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posted by Fnord666 on Friday January 17 2020, @08:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the Have-to-turn-a-profit dept.

Mozilla Lays Off 70 People as Non-search Revenue Fails to Materialize

Mozilla lays off 70 people as non-search revenue fails to materialize:

Mozilla has laid off 70 people, TechCrunch reports. It's a significant move for an organization that employs around 1,000 people worldwide.

"You may recall that we expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 from new subscription products as well as higher revenue from sources outside of search," wrote Mozilla interim CEO Mitchell Baker in a memo to staff obtained by TechCrunch. "This did not happen."

Baker said Mozilla had decided not to shelve Mozilla's $43 million innovation fund, which focuses on creating new Mozilla products. She said Mozilla would provide "generous exit packages and outplacement support" to those who were let go.

Mozilla Lays Off 70 Employees

Mozilla lays off 70 employees:

Mozilla laid off about 70 employees Wednesday as part of an effort to preserve funding for its top new priorities like protecting privacy and fighting surveillance online. The nonprofit is best known for creating the Firefox web browser, but it also is expanding into new areas including password management, file sharing and private network connections while doubling down on its longstanding push to improve online privacy.

"We're making a significant investment to fund innovation. In order to do that responsibly, we've also had to make some difficult choices which led to the elimination of roles at Mozilla which we announced internally today," Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker said of the layoffs in a blog post.

And Mozilla is being more cautious with revenue and expenses. "We are taking a more conservative approach to our finances. This will enable us to pivot as needed to respond to market threats to internet health, and champion user privacy and agency," Mozilla said in a statement.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Friday January 17 2020, @08:52AM (4 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Friday January 17 2020, @08:52AM (#944459) Journal

    The world: let's do everything in the browser
    Mozilla: let's diversify from the browser

    IMHO it's clear that having been financed by google has steered mozilla away from being a danger for google's browser. In fact mozilla snuffed the only two differentiating factors from chrome, the extensions ecosystem and a sane version numbering.
    The way forward would be, do as the folks at blender do. A truly free browser is as important as a free software OS. If Firefox does not provide this, somebody else will eventually take their place.

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  • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday January 17 2020, @10:25AM (1 child)

    by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday January 17 2020, @10:25AM (#944481) Journal

    I hope you're right, but I'm not in an optimistic mood right now. Open source doesn't magically materialize everyday-needed-programs.

    For instance, I haven't been happy with any backup program. Almost every one I've tried has been really crappy. I haven't tried it yet, but the best features I've seen in a backup program has been in BorgBackup and they do get very good reviews. Unfortunately, it is only command line driven. There are GUIs out there for it, but they are incomplete at best.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Friday January 17 2020, @11:10AM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday January 17 2020, @11:10AM (#944489) Journal

      Attic is good. git annex is good once you figure it out (tried scripted, the assistant I did not try), freefilesync is good.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @12:10PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @12:10PM (#944504)

    She said Mozilla would provide "generous exit packages and outplacement support" to those who were let go.

    So basically the executives will get the golden parachutes and the rest of the company will get left holding the bag?

    #cynicism :)

    • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday January 17 2020, @01:56PM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 17 2020, @01:56PM (#944517)

      If it's a big enough bag, you could use it as a parachute.