Mozilla Reponds - We Call the Shots, Not Google.

An anonymous reader writes "Recent articles in the New York Times and at CNET have highlighted the growing concern that Google holds significant power and influence over Firefox's development. In an interview published today, Mozilla's technology strategist Mike Shaver did his best to proclaim Mozilla's independence. Yes, Google pays Mozilla $56 million per year, Google is the default search engine, and supplier of many of the browser's features (anti-phishing, anti-malware, incorrect URL resolution). Shaver insists that in spite of these ties, Mozilla still calls the shots over Firefox's development."

Comments

Re:Do they?

[Threni]

> The mozilla foundation didn't want firefox in the first place. But I guess since firefox has gotten bigger, slower, and more bloated over time...

I didn't want, initially, to use shitty non-standards compliant (ie Netscape) software, but it's got more compliant over time. Presumably Google are in favour of standards as Google users won't only be using Firefox, so frankly Mozilla can either 1) do what Google want, or 2) risk Google going alone with their own browser based on Firefox code.

Now I undestand what happened to Thunderbird.

[baldusi]

I know I'll be tagged as paranoid. But it might explain why Mozilla separated Thunderbird. Google doesn't want you to use POP3 or IMAP. They want you to use the web. It just might just have been one of the reasons that were considered when making the decision.

watch the pretty birdie

[SuperBanana]

Google is the default search engine, and supplier of many of the browser's features (anti-phishing, anti-malware, incorrect URL resolution)

...which is the real issue here, to me...though absurd compensation for the CEO and very lopsided revenue from google are others (NO organization should rely on ONE source for its money. Diversification is the name of the game.) Google's services are heavily bundled AND set as the default where there is choice. Does this sound familiar, anyone?

Now, the question is: if Yahoo, Altavisa, Microsoft, Excite, or Ask (was Teoma), or anyone else for that matter, offers similar services to Firefox for free- will they be allowed to get their foot in the door (via a GOOD user interface to allow selection- modifying about:config params doesn't count) or bundled in (ie, included in the official distribution)?

Re:watch the pretty birdie

[asa]

> Now, the question is: if Yahoo, Altavisa, Microsoft, Excite,
> or Ask (was Teoma), or anyone else for that matter, offers
> similar services to Firefox for free- will they be allowed
> to get their foot in the door (via a GOOD user interface to
> allow selection- modifying about:config params doesn't count)
> or bundled in (ie, included in the official distribution)?

I take it you've never used Firefox. We include other search services. We've even defaulted to other search services in some geographic locales. The interface for switching among the included services is super easy and even adding services that are not included are easy to add with a click or two (and there are over 13,000 of them available at mycroft.mozdev.org)

Not only that, any of these companies could (and some do) distribute a custom version of Firefox with their features as the default.

- A

Re:I was like that too

[griffjon]

This is all well and good; but look at Flock, which is Firefox + lots of web 2.0 integration, and very Yahoo-centric. No matter how much moolah Google pours into the Mozilla foundation, at the end of the day, it's still providing crunchy, wholesome GPL'ed software. If Google suddenly turns evil; the code still belongs to the community and if Mozilla won't cut the relationship, someone can fork a version out and cut out the Google-centric features.

A good bit of caution is wise, but let's not look a $56 million/year gift to the OSS community in the mouth overmuch.

Re:Remove the defaults

[Babbster]

You're suggesting we optimize for the minority case and that's a cop-out that all too many software programs opt for. Most users don't want to have to configure their browser before they start using it. They want it to "just work" and that's what we aim to deliver.

I'm glad you do, too. Getting my parents up and running with Firefox was a matter of installing the package, having Firefox take over as the default browser in XP and telling the folks not to click the blue "e" anymore. Since her first week with it, my mom hasn't had a single Firefox-related problem. If she has to install it again on another PC, she knows right where to go and will be up and running in minutes, but if she had to sit down and configure it she would just use IE until I had a chance to set it up - if she told me in the first place. So, thanks for not requiring configuration. :)