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Mozilla Hands Out Open Source Awards (mozilla.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the making-it-rain dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A couple months ago, we discussed news that Mozilla was planning to give back to the open source projects they rely on, to the tune of $1 million. Now, Mozilla has announced the first round of awards, giving out $503,000 in the process. The biggest payout, $200,000, went to Bro, who makes network monitoring software. They plan to use the funds to create "a public repository for sharing 3rd-party scripts and plug-ins." The Django project received $150,000, and they'll use it to "rewrite the core of Django to support (among other things) WebSockets and background tasks," and a few other goodies. Mercurial was awarded $75,000, which will go toward "better support for 'blame' (showing who last changed some code) and a better web UI." Also receiving awards were Read The Docs ($48,000), Discourse ($25,000), CodeMirror ($20,000), and BuildBot ($15,000).

44 comments

  1. I need to shit, badly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who's coming?

    1. Re:I need to shit, badly by nickweller · · Score: 1

      fuck off and die ..

  2. Moz-who? by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    Yet another organization desperately struggling to appear still relevant? Welcome to the club! You'll meet the many existing members like Yahoo.. and look, over in the corner, there's MySpace! (Ok, I'm forced to use Firefox on my work Linux system only because I don't have any admin priviledge to install anything else.)

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Moz-who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I'm sure glad your narrow experience doesn't dictate the rest of the computer industry.

    2. Re: Moz-who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So I bet Mozilla was "a thing" when your mum's panties still developed cum stains periodically.

    3. Re:Moz-who? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Well, if you have KDE there is Konqueror

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    4. Re:Moz-who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wah you seem like a very sad person.
      get out. breath some air. contribute to some open source projects.

    5. Re:Moz-who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Konqueror doesn't come installed by default with any recent KDE. It's my favorite (for web browsing or file management), so I always have to install it.

    6. Re:Moz-who? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you were unaware that there are other Linux distributions than the one you use? I didn't say it was guaranteed toi be there. I didn't even say KDE was guaranteed to be there. So clearly it is true that some systems will have it and some won't. I suppose I should have made that more clear.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  3. Oh look! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another chance for Slashdot to hate on Mozilla! I'll get some popcorn...

    1. Re:Oh look! by mattventura · · Score: 1

      I'll start:
      How could they donate money to an organization called "bro"? That's a completely sexist name and Mozilla shouldn't support this kind of misogyny! /s

      Come to think of it, it's actually really sad that I have to put a /s on that, lest someone take this kind of sarcasm seriously a la this.

    2. Re: Oh look! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait for the remaining 497000 awarded to systemd.

    3. Re: Oh look! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a FYI, Bro (pronounced "broo") means bridge in Swedish. I hav no idea if the company is even Scandinavian, but that's probably the reference there.

    4. Re: Oh look! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Bro was developed in the United States and references "Big Brother" because the application is designed primarily to monitor networks.

    5. Re: Oh look! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Bro was developed in the United States and references "Big Brother" because the application is designed primarily to monitor networks.

      https://www.bro.org/

      Open Source

      Bro comes with a BSD license, allowing for free use with virtually no restrictions.

      This is the good kind of bro. No sneaks.

  4. dont need to hg blame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know it has been caused by non cows. Better only let cows edit the code. Mooooooo! Mooooo! Moooo it runs moooooooch better that way.

    1. Re:dont need to hg blame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm surprised you passed up an opportunity to use Moooooozilla.

  5. This is all well and good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But how much money went to women and minorities? They actually awarded a project named 'Bro'. That's rather sexist.

    1. Re:This is all well and good by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Bad-Reputation-Online.

    2. Re:This is all well and good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $15k is to remove the word "slave" from a project's documentation, so that should balance out the 'Bro' award.
      Global "s/slave/partner/" should do it.

  6. LUDDITES, all of them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not a single one of these useless LUDDITE programs is a modern appy App app! Modern app appers know that only apps can app apps, so these LUDDITE programs are clearly garbage!

    Apps!

  7. Open Source Awards by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2

    A couple months ago, we discussed news that Mozilla was planning to give back to the open source projects they rely on, to the tune of $1 million. Now, Mozilla has announced the first round of awards, giving out $503,000 in the process.

    Oracle immediately created a fork where Larry Elison won all the awards.

  8. I'm surprised by alvinrod · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that they even allowed an organization named Bro to participate given how offensive it is.

    1. Re:I'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Feels like it's time to relocate to a society which only has 2 genders and no social justice mafia. Thankfully there's some nice ones still available to choose from, though they all have some language barrier...

    2. Re:I'm surprised by SilentChasm · · Score: 1

      Their making up for it in other ways such as their $15,000 donation to Buildbot:

      Their award will be used to remove the term "slave" from all documentation, APIs and tests

    3. Re:I'm surprised by SilentChasm · · Score: 1

      In before someone points out I used the wrong "they're".

  9. WTF? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

    I did not donate money to Mozilla back in the day in order for them to be able to spend six figures on PR. Fuck that noise. If they can afford that nonsense, they can afford to send me a refund. With about 15 years' interest.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    1. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did not donate money to Mozilla back in the day in order for them to be able to spend six figures on PR. Fuck that noise. If they can afford that nonsense, they can afford to send me a refund. With about 15 years' interest.

      OMG! How dare they financially support projects that they rely on! They should spend that money on whatever the fuck *I* want them to! I mean, I gave them $50 15 years ago, I own their asses!

    2. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've noticed there's a bit of back scratching going on with open source projects that have set themselves up as charitable organizations. It kind of incestuous in a way since some developers and organization administrators are routinely involved in some of the same projects that donate funds to one another. It's the open source software equivalent of good-old-boy networking.

