[Thiez]

> Mozilla is there to build browsers. Politics should have been left at the door.

I think you misunderstand Mozilla. Just have a look at their mission statement[0], and their manifesto[1]. Mozilla's goal is not "build the best browser and get the most market share". Their goals are inherently political, and building a browser is just part of how they try to achieve their goals. To expect that the people working for such a political organization with such a strong ideology is pretty bizarre to me.

0. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/

1. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

[textgel]

Perhaps it would be better for me to say ostensibly there to build browsers (and other software).

In response to the manifesto I'll ask how recent that manifesto and mission statement is? Surely they weren't always a politics first, software second organisation? They must have started out as free software and then morphed into what they are now at some point.

Or was it that case that the politics was there but it was that that changed?

[Thiez]

The manifesto exists since 2007, but they describe principles that Mozilla has held since it was founded in 1998[0]. I wouldn't personally describe them as a "politics first, software second" organization, but that's mostly because I think the distinction between "politics first, software second" and "software first, politics second" is pretty vague and useless. Perhaps you would describe them as such, and if so, they've probably been like that since the start, or at least since before the start of their market-share decline.

0. https://www.protocol.com/mozilla-plan-fix-internet-privacy