I'm not sure how common this sentiment is, but I had a discussions with colleges who will NOT donate unless they can guarantee that their money is going to the development of a chosen product or even more granularity to a chosen feature.

Then they should pool funds to pay consulting companies like Igalia to implement these features.

I think it is more up to Mozilla to put its act together and implement more transparency. So that people start trusting the organization not to waste their donations on executive salaries.

There is very little probability that your friend would donate any money even if they could have a say at the feature. But even if it was the case it would not be enough to fund the development. And finally you don't manage a company like that.

Is your problem with Mozilla engaging in outreach and community/industry events, or just events in Africa with keynote speakers who happen to be women? Do the people in Zambia deserve an open, equitable web any less than Americans or Europeans do?

Let me repeat myself:

> All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser

Firefox is the best alternative to a Chromium/Google dominated web. As long as Firefox isn't kicking ass and being used by, say, 20% of web users, I argue that Mozilla shouldn't be doing anything else. This is especially prudent when a large part of Mozilla's (and therefore, Firefox's) funding is in jeopardy.

So, yes, I have a problem with Mozilla doing events right now, no matter what event it might be, short of a major product launch.

> Let me repeat myself:

> > All I ever wanted from Mozilla was a browser

Good for you. That's not how donations work.

If you donate money to an organization, you are supporting them in the work they do. How they approach that work and how they appropriate and prioritize funding is likely numerous people's entire jobs to figure out, and just because you put some money in the proverbial hat doesn't entitle you to a say in those conversations, nor does it entitle you to an explanation for the results of those conversations.

I don't precisely know why this conference was held, but that's because it is neither my job nor my business. I'm assuming it was a long, complex process to get it done, and I doubt they would've done it if the organizers just felt like getting a free trip to Zambia, or whatever other grievance-politics motive you're implying.

Nobody is confused about how it's currently working. The whole complaint is that there isn't a way to donate towards Firefox and have any confidence that's where the money will go. There are a million social justice charities out there and zero dedicated to non-chromium browsers. A lot of people are disappointed by that. Anyone who wants to fund Afrofeminist conferences can do so directly.

Sure Mozilla can spend donations how it wants, but donors are free to not donate as well. For years many people have been saying that they want to support Firefox without all of unrelated social projects, but Mozilla has refused to offer that. I expect that a lot of potential donations have therefore not happened.

It does entitle you to warn others not to waste their money by donating unless they're big fans of feminist African studies

Quite a few people would donate for Firefox development, but they can't donate to Mozilla because Mozilla spends the money on other stuff. Until now, as Google's lapdog, Mozilla didn't need donations, so that wasn't a problem (for Mozilla, it did however result in firefox getting 2.62% market share).

To reinforce this, I'm a stingy bastard but I'd give them 5$ a month if I could donate them to the browser development itself since it's the program I use the most.

> As long as Firefox isn't kicking ass and being used by, say, 20% of web users, I argue that Mozilla shouldn't be doing anything else (...) I have a problem with Mozilla doing events right now

Consider it marketing, and think about if the market share would have been even lower if they didn't do outreach. Most people don't select a browser based on technical merits (heck, they don't even consciously choose). Saying they should spend every penny on developers is naive.

"Firefox: The Browser for Feminist Africans" is terrible marketing. It actively drives people away, nobody wants to use a crappy woke browser. "Firefox: Objectively Better Than Chrome Because of X, Y, and Z" is great marketing. It's really that simple.

They should spend 90% on developers.

> nobody wants to ...

If you don't want something, don't think everyone else thinks the same as you. From my observations, if something is being called "woke", that means it's probably a good thing, actually.

"Nobody" is an exaggeration since there are a few people like you. Most people want Mozilla to focus on making a good browser.

If Mozilla had used the Google billions on improving Firefox instead of fart sniffing, Firefox would be a better browser now and its market share would be above 2.62%.

The misspending was (implicitly) part of the deal: the Google money would stop if Firefox started to seriously threaten Chrome's dominance.

He's right though. The way to get clients long term is to have a better product. Competing in marketing against Google is a terrible idea considering their main business. Firefox should just be a better, more user friendly product because that's the weakness of Chrome, especially now that they're actively messing with adblocking and they're focusing on everything but developing the actual product.

To use the car analogy, if you want to buy a car, and you can choose between 2 models (and from all the features and prices and luxury and build quality they're equal), and it's a choice between a Tesla and a Ford, which would you choose, at this moment?

What if the Tesla is slightly better?

