Mozilla says its AI 'rewiring' is a moral crusade to save the web from Big Tech. Our snarky explainer asks if the real goal is to goose revenue instead.
The for-profit corporation attached to the open source project is the failure. The linux kernel isn’t attached to Linux Corporation, ffmpeg isn’t attached to FFmpeg Corporation. Android is attached to Google Corporation, but Google Corporation already existed and had massive revenue streams before making Android, thus Android as an open source OS doesn’t need to drive revenue (of course, they put their greedy tentacles into Android with stuff like the Play Store and Gemini).
Mozilla Corporation shouldn’t exist. That’s not to say Firefox (or Linux, or ffmpeg, etc) developers shouldn’t have avenues to make money. But it should only be developers making money, not a holding corporation parasitizing the one (two if you count Thunderbird) meaningful project undertaken by “Mozilla”. The project gets a lot more sustainable when all you need to do is ensure that actual contributors to the software development are paid fairly for that actual work.
A CEO can decide what Firefox does (and in ways that inevitably influence the FOSS Mozcorpless forks). No CEO can decide what Linux does.
The for-profit corporation attached to the open source project is the failure. The linux kernel isn’t attached to Linux Corporation, ffmpeg isn’t attached to FFmpeg Corporation. Android is attached to Google Corporation, but Google Corporation already existed and had massive revenue streams before making Android, thus Android as an open source OS doesn’t need to drive revenue (of course, they put their greedy tentacles into Android with stuff like the Play Store and Gemini).
Mozilla Corporation shouldn’t exist. That’s not to say Firefox (or Linux, or ffmpeg, etc) developers shouldn’t have avenues to make money. But it should only be developers making money, not a holding corporation parasitizing the one (two if you count Thunderbird) meaningful project undertaken by “Mozilla”. The project gets a lot more sustainable when all you need to do is ensure that actual contributors to the software development are paid fairly for that actual work.
A CEO can decide what Firefox does (and in ways that inevitably influence the FOSS Mozcorpless forks). No CEO can decide what Linux does.
Well said!!
Mozilla existed as an application suite (formerly Netscape’s) in the turn of the milennium. (1998-2003)
App suite isn’t corporation.