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by pinoyyid 3437 days ago
I'm neutral on the rebrand, but imho a rebrand needs to be accompanied by a restructure/refocus/resomething. Otherwise it's a pointless marketing exercise. The heyday of Mozilla was when it was the sole champion of a vendor neutral internet, competing with IE. That battle has long since been decided (spoiler alert: Chrome wins), but Mozilla is still fighting it, this time with Chrome as the enemy. It really needs to go find a new battle to fight. Persona is a great example of the kind of stuff that Mozilla should be focussed on - vendor neutral enablers of identity, payment, security, etc etc. Why isn't "Let's Encrypt" a Mozilla project?

If we're going back in time, please bring back the original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_(mascot)#/media/File:M...
4 comments
callahad 3437 days ago
> Why isn't "Let's Encrypt" a Mozilla project?

...because it already was? The whole thing started as a collaboration between Mozilla and the EFF. Its success allowed Josh to spin it out into an independent organization, and focus on it full-time.

There are many other fronts that Mozilla is fighting on, just less visibly: WebAssembly, Rust, Daala/AOMedia, WebVR, etc.

Having lived through the first browser wars, I can think of few things more important for the safety and health of the Internet than a vibrant, competitive browser market. And with the progress being made on Servo and Quantum, I suspect conceding to Chrome would be premature.

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lxt 3437 days ago
Let's Encrypt was founded by a group including Mozilla, EFF, and the University of Michigan. Mozilla is also a platinum sponsor. So yes, it is a Mozilla project.

Source: I am a Mozilla employee and a board member of ISRG (which operates Let's Encrypt).

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Ajedi32 3437 days ago
> Why isn't "Let's Encrypt" a Mozilla project?

Mozilla is a platinum-level sponsor of Let's Encrypt. https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/

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ensignavenger 3437 days ago
Are you suggesting that Mozilla should concede the browser to Chrome? I really don't think so. Firefox is as important now as it was when they were competing with Internet Explorer for market share.
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