Ferk
My worry is that the other 20% might actually come from other forms of partnerships and integrations not unlike what they probably had in mind with this, and that dropping Google might actually make them more dependent on seeking this kind of initiatives, not less.
I don’t know how many people you actually need to maintain a browser. But if it’s actually possible to do it without any kind of money from any of those sources in a way that can be sustained, then it would make more sense to make a fork (or alternative, like Ladybird) and just use that.
Like I said, I think it’s too late for Mozilla to shift course, I don’t expect they’ll ever do that. At least not until they are forced by a competing project if it happens to become successful (or a similar huge wake up call that leaves them no alternative).
Where would the money come from then? donations? Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people and downscale.
I think it’s too late for them to switch direction, not without a lot of people getting laid off. Though maybe that will ultimately happen if they finally end up bankrupt.
Is “intent” what makes all the difference? I think doing something bad unintentionally does not make it good, right?
Otherwise, all I need to do something bad is have no bad intentions. I’m sure you can find good intentions for almost any action, but generally, the end does not justify the means.
I’m not saying that those who act unintentionally should be given the same kind of punishment as those who do it with premeditation… what I’m saying is that if something is bad we should try to prevent it in the same level, as opposed to simply allowing it or sometimes even encourage it. And this can be done in the same way regardless of what tools are used. I think we just need to define more clearly what separates “bad” from “good” specifically based on the action taken (as opposed to the tools the actor used).
I think that’s the difference right there.
One is up for debate, the other one is already heavily regulated currently. Libraries are generally required to have consent if they are making straight copies of copyrighted works. Whether we like it or not.
What AI does is not really a straight up copy, which is why it’s fuzzy, and much harder to regulate without stepping in our own toes, specially as tech advances and the difference between a human reading something and a machine doing it becomes harder and harder to detect.
Yes, I don’t think it’s just about the execution of Win32 code, but also the possibility of MS using marketing techniques and dirty manipulation methods to give themselves advantages within the Windows platform to sway the general public to their store in a similar manner as how they push their browser, their MS Teams communication platform, their One Drive Cloud Storage, their search engine, their data-collection tech, their assistant, etc.
Content curated by “the core geeks and nerds” might appeal to “geeks and nerds”, not to those consumers.
They want “consumer” content. And if one day they get tired of it then I doubt any amount of “steak” would have stopped them leaving anyway, since that was never what they were looking for. It’s not like reddit has to be the only place they visit in the internet, nor is the internet their only source of consumption. Just because you go to a snack bar does not mean that’s the only place you go for meals.
If you are into open source, give Remnants of the precursors a try, it’s a modern spiritual successor of the oldie Master of Orion.
Which is why you should only care about the personal opinion of those people when it actually relates to that reliability.
I don’t care whether Linus Torvalds likes disrespecting whichever company or people he might want to give the middle finger to, or throw rants in the mailing list or mastodon to attack any particular individual, so long as he continues doing a good job maintaining the kernel and accepting contributions from those same people when they provide quality code, regardless of whatever feelings he might have about whatever opinions they might hold.
You rely on the performance of the software, the clarity of the docs, the efficiency of their bug tracking… but the opinions of the people running those things don’t matter so long as they keep being reliable.
I have contributed to other projects without really needing to get involved in their community in any personal/parasocial level, though.
I just make a pull request and when the code was good it was accepted, when not it got rejected. Sometimes I’ve had to make changes before it getting merged, but I had no need to engage in discussions on discord or anything like that. I’ve been in some mailing lists to keep track on some projects, but never really engaged deeply, specially if it goes off-topic.
If I find that a good code contribution is rejected for whatever toxic reason, then the consequence of that is the code would stop being as good as it could have (because of the contributions being rejected/slowed down), so it’s then that forking might be in order. Of course the code matters.