The Mozilla Manifesto

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

by sauravt • 13 years ago

175 92 13 years ago

lukifer• 13 years ago

I can't say enough good things about Mozilla and their values. After becoming disillusioned with Apple over the last five years, Mozilla feels like one of the last remaining forces attempting to stave off a computing world of digital fiefdoms (in addition to Automattic and Canonical).

stephenr4• 13 years ago

You lost me when you listed automattic and canonical in a positive, non-douchebag light

derefr• 13 years ago

The nice thing about open-source: Canonical's self-interested advancements of Ubuntu have made the OS quite a bit better.

By "the OS", I am referring, of course, to Debian. :)

I think (perhaps-douchebaggy) self-interest is perfectly fine when it has positive externalities in the world. You're free to avoid the drama of the Ubuntu project itself, while continuing to reap the rewards on the rest of the ecosystem from its existence.

Fice• 13 years ago

I would rather list Red Hat than Canonical.

jimbosis• 13 years ago

Can you be more specific as to your grievances, especially with Automattic?

PommeDeTerre7• 13 years ago

Values listed on a web page are one thing. Actions are another.

I haven't been impressed with their actions over the past few years.

Just look at Firefox. Instead of striving to provide a lean, practical, extensible browser, all they've managed to do is copy Chrome as of late. The UI changes have not been for the better. The release schedule changes were very painful, and the version number inflation is pointless. While its performance and memory usage is marginally better these days, it has still been years without any significant improvement. It's not surprising that users are moving away from it to other browsers.

Then there's Thunderbird. Aside from Firefox, this was one of their only other pieces of useful software. Yet they've dropped their support for it to a minimal level.

What's worse, while neglecting their software that people actually use on a daily basis, they've embarked on pointless efforts like FirefoxOS and Persona. We don't need another mobile OS, especially one that's essentially crippled to only supporting development using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS (which, of course, are already available on Android and iOS, not to mention the other mobile OSes that are already widely available). Persona is clearly not gaining any traction.

The only encouraging thing out of them has been Rust. But even that seems to be rather loosely associated with them, and appears to be regarded as quite experimental.

I know, I know. I'm not paying for their software, so they don't have any obligation to me, etc., etc.. I'm merely not convinced that their actions really correspond to the principles in their manifesto very well.

emilsedgh2• 13 years ago

Mozilla's value and goal is pushing for open web. Not creating the best browser. Creating a kickass browser was the way the reached their goal.

We do need another mobile OS because current ones do not respect our freedom. Even if they are technically sufficient, user friendly and usable.

So I dont care if Mozilla is copying Chrome or not. I just wish they stay in the same path AND be strong and influencial as they currently are.

dbaupp3• 13 years ago

> While its performance and memory usage is marginally better these days, it has still been years without any significant improvement

It's basically tracked/caught up to Chrome on 3 major benchmark suites over the past year.

http://arewefastyet.com/

IanChiles• 13 years ago

Asm.js? Emscripten? WebRTC? Come on, Mozilla has really been pushing the limits of the web lately, in new and interesting ways that no one else will try.

Aqueous• 13 years ago

They've done a lot of innovations with respect to JavaScript optimizations, asm.js, and Emscripten. Even V8 running hand-written JavaScript can't approach the near-native speeds of Emscripten-emitted asm.js. A year or two ago I would have agreed with you but Mozilla has stepped up its game. Now if they could just fix their browser's UI.

mwcampbell6• 13 years ago

Persona is far from pointless. The Web needs a decentralized identity to counter centralized, proprietary systems like Google, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

With Firefox OS, Mozilla is skating to where the puck is going to be, maybe already is. Mobile devices are the future of interpersonal electronic communication. Something so important to our daily lives and society should not be dominated by fiefdoms like iOS and Android.

twelvechairs2• 13 years ago

They say 'internet' rather than 'web' but Mozilla's recent direction seems very heavily web-only oriented to me (FirefoxOS, Persona and basically concluding Thunderbird). Are they actively working on anything serious which is not web-based?

(Not to put them down. I love Mozilla and what they have done for all of us. Just curious as to their direction)

dbaupp3• 13 years ago

Rust?

twelvechairs2• 13 years ago

Good point. But its not strictly 'internet' is it?

jabbernotty• 13 years ago

Rust seems more like a tool, a means to an end, rather than a product.

st3fan3• 13 years ago

The web is the universal language that the internet speaks. Whatever you do, the web is likely the output channel.

