[lifeisstillgood]

I gotta agree with napoleoncomplex - Mozilla has truly hit its stride in recent years and for my money is an example of the corporation of tomorrow - code literate and transparent, yet still kicking arse and taking names

Edit: even corporations of tomorrow will not be immune to politics it seems - rereading the post and blog makes it sound much more like a Eich/Baker coup than a well planned transition. It will be very odd to have him stay on the board - two ex-CEOs on your board makes for a lot of looking up not down for the next one

[stephen]

Perhaps I'm overly skeptical, but I have a hard time envisioning them as a "corporation of tomorrow" when, AFAIK/naively assume, they exist (as a corporation that can pay salaries) merely because Google dumps $x00 millions into their lap every year.

To me, this is less "how companies of tomorrow can run", and more like a bunch of techies who hit the jackpot and so can have fun building whatever technology they want.

(Which is awesome, I'm just saying I think Mozilla has a pretty unique situation.)

[lifeisstillgood]

Unique now, commonplace one day.

I really think we are seeing a shift in organisations - one comparable to that experienced after the in enticing of printing press in 1451. Europe went from a literacy rate of 2% to one of 20+ in a hundred years, and suddenly the trading companies and churches and governments were staffed with people who could read and write - and that changed everything. Literate companies out competed the hell of their illiterate counterparts. And the renanissance saw new forms of company, new trading horizons, enabled in part thanks to, well, letters.

Mozilla is an example of this new company - it is staffed by the code-literate and it is out-competing Nokia, Samsung, Microsoft and holding its own against google/chrome/android who are themselves arguably built of the same DNA

Code literacy throughout the company is important but it then demands other things - remote working is probably the biggest thing - it does enable hiring the best in the world, yes, but it makes transparency of decision making so much more natural that it will most likely become a default.

I think we shall see companies be I ing more open in their working practises, in their internal processes and probably in their balance sheets.

For the best part of a generation at least code literate people are going to be in massive demand as companies like Mozilla show that coding is a massive force multiplier for any company in any industry. And that is not merely going to be higher wages - when the force multiplier is big enough it will simply reshape the corporation around itself.

Mozilla does amusingly also show that the politics of human relations will never go away, but there is a elephant in the room now, and it's not going away till long after we retire - and coping with the impact of that elephant will be the defining characteristic of the next twenty years of organisational and intentstional change.

Software is not eating the world like tigers do - it is eating the world like oceans erode cliffs - re shaping the shoreline and the tides.

[starmole]

I really like your Utopia but it is missing many things in my opinion. Mozilla is a luxury afforded by Google finance wise. There are much darker futures ahead as well. The entire rise of the Company over the State is rather scary.

Arguably the most successful software company (Apple) is a poster child of using open software to its closed advantage.

Software literacy is also highly divisive. It highly rewards the literates but punishes the rest. Because of that it is very important that people use it for ideas that are not just profit.

We really need more models like Mozilla, GNU, or Craigslist.

[lifeisstillgood]

I think the "Google finances Mozilla out of kindness of their hearts" meme is dealt with here - they have millions and soon to be billions of eyeballs on that google default page. Whatever Google pays is a market rate.

As for the rest, yes illiteracy does count against the illiterate - I think that is a public policy issue. The company vs the state? Historically speaking the one with the army tends to win. Yes regulation is important to ensure companies deliver social value - we have seen that in finance, but that is not a programming issue - back to public policy

As for being open and doing good - yes laudable aims, and I suspect that like now, companies that are more open, more socially beneficial will have the edge of goodwill - but right now the force multiplier of code literacy trumps all.

Edit: I guess I am saying, the force multiplier is so big, that relying on normal market operations to deliver an optimal social good (ie utopia) is a little foolish - we need enlightened governments with perfect regulatory touch to be in tune globally with all the challenges facing the human race.

We're boned.

[asadotzler]

Google doesn't dump money into Mozilla's lap every year. Google pays Mozilla (and various other companies) for search traffic acquisition.

[sharkweek]

Yeah nobody should think for a minute that this relationship is in danger of Google dropping that contract either; Microsoft/Bing would KILL to have that default product visibility at the top of another mainstream browser.

[SkyMarshal]

It sounds like you're saying MS could outbid Google to be Mozilla's default search engine, which validates Mozilla's business model even further.

[sharkweek]

Exactly -- you'll occasionally hear people say things like "Google is basically keeping Firefox afloat" -- sure, it's a massive contract that does fund Mozilla almost entirely, but any of the other major search engines would love a chance to be the default install option. Think about what that would do for Bing.

[mehrzad]

I agree but I feel like the backfire issue is never brought up. If Bing becomes default, would less techy users just switch back to Chrome? I hope not.

[slacka]

>"Mozilla has truly hit its stride in recent years"

Sure the Memshrink project was a great success. It's the reason I have switched from Chrome back to FF on my netbook. However, on my desktops and home Chrome remains default.

Mozilla had their chance with the electrolysis multiprocessing architecture, but killed it off to focus on Firefox OS, the Mobile OS that none wants. So their desktop browser, their bread and butter, is gimped compared to modern multithreaded browsers like IE and Chrome. Everytime I give FF another shot on my desktops, it's always the same result. The UI starts lagging when I view heavy duty JavaScript/HMTL5 pages.

Also in their petty battles with Google, they have refused to implement some great features like WebP. Mozilla gave a list of features missing, and yet when Google addressed them all in the next WebP revision, they still refused to add the patch.

Memshrink kept FF in the game, but in recent years Mozilla has consistently made poor long term strategic decisions.

[reubenmorais]

You seem to use words like "multiprocessing" and "multithreaded" without knowing what they actually mean. A multiprocess Firefox in the way envisioned by the original Electrolysis project would be a huge undertaking, and would break all add-ons.

Anyway, The project has recently been "rebooted", so to speak, and it looks like we can finally make it happen without breaking add-ons, which is great!

[slacka]

Thank you for correcting me, I should have said "properly multithreaded or multiprocessing browser like IE or Chrome". Since a properly designed multithreaded applications shouldn't suffer from UI non-responsiveness as badly as FF does. Of course separating the user interface process from the content processes also would have fixed this issue.

I'm glad to hear the electrolysis project has been rebooted. That plus a working silent update( see bug #711475 ) would go a long way to making Firefox relevant again.