Today marks a significant moment in our journey, and I am thrilled to share some important news with you. After much thoughtful consideration, I have decid
Open Source is great because bad CEOs can’t really threaten the source code.
Most of the time this is true, but for browser engines it’s different because of their sheer size, complexity, need to adhere and collaborate with others to form web standards, need for security experts, day one vulnerability patches, etc.
If Mozilla dies, LibreWolf can’t just pick up the slack. They die too. Volunteers alone can’t run a modern web engine, it takes hundreds of millions per year to upkeep.
There’s a reason why we’re down to just Google, Apple, and Mozilla. Nobody wants to foot that bill unless they have a damn good reason for doing so.
It’s probably more expensive to maintain a browser engine than a full operating system at this point.
Perhaps we should take the clue and - if we also see clues of Mozilla enshittifying - switch globally to an easier internet that’s also easier to program for. Something like Gemini (the post-Gopher thingy, not Google’s latest fad) for example, where I take it maintaining a browser is nowhere near the same order of magnitude as complex.
Most of the time this is true, but for browser engines it’s different because of their sheer size, complexity, need to adhere and collaborate with others to form web standards, need for security experts, day one vulnerability patches, etc.
If Mozilla dies, LibreWolf can’t just pick up the slack. They die too. Volunteers alone can’t run a modern web engine, it takes hundreds of millions per year to upkeep.
There’s a reason why we’re down to just Google, Apple, and Mozilla. Nobody wants to foot that bill unless they have a damn good reason for doing so.
It’s probably more expensive to maintain a browser engine than a full operating system at this point.
Perhaps we should take the clue and - if we also see clues of Mozilla enshittifying - switch globally to an easier internet that’s also easier to program for. Something like Gemini (the post-Gopher thingy, not Google’s latest fad) for example, where I take it maintaining a browser is nowhere near the same order of magnitude as complex.