I'm missing your point at the moment but likely Ford due to parts/service center access if they're equal. Depending on how slightly better it is and whether I plan to keep it long term to where I might need to get things on it repaired I might hop over to the Tesla. Can you elaborate a bit on where we're going with this?

I was trying to say, Tesla is now a toxic brand not because of their product quality, but because of what their CEO is doing... at least for a lot of people the behavior of the corporation and people in it plays a role in buying products.

So it's a question of if Firefox and Chrome are just competing in quality. I can see people swearing off Chrome because of Google, as well as the same with Firefox because of its activism.

That's true but the general populace does not care enough unless you commit a PR suicide which is difficult when your company PR isn't bound to a single person.

Most people don't even know who the CEO of Google is so even if he were to be found with 17 mutilated kids in a moldy basement it won't have the effect Musk's 'tism has had.

Most people don't realize how they're being fucked over. My parents use adblockers because I set them up and they're not even that old, a lot of people believe surveillance is good and even on HN where privacy is a big thing many use less private products because the alternative is mildly inconvenient. The best way to convert them IMO is to offer them a more intuitive and snappier experience, especially on cheap older machines where it's really noticeable and nice integrations into things like email, pdf, etc. Just make their life as easy as possible with as little setup as possible.

Tesla every time. Who would want a crappy Ford?

What would make for a better impact? A marketing event to increase outreach or not announcing a change in the terms of use that allows Firefox to sell user data?

Not the OP...

To me I think the issue is "how can Mozilla be self-sufficient without Google?", and that means tightening their focus.

Those things should all get effort, energy and investment - but maybe Mozilla doesn't need to be the one driving it (to that point, maybe Mozilla can advocate for Google funding those things directly?).

> Do the people in Zambia deserve an open, equitable web any less than Americans or Europeans do?

They deserve an open, equitable web as much as we all do. I'm afraid that Mozilla's tendencies to waste money on such projects instead of using it to improve their main product aren't helping though.

5% lmaooooo

How do you suggest spreading an open web? Just release Firefox and the web will open up?

You think it is done by holding feminist AI conferences in Africa?

Yes, that's part of it. Guys in SV don't need help with access; women in Africa do - that's the place to hold conferences, and probably much more cost effective. (Whatever is mean by 'Africa', a very large area, and I know nothing about the conference.)

Yeah, but what would be the most optimal way to achieve the goals (spreading an open web)?

If we start with the propostion that all people are created equal, and have equal value, then adding some marginal value in SV seems to have lower ROI than transforming lives in a place where people have little access to the resources and people of the IT industry. And in many societies, women face discrimination that tries to exculde them from tech.

Intel isn't hosting a hardware conference in 99% of the world. It's a great opportunity for Mozilla's mission, for those people, and for the world.

The question is more "Do these events and keynote speakers in Zambia have anything to do with browser development?" This isn't supposed to be a generic non-profit charity, it's a non-profit for supporting web browser development. If only 5% of the funds are going toward the browser or related technology, the organization is corrupt.

In 2023, Mozilla spend $230 million dollars on software development. And then they also $6 million on "Grants and Fellowships" (which supports many "green field" open source software initiatives), $1 million on Events (under which the event you're worried about probably falls), and $7 on travel (which probably also includes lots of travel to things like C++ conferences and browser standards conferences and other things that you probably would agree are very mission related, along with the event in question).

So—just out of this subset of expenses, there's probably some other stuff you could take issue with—Mozilla spent money in a 94% ratio on browser development, and 6% on "other stuff", of which probably .001% was this conference in Africa. And I think it's arguable that a lot of that "other stuff" is related technology! But even ignoring that, talking about how we can use the open web to improve life for people in third world countries is exactly the kind of thing that I, personally, would like Mozilla to be doing. And I'm happy for them to spend <5% of their budget on it.

Of Mozilla's $653 million in 2023 income, $496 million was spent, but only half was on development ($260). Fair enough. But realize mozilla does not exclusively develop a web browser. Instead, they also make Pocket, Firefox Relay, Firefox VPN, Mozilla Monitor, AI products, ect. So probably only 1/3rd of their income is going to browser development, which is pretty bad.

>So probably only 1/3rd of their income is going to browser development, which is pretty bad.

Only because you assume that they should only be working on browser development.

They were expressing their own opinion, that's not an assumption. The relevance of opinion to nonprofit organizations is mediated through donation or other forms of support.

Sure but their opinion seems informed by their flawed assumption that a large software company that makes a browser is primarily only a browser company despite that not being the reality to situation. Life is easier if you interact with reality as it actually is instead of arguing against a version you've made up in your head.

