Microsoft Project Manager Says Mozilla Should Get Down From Its 'Philosophical Ivory Tower,' Cease Firefox Development (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: A Microsoft program manager has caused a stir on Twitter over the weekend by suggesting that Firefox-maker Mozilla should give up on its own rendering engine and move on with Chromium. "Thought: It's time for @mozilla to get down from their philosophical ivory tower. The web is dominated by Chromium, if they really 'cared' about the web, they would be contributing instead of building a parallel universe that's used by less than five percent?" wrote Kenneth Auchenberg, who builds web developer tools for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code.

Auchenberg's post referred to Mozilla's response to Microsoft's announcement in December that it would scrap Edge's EdgeHTML rendering engine for Chromium's. The move will leave Firefox's Gecko engine as the only alternative to Chromium, which is used by Opera and dozens of other browsers. Few people agreed with Auchenberg, including engineers from both Mozilla and Chromium. Long-serving Mozillian Asa Dotzler was not impressed. "Just because your employer gave up on its own people and technology doesn't mean that others should follow," Dotzler replied to Auchenberg. Auchenberg clarified that he didn't want to see Mozilla vanish, but said it should reorganize into a research institution "instead of trying to to justify themselves with the 'protectors of the web' narrative."

Comments

the only alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

"he move will leave Firefox's Gecko engine as the only alternative to Chromium, which is used by Opera and dozens of other browsers."

What about Safari, which uses webkit? It's the default browser on both macOS and iOS, and does not use Chromium.

Re:the only alternative?

[markdavis]

>"What about Safari, which uses webkit? It's the default browser on both macOS and iOS, and does not use Chromium."

Wake me up when it runs on even one of:

Linux desktops
BSD desktops
Android phones
Oh, and MS-Windows (since dropped 7 YEARS ago)

Throwing out a closed-source, Apple-only product as an "alternative" is hardly the counter to the Chrome/Google monoculture.

I believe that Firefox is the ONLY open-source, multi-platform, non-chrome based browser left. And as a bonus, this only true alternative is fast, robust, provides far more customization and user control, community-based, and backed by an organization that cares about standards, security, privacy, and internet freedom.

So if you want to fight our rapid plunge into to the next dark-age/IE-rerun, then I suggest you install and use Firefox on whatever platform you use and encourage others to do the same.

It is absolutely SHOCKING to see some sites that are already becoming essentially Chrome-only as their rendering is partially broken in Firefox and their "solution" when you complain is to install Chrome. I never thought we would have to go through this s*** again. But here we are.

Re:the only alternative?

[Austerity Empowers]

A few truths exist, one is that if Microsoft says you shouldn't do a thing, it must be critically important for you to double down on that thing.

Complete moron

[brickhouse98]

What a jackass. Sure, everything was made better by decreasing competition and just being subservient to an open source engine that is mainly influenced by one big player. This idiot got a lot more attention than he probably thought he would- good.

Re:Complete moron

[gl4ss]

the real reason would be to ask why the f would you choose microsofts chromium browser over anything else?

besides, wtf would mozilla "research" if they dropped their own rendering engine? would they research how to keep adblockers running on chromium?

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

These days Microsoft makes more of their money off of abusing people's privacy then selling software, so of course they are opposed to the browser that still allows savvy users to block that shit.

Um, WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromium is the "parallel universe" here, not Firefox. The Firefox browser is far older and can trace it's origins back to Mosaic. Of course, the tweet was posted by someone from Microsoft, who is clearly biased on the matter. Firefox is the only significant competition left, and it's good that users still have a choice.

Re: Re:Um, WTF?

[bheerssen]

Mozilla has been committed to social issues since before there was a Firefox. What do you think the whole "Take back the web" thing was about? They are trying to keep the web free, as in freedom, for everyone. If that's not a social issue, nothing is.

It takes some bravado

[ChunderDownunder]

to commit career suicide by admitting you backed the wrong horse.

Gecko, for all its warts, is now the only non-Safari option (sorry, Tim, I don't own any Apple hardware) to avoid a Google monoculture.

Don't take advice from your enemy

[DNS-and-BIND]

When your enemy tells you you're stupid and you should be doing something else, never do that. She'll always say things like "you're wasting your time on useless efforts" - if your enemy really thought that, she'd rejoice that you were wasting your time.

Your enemy is not worried that you will fail. She is worried that you will succeed.

Re:Typical Microsoft Employee -- Arrogant

[phantomfive]

firefox is pretty much doomed at this point as they will almost certainly never recover marketshare at this point and it only gets worse from here as no one tests sites for firefox anymore.

Why don't you put a "Best viewed with IE" blinking-GIF on your homepage?