My Thoughts on the Firefox situation

  • I’ve used Firefox since it was Mosaic, and when it was called Netscape Navigator.

  • I agree that the removal of the promise not to sell your data is bad, and the new EULA is bad.

  • I worry about the long term product development of Firefox

  • I question the role of the fork in development, meaning I don’t know how much they can do on their own without Firefox proper.

  • Firefox sync is an important feature to me. I’m open to self-hosting but not losing it.

  • I’m open to new browsers for the future, but this is a huge effort.

  • Brave is NOT the solution. No way, no how.

  • We need an alternative to Webkit based browsers.

  • Firefox will have lessons for us about FLOSS sustainability. We don’t know what those lessons are yet.

#Mozilla #Firefox

  • TerryB@babka.social
    1·
    2 months ago

    @serge@babka.social @calispera@babka.social I’ve pondered this for a while. It’s not hard to assume that the financial cart will start to pull the FOSS horse. But maybe there’s a second strand of enshittification caused by focus-group based design. Though that said, FOSS also sometimes suffers the opposite way too- dev chosen features that are based around their own preferences and interests, but may not match user needs.

      • Serge from Babka@babka.socialOP
        0·
        2 months ago

        @calispera

        I won’t speak for @terryb but there’s are two polarities. On one hand you have a singular vision, and on the other, a group.

        There’s an expression in English “A camel is a horse designed by committee”.

        There’s an idea that a thing made purely by focus groups will have no identity and no spirit.

        Of course sometimes hearing the views of others will help inform and make a better work, but if it’s not done thoughtfully then you get “mush”.

        Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci had a focus group. We’d have paintings of cats. :)