The text you quoted sounds like a reasonable and normal definition of a sale to me. i.e. transferring to another business in exchange for something else of value.
So yeah, Firefox previously promised not to do this, “not ever”, and now they say they need to do sell your personal data “in order to make Firefox commercially viable”.
But hang on a second… Firefox is not a commercial product. So making it ‘commercially viable’ is highly questionable in itself.
It’s a shame that Mozilla’s current leadership is more interested in self-enrichment than in the past. But Firefox is still the very best option by far. I hope that the Ladybird project becomes strong the future, if for no other reason than pressure Firefox into staying good.
They need to make money so that they can fund hundreds of engineers salaries to keep building it and maintaining web standards operability.
And somehow do this while keeping off with Chrome who has a team 4-5x their size.
Trying to figure out a way to be independent of Google while competing with Google is a tough nut to crack. If they can’t sell it and they can’t get enough donations, then then it comes down to partnerships and advertising.
Well, it’s partially a matter of semantics. Perhaps different people have different understandings of the word ‘commercial’. For me, I’d say that Firefox is not something a user pays for. It’s existence is not about making a profit, or strengthening a business, or anything to do with money at all - and therefore it is not a commercial product.
I agree that the engineers should be paid, and that browser development is very difficult. But nevertheless, Firefox historically has not been about maximising a profit - or even making any kind of profit at all. (Although it does seem Mozilla leadership are looking to change that.)
It’s not a product that you pay for or product that is sold. It is a product that is provided for free. However, that product can no longer be provided for free because Mozilla doesn’t profit off of you using their free product.
Mozilla (the non profit) actually doesn’t aim to profit at all. They aim to support the ongoing development of Firefox and similar projects. Which is currently under risk of not having the necessary funding to pay engineers to build and maintain it.
Mozilla needs more money so that they are not under the risk of sudden collapse if they stop getting money from Daddy Google.
Honestly, it’s a shitty situation to be in. As the grand majority of users don’t understand just how involved browser development is. And those users instead donate to projects that are either forks of Firefox (and directly depend on Mozillas investment) or are (at this stage) toys, like Ladybird.
Which leaves a slim set of choices for the continued funding of the project. All of which it’s core user base hates (Market trend following, new features to see what sticks, AI related integrations, ads, subscription services…etc)
Yet it’s core user base isn’t willing to donate so it’s kind of a self-caused problem.
Side note. IIRC the foundation’s highest paid executive employees make about what a senior engineer at Netflix makes. To put that into perspective.
The text you quoted sounds like a reasonable and normal definition of a sale to me. i.e. transferring to another business in exchange for something else of value.
So yeah, Firefox previously promised not to do this, “not ever”, and now they say they need to do sell your personal data “in order to make Firefox commercially viable”.
But hang on a second… Firefox is not a commercial product. So making it ‘commercially viable’ is highly questionable in itself.
It’s a shame that Mozilla’s current leadership is more interested in self-enrichment than in the past. But Firefox is still the very best option by far. I hope that the Ladybird project becomes strong the future, if for no other reason than pressure Firefox into staying good.
Firefox is a commercial product. Is it not?
They need to make money so that they can fund hundreds of engineers salaries to keep building it and maintaining web standards operability.
And somehow do this while keeping off with Chrome who has a team 4-5x their size.
Trying to figure out a way to be independent of Google while competing with Google is a tough nut to crack. If they can’t sell it and they can’t get enough donations, then then it comes down to partnerships and advertising.
Well, it’s partially a matter of semantics. Perhaps different people have different understandings of the word ‘commercial’. For me, I’d say that Firefox is not something a user pays for. It’s existence is not about making a profit, or strengthening a business, or anything to do with money at all - and therefore it is not a commercial product.
I agree that the engineers should be paid, and that browser development is very difficult. But nevertheless, Firefox historically has not been about maximising a profit - or even making any kind of profit at all. (Although it does seem Mozilla leadership are looking to change that.)
What you say is true.
It’s not a product that you pay for or product that is sold. It is a product that is provided for free. However, that product can no longer be provided for free because Mozilla doesn’t profit off of you using their free product.
Mozilla (the non profit) actually doesn’t aim to profit at all. They aim to support the ongoing development of Firefox and similar projects. Which is currently under risk of not having the necessary funding to pay engineers to build and maintain it.
Mozilla needs more money so that they are not under the risk of sudden collapse if they stop getting money from Daddy Google.
Honestly, it’s a shitty situation to be in. As the grand majority of users don’t understand just how involved browser development is. And those users instead donate to projects that are either forks of Firefox (and directly depend on Mozillas investment) or are (at this stage) toys, like Ladybird.
Which leaves a slim set of choices for the continued funding of the project. All of which it’s core user base hates (Market trend following, new features to see what sticks, AI related integrations, ads, subscription services…etc)
Yet it’s core user base isn’t willing to donate so it’s kind of a self-caused problem.
Side note. IIRC the foundation’s highest paid executive employees make about what a senior engineer at Netflix makes. To put that into perspective.