because
Gecko works as it works. The new code is excuted on some occasions in the
"leaves" posituon of the code trace "trees" and still hasn't made Firefox less
power hungry. Any other browser is better in that regard, and that is an
actual sad state of Firefox. Sacking those who were supposed to work on such
issues is a crazy management decision.

The ladt time I've checked, Servo is a project that is not inside if the
Firefox/Gecko but only contributes some pieces to it. So what's your problem
again?

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no_protocol
I would probably really enjoy working for a company like Mozilla where the
motive/mission is Generally Good. I'm not easily motivated to go build some
silly App or Website to make money for Investors....

But seeing that they're willing to just ditch a bunch of employees scares me
away quite effectively. I'd have expected the company to have hired bright,
talented employees who could be repurposed and moved to other teams.

I guess even if you're off doing Good Stuff that isn't really a guarantee that
you will be treated as a long term investment rather than a gap plugger.

~~~
delete2
Contrary to their PR, my guess is Mozilla has trouble attracting real talent
from being non-profit and borderline irrelevant.

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mankash666
Not cool Mozilla. You have more work than employees, and typically, your
employees are of high standard. You aren't even driven by profits, or so you
claim.

Whatever new direction you're aiming for, not being able to redeploy existing
employees and letting them go is a failure on your part!

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staunch
The Mozilla board of directors should be entirely replaced as either corrupt
or incompetent.

What they have done is squandered billions and personally pocketed millions.
What they haven't done is build a functional organization or compete
effectively in the marketplace. It's a slow moving train wreck.

Mozilla is losing the war for internet freedom through gross mismanagement.

It's sad that nothing will likely change until there's a big story or book
written. Pre-order "The Mozilla Scandal" today.

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spystath
What makes me worry is that through a combination of Chrome dominance and
bizarre managerial decisions Firefox will eventually be driven to obscurity no
matter the technical prowess of its developers; and then we will be stuck with
a Webkit monoculture. Back in the days Firefox managed to make a significant
dent to the IE dominance, but this time is much more difficult to develop an
engine from scratch as the Web is ridiculously more complex than back in 2002
when Firefox initially appeared. And even then Gecko was already in
development for a longer time. However I believe that, eventually, a superior
engine will appear, maybe even Servo will be the one. But it won't matter any
more because even if that engine is better, more secure, etc., Chrome/Webkit
will still be good enough for the 99% (if not more) of users.

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voidr
Relevant videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPgyTzqDJhM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPgyTzqDJhM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMALm1VthGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMALm1VthGY)

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
People talk as if Mozilla was a true independent alternative to Google Chrome.
I often view things through the Golden Rule - " Whoever has the gold, makes
the rules." The vast majority of funding for Mozilla comes from Google. They
are already financially strapped. The chance of them doing anything
significant to upset the web that Google built as free content monetized by
tracking advertisements is practically nill.

