I just saw a post complaining about the Mozilla layoffs.
I wanted to point out that the vast majority of their income (over 85% in 2022) is from having Google as the default search engine - Ironically, the anti monopoly lawsuit against Google will end this.
Expect things to get worse.
Please don’t assume it was just a cruel choice.
Where should they be “taking” funding instead?
ideally donations like lots of other FOSS projects
Serious question, is there actually a FOSS project out there at the scale of something like Firefox that survives on only donations?
No because people choose diss cause it’s free. I mean they might say other things but then the vast majority do not donate to anything. People are cheap and that’s why we are where we are with all the ads.
Feels kind of weird, if thats the case how did Linux come as far as it is today?
I don’t know. Crowdfunding? How does Thunderbird keep it self afloat? Maybe better integration of the community as in more say in what will be developed depending on how much money you donate etc.
That’s exactly the worst way to prioritize. Money should not be influence. That always works out worse in every example in the history of everything.
But thats exactly how they work currently? Google is the default search engine in firefox.
So it’s the default. Big deal. You can change that when you start the app first time. If that gets them funding that’s not a horrible price to pay. Also, that’s not money getting influence exactly, that’s a transaction. “We will pay $x to get this status.” Not the same at all as “I donated lots of money therefore I get to say how you develop the software.”
I haven’t seen the contract between google and firefox.
Maybe “how you develop the software” is a bit far-fetched, I was more thinking about decide where to put efforts into e.g.: continue developing Firefox’s core mechanic of being a privacy oriented webbrowser instead of… whatever they are doing with the funding they get.