WayneDB5• 13 years ago

Incorrect. TCP/IP is the universal language that the Internet speaks.

HTTP merely rides on top of it...just like SMTP, FTP, SSH, IMAP, DHCP, POP3, IRC and BitTorrent.

Take a look here - http://www.sandvine.com/downloads/documents/Phenomena_2H_201...

"Web browsing" is only one piece of the pie - far from universal.

cpeterso5• 13 years ago

Do you have any suggestions for internet problems or projects that could use more attention? The question of "web versus internet" seems pedantic at first, but it is a thought-provoking. Privacy tools like Tor come to mind.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

Man alive, Mozilla just inspires me

I am stealing this and the Turing oath to go as part of my own company's values background

I am especially glad they focused on the public good side of the Internet and did not get mired in privacy debates

This is going in front of as many UK council leaders as will listen at the LGA conference July

Thanks guys

ndesaulniers• 13 years ago

Comments like this make me proud to work there. :'-)

Derbasti• 13 years ago

Mozilla is plain awesome.

Just donated some money to them.

callahad3• 13 years ago

As someone with the good fortune to work for Mozilla full-time, thank you.

zxcdw• 13 years ago

I am honestly envious and happy for you who get to do it, Mozilla is great indeed. :)

shmerl2• 13 years ago

Mozilla is one of the bright stars in the computing industry. There should be some, we have enough dark empires like MS and Apple.

TannerF• 13 years ago

The video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2udd765yVMc ) gives me goosebumps every time I watch it... Mozilla is simply amazing.

thansharp• 13 years ago

There is one issue people haven't glossed over. Mozilla derives over 85% of their revenue from Google (by making google the default search engine). So a lot of their development involves getting funding from google. The problem with this is that you cannot fight for open standards (against google, it looks like of late) when you derive most of your funding from your adversary. You need an independent revenue stream, like Red Hat. Firefox can probably offer non-tracking services to corporations that have doubts over google's data policies. PS : I am a fan of Firefox, but it has been crashing way too often of late. Only the fact of me being a power web user (I have more than 70 tabs open on average) has kept me a continued Firefox user.

martius• 13 years ago

Google is not what I would call an adversary. Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and others are willing to go in the same direction, they don't share the same priorities and it's all about negociations and stuff.

When Mozilla and Google renewed their partnership, I heard that Bing was ready to pay Mozilla a bigger check than Google was, yet they choose to stick with Google because they thought it was a better option for the user. If it's true, I think we can trust them about the way they earn money and use it.

On the other hand, as far as I understand, Firefox OS is built with partners from the industry, which probably means that development costs are shared, and not only supported by Google's money.

Last but not least, we probably have a lot of different experiences with firefox, but my setup does not crash every so often...

mikeratcliffe2• 13 years ago

If your Firefox crashes sometimes then go to about:support and click reset (it should be near the top right of the page).

You should probably also go to http://www.mozilla.com/plugincheck/ to update your addons.

Maybe you have an extension that is causing your crashes ... I suspect something that is not used by very many people.

As a side not I am proud to work for Mozilla. The first thing we ask before doing anything is "Will this make the internet a better place?" ... too many companies do not live their missions or, at least, don't live up to them.

pekk4• 13 years ago

It seems that any problem with Firefox results in this user-blaming. How often is one obligated to reset one's profile? If extensions make the browser slow and unstable, do you expect users never to install any? Mozilla seems to have a real problem hearing criticism about its browser. But when you push it back on the user, the truth is that a lot of people aren't going to accept that blame. They're just going to ditch your browser for something which doesn't create this sort of problem with completely normal, average usage.

wwweston• 13 years ago

Anecdotal: I just got a Firefox OS / Keon developer preview phone this week, and the default search engine inside the browser appears to be Bing.

Anybody else seeing this?

callahad3• 13 years ago

Yep, that's the current default on FxOS builds. Beyond that, I'm totally ignorant of the business deals that are in place around Firefox and FirefoxOS.

fzzzy• 13 years ago

It's been set to bing since the earliest versions of the browser app. I find it mildly amusing.

rimantas4• 13 years ago

> The Internet is an integral part of modern life—a key > component in education, communication, collaboration, > business, entertainment and society as a whole.

This is true. Alas, too many forget, that "internet" is not the same as "web" and think that everything internet is should be made of HTML, CSS and ECMAScript, instead of thinking of internet as the net of interconnected devices.

ethanaustinite• 13 years ago

Lets see how their values align with accepting bitcoin donations.

The Mozilla Manifesto

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