    3. Re:WTF? by gringer · · Score: 1

      It wasn't particularly difficult to predict that this would happen, because they've done it before:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

      FWIW, Wikipedia does the same sort of thing.

      --
      Ask me about repetitive DNA
    4. Re:WTF? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

      No, it's more like giving someone begging on the street corner for food money and then seeing them in a Brook Bros suit with a hooker on either arm six months later.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    5. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      In all seriousness, it is not like that at all. It is like giving someone begging on the street money for food, which they do spend on food or lodging. Because of that money they are able to get a job and start making money. Years later they donate some of their newfound wealth to some others. Your donation "back in the day" was not an investment. You wanted them to survive and produce a browser to compete with IE. They did just that, spectacularly well (until Chrome came around at least).

      Also, these companies Mozilla is donating to are in no way akin to "a hooker on either arm". They are open source companies whose software Mozilla has used extensively. It isn't even a showy display of PR activism, but a self-serving act. They want these companies to keep going, or accelerate development of features that Mozilla wants. When companies don't support the open source software they use, we end up with Heartbleed.

    6. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's more like giving someone begging on the street corner for food money and then seeing them in a Brook Bros suit with a hooker on either arm six months later.

      Yeah they should just stay beggars! They shouldn't be allowed to use that money to improve their life, keep them poor! And if you do improve your life then you owe me that money back with interest because it wasn't a donation, it was an investment.

      Seriously you're a fucking lowlife cunt.

  10. Tor Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I really hope a big chunk of the next wave goes to the Tor Project. Mozilla is getting a lot back in the way of security & privacy oversight through the Tor Browser Bundle, as well as a great showcase for how Mozilla projects are helping to liberate people in oppressed nations like China, North Korea, and the United States.

    1. Re:Tor Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See https://blog.torproject.org/blog/partnering-mozilla

      They're already doing more than just donating.

    2. Re: Tor Project by zaphirplane · · Score: 1

      Or ... A mail client say ... Thunderbird

  11. What would make you fagots happy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All you ever do is bitch and moan about things being shit. What, then, is not shit?

    1. Re:What would make you fagots happy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot is a funny place indeed. Everyone is so much about "open source" and hates "Micro$oft", but when there is talk about any open source project, huge whining starts about how that project is crap.

    2. Re:What would make you fagots happy? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

      Those are two different - almost warring - factions. Slashdot used to be the place to go for Open Source news and discussions. These days a lot of anti-FOSS people come here. If they aren't paid shills then I can't imagine why they come here, but they do. I doubt you will see many people with lower Slashdot User Numbers like myself complaining. It is mostly ACs and people with absurdly huge Slashdot ID Numbers that are anti-FOSS..

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    3. Re:What would make you fagots happy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isnt that people are anti-FOSS, it is that they are pro- good software regardless of whether it is open source or not. There is a lot of fantastic FOSS software but so many FOSS evangelists become apologists on the basis that the software is open source rather than any good and take an ideological stance on software rather than seeing it as simply a tool to do a job. The issue is that the promise of FOSS is not being delivered to the end users, it isnt that people are saying FOSS is bad but rather that while there are great dev tools and admin tools and an OS kernel by and large the consumer level applications suck.

      There are awesome projects like the Linux kernel and Blender for example but these are overshadowed by all the slow-follower projects (GIMP, Thunderbird for example), infighting (see systemd, Gnome3, Unity, Ubuntu, etc.), lack of focus/direction (many Mozilla projects) and general lack of innovation.

      Unlike desktop linux, a corporation (Google) created a smartphone linux system, made it immensely popular with end users *and* open source. This is the ultimate gift to the FOSS community on which to build and prove that the ideology is indeed more innovative than the alternatives. But where is it? Where are the exceptional innovations produced by the community that cause users of competing systems (iOS) to leave that platform in droves for the community-supported, FOSS operating system? Android should be leaps and bounds ahead of iOS in terms of innovative features for end users but it isnt. Users havent' gained anything by Android being open source, if anything it is worse because OEMs slap annoying UIs atop it. Users of the open source Android system actually get fewer updates in a less timely manner than the users of the proprietary iOS. This is terrible for the state of FOSS. Android should be the poster child for what FOSS can be to people in terms of a free, open, secure and innovative system...but it isnt that at all and that is bad for the FOSS movement as a whole.

      FOSS is great *for some things* but is not even close to having a competitive alternative to proprietary applications in many categories. So forget the FSF's anti-proprietary propaganda and focus on the strengths of FOSS in developer tools and admin systems *or* start delivering on the promise of FOSS innovation.

    4. Re:What would make you fagots happy? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      No. It's that they are Anti-FOSS. You are no doubt correct that there is a faction that are pro- good software regardless of whether it is open source or not. I know this because I fall into that camp, even though I am very zealous toward Linux and Good FOSS tools, if I need AutoCAD and somebody points me toward a Windows box with AutoCAD on it, I'll use it happily in a heartbeat. Still, I hate Microsoft because I understand them. Now, here's the problem:

      I said there was an anti-FOSS faction here, and there is one. Clearly I could be wrong on the following, but I think you mistakenly thought I was saying there are only two factions, and so you - realizing that you are also a pro-good-whatever-it-is type felt attacked, not realizing that I was not referring to you at all, and so you felt the need two make sure that second group included you. I have good news, but you belong to a third group

      This post was brought to you by the number 13 and the letter M

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  12. Bro? by klapek · · Score: 1

    So they support project with a "offensive" name? http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

    1. Re:Bro? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I'll start shortening 'broccoli' to 'bro' from now on.

      Bro is good for you.

  13. Mozilla wastes more money than Wikmedia. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Imagine how good firefo would be if Mozilla didn't waste its money. Hopefully Donald Trump will be elected and send the tax auditors after Mozilla.