But you’re forgetting something important: Firefox is open-source, meaning that it is literally impossible for it to fail. Even if the Mozilla org goes down in flames tomorrow.
If Mozilla dies, someone else will become a maintainer for the Firefox open-source project. If they are compromised or bought out, someone will fork the project (again). If 100% of websites make some code change that forces them to only work on a Chromium rendering engine, the developers of one of the Firefox forks (or, more likely, all of them) will implement a fix within days that spoofs whatever signal the lock-in code requires. If some form of online DRM is implemented, it will be cracked and the solution will be made available online. Or the relevant chunk of Chromium will be copied and modified to generate that verification key on Firefox without telemetry.
The browser may never achieve market dominance, but it doesn’t have to. It’s on the Internet, and on the Internet nothing ever truly goes away.
Sure nothing goes away on the internet but things get deprecated. Keeping up with a browser development must require highly technical engineer, who often don’t work for free. If Mozilla were to disappear or get 80% of its budget removed (Google) one can doubt they would be able to keep up with the evolution of internet.
I mean just look at Linux desktop, people working on it for free is great but it’s slow, innefective and it goes to all direction at the same time. Without million of $ behind it, Firefox would be gone in a year or two whatever the amount of fork happening.
That’s just…not true on any level at all. Of course things get deprecated, but engineers work for free on open source projects all the time.
And you understand nothing about Linux development if you think its development is slow; the kernel already has stable support for Intel’s Meteor Lake graphics, which were released only 43 days ago at the time of this comment.
The idea that Firefox would be “gone in a year or two” without Google’s money ignores the reality that there are thousands of large, successful open-source projects without massive financial endowments, projects that are still continuously updated over years and even decades for no other reason than that the maintainers want to use them.
Misunderstanding, I was speaking of Linux desktop environment. You think I speak of Linux. Linux is backed by dozen of companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta. It sure doesn’t lack any fund. Now compare it to the Linux desktop environment where this is mostly people working for free, shit doesn’t get done in 43 days. For instance, Wayland has been out for several years and many environment still doesn’t work with it or have not even started working on it.
The closest open source project I can think of is libreoffice. Just check it, it lacks tons of functions compared to ms but most important is that it barely improved at all in years. Now doc document aren’t going to change drastically , file from the 90’s are still compatible but the web foundation it improves very fast. When I say 2 years I’m generous, its already half dead (3.14% user !), breaking compatibility would be the nail in the coffin.
Actually, LibreOffice is the perfect example, thank you. After OOo development went in a direction the community didn’t agree with, the Document Foundation was formed and the project was immediately forked. 13½ years later, the project is still updated every six months. It has every necessary feature and supports all formats. A browser would be similar; web standards don’t change that much. Wayland, by comparison, is currently a niche product for a niche product; it doesn’t need the same support, and so it doesn’t get it.
Well I admire your optimism, personally I don’t have much faith into open source project because their is often very little or no money for the developer.
But you’re forgetting something important: Firefox is open-source, meaning that it is literally impossible for it to fail. Even if the Mozilla org goes down in flames tomorrow.
If Mozilla dies, someone else will become a maintainer for the Firefox open-source project. If they are compromised or bought out, someone will fork the project (again). If 100% of websites make some code change that forces them to only work on a Chromium rendering engine, the developers of one of the Firefox forks (or, more likely, all of them) will implement a fix within days that spoofs whatever signal the lock-in code requires. If some form of online DRM is implemented, it will be cracked and the solution will be made available online. Or the relevant chunk of Chromium will be copied and modified to generate that verification key on Firefox without telemetry.
The browser may never achieve market dominance, but it doesn’t have to. It’s on the Internet, and on the Internet nothing ever truly goes away.
Sure nothing goes away on the internet but things get deprecated. Keeping up with a browser development must require highly technical engineer, who often don’t work for free. If Mozilla were to disappear or get 80% of its budget removed (Google) one can doubt they would be able to keep up with the evolution of internet.
I mean just look at Linux desktop, people working on it for free is great but it’s slow, innefective and it goes to all direction at the same time. Without million of $ behind it, Firefox would be gone in a year or two whatever the amount of fork happening.
That’s just…not true on any level at all. Of course things get deprecated, but engineers work for free on open source projects all the time.
And you understand nothing about Linux development if you think its development is slow; the kernel already has stable support for Intel’s Meteor Lake graphics, which were released only 43 days ago at the time of this comment.
The idea that Firefox would be “gone in a year or two” without Google’s money ignores the reality that there are thousands of large, successful open-source projects without massive financial endowments, projects that are still continuously updated over years and even decades for no other reason than that the maintainers want to use them.
Misunderstanding, I was speaking of Linux desktop environment. You think I speak of Linux. Linux is backed by dozen of companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta. It sure doesn’t lack any fund. Now compare it to the Linux desktop environment where this is mostly people working for free, shit doesn’t get done in 43 days. For instance, Wayland has been out for several years and many environment still doesn’t work with it or have not even started working on it.
The closest open source project I can think of is libreoffice. Just check it, it lacks tons of functions compared to ms but most important is that it barely improved at all in years. Now doc document aren’t going to change drastically , file from the 90’s are still compatible but the web foundation it improves very fast. When I say 2 years I’m generous, its already half dead (3.14% user !), breaking compatibility would be the nail in the coffin.
Actually, LibreOffice is the perfect example, thank you. After OOo development went in a direction the community didn’t agree with, the Document Foundation was formed and the project was immediately forked. 13½ years later, the project is still updated every six months. It has every necessary feature and supports all formats. A browser would be similar; web standards don’t change that much. Wayland, by comparison, is currently a niche product for a niche product; it doesn’t need the same support, and so it doesn’t get it.
Well I admire your optimism, personally I don’t have much faith into open source project because their is often very little or no money for the developer.
The last forty years of FOSS software would beg to differ.