> Only because you assume that they should only be working on browser development.

Why not? This isn't Oxfam, this is Mozilla. To an outsider, the assumed point for all these other endeavors was to be profitable to provide more money for browser development. When that money doesn't primarily provide for that something seems sketchy.

Mozilla has basically never been 'just' a browser company. It's probably confusing for people who don't pay attention to stuff, but it's not for the rest of us.

"Corrupt" is too strong. Just unfocused. You can say it is disqualifying for making donations personally, and I think that is a pretty reasonable take. Many people have exactly the same quibble with Wikimedia.

Leadership focusing on their own agenda instead of the mission of the nonprofit is a form of corruption.

No, not in general. Only if done dishonestly or for corrupt purpose (e.g. self-enrichment). It also is not totally clear that these activities are actually outside the scope of the nonprofit's mission.

Yes, in general. If we stop pretending that non-profits are purpose bound and just a generic bag of money that is to be used for whatever the board thinks is a good idea then there is little point in having different non-profits in the first place.

The question is how much did Mozilla actually spend on this conference? I'm guessing it may have been a pretty small cost.

It's not about that one conference.

Why should I donate to an organization that spends its money trying to turn Zambia gay? I just want a good browser, man.

> like feminist AI conferences in Africa.

According to their 2023 form 990 (the 2024 one isn't published yet) those sort of donations are usually on the order of 15k. You don't get much browser for that money.

That's hardly an isolated example though, plus who knows how many staff hours went into evaluating various proposals and facilitating the conference. The big question is why. It's not like there are a dearth of social justices non-profits out there. It couldn't be easier to donate directly to such projects. Why can't we have a single non-profit focused entirely on preventing a total browser monopoly?

> The big question is why. It's not like there are a dearth of social justices non-profits out there. It couldn't be easier to donate directly to such projects.

Managers like to build empires?

15k is a sofware developer salary for over a quarter of a year in many parts of the world. That's actually quite a bit of browser.

And Mozilla HQ is in SF

That line of argument require there to be a line of competent and productive 3rd world developers ready outside the doors of Mozilla HQ. Not just productive developers either, they'd have to be entirely intrinsically motivated and self driven, preferably with projects lined up. They would of course also have to be completely at-will, at risk of being terminated after their quarter year contract. Anything less than that will cost more then the developer salary.

My argument, more directly, is that a developer is not just a salary. You need support staff, office space, capital, and actual work for them to do. You need to hire, manage, and tutor them. Comparing developer salaries to money spent on one-time goodwill activities is ridiculous. Internal billing at enterprise corps usually estimate two times salary for "real cost", but that still assumes you're actually holding that cost against a tangible planned project.

How much did Mozilla spend on this conference? They sell badges to attendees, who must also pay for their own accommodations and airfare. Were there other sponsors?

I'm not sure this is the smoking gun you think it is.

It's unfortunately vogue to mention DEI-efforts to cast bad light on something.

And to do so in bad faith, no less - the event seems to have had 2-3 sessions related to feminism (out of a couple dozen), but no connection beyond that.

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/plaza

"Bad faith" just means "I disagree" huh? That "2-3" should be zero. Activist woke BS needs to be excised from Mozilla. It all brings nothing but conflict, waste, and censorship. Tech companies need to focus on tech. Go peddle your cancer somewhere else.

Imagine creating a throwaway for this

Lord, tech companies should sponsor conferences about how people shouldn't be giant fucking snowflakes... They could talk about it on HN, it seems there's a lot of overlap between HN users and the appropriate demographic for said conference.

Thankfully it is becoming more popular to call out racism and sexism like "DEI".

> Mozilla funds things that are wildly not Firefox-related, like feminist AI conferences in Africa.

Good. I'm going to donate some money then (to both parties).

> Mozilla already solicits donations, but I wonder if people who donate to them know that Mozilla funds things that are wildly not Firefox-related

It's not just that: Mozilla can't use any of your donation on Firefox. Firefox belongs to the for-profit, and money cannot flow from the non-profit to the for-profit. So in a way all of the random stuff that they do do as the non-profit is the inevitable outcome of their structure:

They have a product that people who care know is struggling to survive and so those people want to donate. Mozilla now has money that they can't spend on the product, so they have to find somewhere else to put it.

One might reasonably ask why the org whose primary purpose is maintaining the one independent browser engine is structured in a way that makes it impossible for donations to flow to the browser engine. I don't have a good answer that doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory.