post-Eich, Mozilla still has no CEO. Now what?

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in internet on (#3P1)
story imageMozilla's proposed CEO, Eich, departed due to his support of an anti-gay marriage proposition in California. But since then, nothing has changed, and Mozilla is desperately in need of some leadership at a time when its $300M/year deal with Google is coming to an end (Dec 2014, to be precise). Writes Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols:
Today, months later, under the temporary leadership of acting CEO Chris Beard, Mozilla doesn't appear to be any closer to finding a new CEO.

In a June 3 blog posting, Surman wrote that one of the things on the top of his mind is "Finding the right balance between clear goals, working across teams and distributed leadership. If I'm honest, we've struggled with these things at [Mozilla] for the last 18 months or so. Our recent all hands in San Francisco felt like a breakthrough: focused, problem-solving, fast moving." How this will translate into true leadership remains an unanswered question.
What next for embattled Mozilla? And how to prevent the once mighty browser-giant from becoming the next Netscape?
Reply 20 comments

They Could Produce Some Good Software (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-17 22:00 (#253)

You know, for a nice change of pace. Firefox has turned into everything they SAID they hated about the Netscape suite - bloated and creaky and unstable. (Fittingly, the Seamonkey suite sings by comparison).

They abandoned Thunderbird (more or less).

They wasted resources on yet another mobile phone platform, their own. Meanwhile their Android Firefox sucks eggs and can't render properly.

They've done nothing but chase Google's money for years and years. I don't care who their CEO is. Their choice of a bigot was just the latest bad decision from an org with no soul.

Re: They Could Produce Some Good Software (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-06-17 22:20 (#254)

The new Firefox OS is actually pretty neat, development wise. Instead of having to learn custom languages and tool kits, they use standards-based web technologies. Anyone familiar with current web development will immediately go: "Hey, I know this!" when looking at how to make an app for their new phone. Or, at least that's how I felt when I thumbed through it.

Re: They Could Produce Some Good Software (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-20 11:51 (#272)

Wasn't that what WebOS was supposed to be? Wasn't that what iOS 1.0 was supposed to be?

Will no one learn this lesson without repeating the same mistakes first? Or is it Different This Time?

Re: They Could Produce Some Good Software (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-21 03:55 (#27G)

Thanks AC. I meant to pick up on that eerie coincidence myself.

misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-17 23:20 (#255)

Just to be clear, he was anti-gay-marriage , not anti-gay . there is a huge, ignorant, difference.

Pipedot will do the community no service propagating slanted or cherry-picked facts; Particularly when slandering a living persons name...

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 3, Funny)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-17 23:27 (#257)

Easy there, A.C. The issue is sloppy editing by yours truly, not cherry picking of facts. I've fixed the summary and will flog myself as penitence for not being more accurate.

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 01:15 (#25B)

pardon the tone, no personal attack was intended.

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 09:40 (#25F)

No worries - and you were absolutely right to correct my error.

Incidentally, your post seems to have disappeared, or at least I can't see it. Can you now delete your own, previous posts? I'll have to check into that.

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 2, Informative)

by lhsi@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 15:01 (#25Q)

There is a slider for "hide". You can move it to show or hide comments of a certain rating (move it down to -1 to see top level comment)

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 19:56 (#25T)

Ah yes, I see it - never used it before. Thanks. How useful!

Re: misleading article commentary....'anti-gay' (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-22 23:33 (#27X)

You can't oppose equal rights for certain minorities and not be "anti-[minority]".

If someone thinks black people should have separate water fountains, do you think they can still not be considered a bigot?

Overstating the Google Reliance? (Score: 1)

by hawkwind@pipedot.org on 2014-06-17 23:35 (#258)

Would've been great if the author had spent some more time on the Google money issue. Google has been very happy to be the default browser on Firefox. If Google no longer wants this, then what kind of money could Firefox get from MS/Bing? Is there some other alternative? It's been a while since I've seen an analysis of this issue but I've never seen it presented as an all or nothing scenario like in this article.

Where has the money gone? (Score: 1)

by marqueeblink@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 01:04 (#25A)

I realize that hosting a web site that serves millions of hefty downloads costs money, but I would think it could be done for far less than $300 million/yr. What has FF been doing with the rest of Google's money?

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 1)

by genx@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 03:40 (#25D)

For example, you may search photos of their new office in Paris. An 18th century mansion with golden walls et ceilings. Over 1000 m² in center of Paris for 20 employees...

That is free software 2014. Free software 2014 makes me sick.

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 09:44 (#25G)

Are they potentially hiring tons of coders to improve the software? I understand they've largely fixed the memory leaks problem. I don't happen to use Firefox - I prefer Opera (and am one of the few who do, apparently). What they have not fixed however is the plugin architecture where each time you upgrade the browser you have to worry about even your themes no longer working. That's highly annoying and at least one area where Chrome is doing better work.

Their big problem is that you can't just throw money at a problem - you need vision, inspiration, and good, qualified people. It's obvious they're just aping Chrome at the moment, and it's pathetic. How about innovating and making a better browser? How about diversifying your revenue stream from just sucking at Google's tit via default search? If I were on the Board of Directors, I'd be shaking management's cage - they're swimming dangerously close to the edge of extinction, which is pathetic considering how truly awful IE10 is. If Google eats Firefox's lunch, it's a bad day for all of us, simply because competition over the past decade has led to some remarkable improvements in browsing.

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 13:49 (#25N)

Actually Chrome has been making use of Firefox's own usability research ahead of firefox.

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 2)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 20:04 (#25W)

I wasn't aware they were even doing any useability research. That's frightening, actually, to know they're making an effort and still not getting it right.

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 20:16 (#25Y)

That "field" was shown to be crap the first time some genius decided to eliminate pull down menus. Office and e-mail and now OSes have been turning into "poke every pixel on screen and hope something happens" monstrosities ever since. I don't know how anyone can even stand to use GMail or whatever they call Hotmail now (Outlook.com). (GMail came up as "FMaul" on my phone.)

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 2)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 14:45 (#25P)

Unfortunately that's baloney -- the memory problem, if anything, has gotten worse again lately. A dozen tabs or two open up for a few days and you've got TROUBLE.

Since cleaning up the original code and then crapping on the suite, the Mozilla Foundation has accomplished so little over a decade that it's scary. They're good at taking money though.

But, when they work, their browsers and plugins are still a better experience than Chrome/Chromium.

Oh, also, Google DID each their lunch already as far as I can tell. Pretty much everyone is using Chrome (and cool stuff like WebRTC works on Chrome best and first), while only aging geeks even care a whit about Mozilla any more.

Re: Where has the money gone? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-22 23:36 (#27Y)

Since cleaning up the original code and then crapping on the suite, the Mozilla Foundation has accomplished so little over a decade that it's scary.

Most software, proprietary or open-source falls into this boat as well. Software advancement has crawled to a sandstill in the past few years.