Another unasked for and fruitless side-project from Mozilla that did nothing but burn money and distract from their core product. Who could have seen it coming?
Uninformed comment. Due to a antitrust 2025 federal court ruling in United States v. Google LLC, Google is no longer allowed to continue its current search deal with Mozilla. Any replacement will be far less lucrative. So Mozilla needs to aggressively invest in alternative income sources. Otherwise there will be a strong funding shortfall and a headcount reduction. This could spell the end of Gecko and ultimately Firefox.
It wouldn't even be "ending it", really. It'd just be making it the focus of a true FOSS project.
So long as someone still has the source code for the latest build somewhere on the internet, and that code builds into a working executable, Firefox still lives. It's all of the other crap that dies, the crap that no one asked for.
FF needs to be run like the group handling the Linux kernel or the Python Software Foundation. There's a BDFL or a trusted group handling the general direction of the project, and volunteers who give their time to develop the code. Occasionally there are sponsors who throw a few bucks the way of the volunteers so more concrete efforts can occur.
> So long as someone still has the source code for the latest build somewhere on the internet, and that code builds into a working executable, Firefox still lives.
No. Without funding, the rendering engine would quickly fall behind, and the browser would become nothing more than another Chromium reskin. I hope you like a Chrome/Safari duopoly, because that's what you are effectively advocating for.
If we can develop projects on the scale of the Linux kernel and multiple programming languages, we can likely develop Gecko in a similar manner.
It won't be as easy, but the experiment of "let's drive value creation with free and open source software!", at least how Mozilla has done it, has failed.
> ...we can likely develop Gecko in a similar manner.
We won't be able to keep up with the pace of changes Google makes to the "living standard". That was one of the intended side effects of making web browser behavior into a "living standard".
Hendrikto · · focus · HN ↗
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
kdkckekciejxj · · focus · HN ↗
lenerdenator · · focus · HN ↗
So long as someone still has the source code for the latest build somewhere on the internet, and that code builds into a working executable, Firefox still lives. It's all of the other crap that dies, the crap that no one asked for.
FF needs to be run like the group handling the Linux kernel or the Python Software Foundation. There's a BDFL or a trusted group handling the general direction of the project, and volunteers who give their time to develop the code. Occasionally there are sponsors who throw a few bucks the way of the volunteers so more concrete efforts can occur.
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
No. Without funding, the rendering engine would quickly fall behind, and the browser would become nothing more than another Chromium reskin. I hope you like a Chrome/Safari duopoly, because that's what you are effectively advocating for.
lenerdenator · · focus · HN ↗
It won't be as easy, but the experiment of "let's drive value creation with free and open source software!", at least how Mozilla has done it, has failed.
simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
We won't be able to keep up with the pace of changes Google makes to the "living standard". That was one of the intended side effects of making web browser behavior into a "living standard".