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Isn’t Bryan Lunduke a sem-closeted Qanon dude? Some of this article does smell of that kind of thinking.
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Submitted 1 year ago by gsa32@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
twotone@lemmy.world 1 year ago
naught@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
It’s very clearly written by someone who is anti-“sjw” and loathes to see the discussion of racial issues. It screams white fragility, which goes hand in hand with alt right conspiracy garbage. It has such a conspiratorial tone… meanwhile none of this info is a secret.
Nurgle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Cursory Google search says, yes.
HipPriest@kbin.social 1 year ago
My initial thought I'll admit was this guy could be a crank. But actually it doesn't matter if he is or not, he's clearly pointing out that Mozilla aren't spending their money on their products but on... Well something they're not exactly keen to tell anyone about.
If he's faked the documents that's different of course but that doesn't appear to be the case
twotone@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You don’t have to fake docs to create a false uproar. All it takes is painting things in a bad light and hoping your audience doesn’t dig deeper. EG the part I stopped reading at is when he put ‘cis’ in quotation marks and said the linked person was hating on cisgendered white people, when in reality the link they provided only showed the person saying that cisgendered folks are generally better off in the workplace.
mo_ztt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So… I had more or less exactly the same reaction. The subtle shade that pervades the whole article jumped out at me, and we’ve only got his word for it that any of this is suspicious or that he actually reached out to anybody to ask what was up with these expenditures. That said, I did dig through the sources he cites, and (1) what he’s saying is factually accurate (2) I think he’s kind of got a point. E.g. it sounds like they gave $387,000 to a one-person consulting outfit. They have a left-leaning slant, which is obviously fine (although I’m guessing Bryan Lunduke doesn’t think that it is). But they also have a track record which I would not consider solid enough to justify giving them $387,000, and I think the question “what did they do in exchange” is a pretty fair one.
MagneticFusion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Somewhat disappointing of a read. I had no idea Mozilla was spending so much money on political agendas instead of focusing on improving their products and regaining their dominant market share. You can agree or disagree with the politics that Mozilla is funding but the fact of the matter is a majority of people who donated or still are donating to Mozilla are doing so with the intention of improving their products, not with the intention of funding unknown companies and people running a political agenda
chaogomu@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'd take it all with a grain (or pound) of salt. The Author of this article is a Qanon, and has a political agenda of his own.
gsa32@lemmy.world 1 year ago
…mozilla.net/…/mozilla-fdn-2021-fs-final-1010.pdf
He’s a rightoid lunatic, but a broken clock is right twice a day
MagneticFusion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
That is good to know. At the end of the day you should not trust everything you read on the internet. But he still does raise some valid concerns regarding Mozilla’s financial situation
otter@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I don’t think the “politics” side is separate from their products though. The fact is that the competitors, the massive tech giants, have significant political arms as well. They fund initiatives, lobby governments, and try to squeeze out more power and influence in the tech landscape.
You can’t fight that with just a “better product”. Especially if most casual users don’t care about those “better” features (usually privacy and security related ones) as much as we might.
If their political arm is pushing for better privacy laws and pushing against corporate control of the tech world, then that is in line with what I’d want my donation money going towards.
I do agree that their finances could use some more openness and explanation. I’m leaning towards this being incompetence (or lack of focus) rather than malice.
Navarian@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Pretty much this. People seem to forget that we few that value this level of browser privacy and security are an extreme minority.
The vast majority of users just want it to work, without error. Some don’t even care that much about it being fast or slow once they’re entrenched in the system.
Frankly I’m anti-lobbying, in an ideal world this shit would be illegal. But we’re not in an ideal world and this is not abnormal.
whenigrowup356@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The author made a point of calling the head of the foundation “her” repeatedly after making clear they’re non-binary. I’m sure this article has no agenda or anything.
firecat@kbin.social 1 year ago
It won't matter since "she" could be lying to make LGBT protect her, just like a person in congress. We know Millionaires and people with too much money lie to get more money.
elouboub@kbin.social 1 year ago
And this is one of the many reasons I don't donate to Firefox. Firefox employees should really fork that project and make it better than what it is now instead of just being Google's dog + an excuse to pay millions to a single person and hundreds of thousands to random individuals, who have nothing to do with Firefox.
400M in cash could go to a lot of development efforts. They could rewrite Firefox entirely in Rust, make it run on any platform, move the needle on web technologies in a big way, hell, they could make their own damn phone with that kind of money, or even write their own competitor to ChromeOS.
But instead...
chaogomu@kbin.social 1 year ago
Instead, they're trying to keep governments around the world from banning the internet.
Think of all the really stupid laws to govern the internet that have been written by people who don't understand the internet. Then add in that Apple Google, Facebook, and every other major player in the space are pushing for laws to hurt their competitors, regardless of the damage it does to the open internet.
And Mozilla is one of the few organizations out there that says, "hey, let's just have an open and free internet".
MagneticFusion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I wonder if using a Mozilla corporation product like their VPN to support them is any different than donating to the Mozilla foundation. I would have went with Mullvad any day but choss Mozilla VPN just to support Mozilla. But if this money is not even being used to develop their software and instead being taken by their CEO or paid to random companies and political campaigns, then I will just switch to Mullvad.
Matt@lemdro.id 1 year ago
It is different. Funds donated to the Mozilla Foundation cannot be used for Firefox development because that is handled by the Mozilla Corporation. Money from the Mozilla services can be used for Firefox development, but there is still no guarantee that they won’t be used for something else. I wish there was a way to donate specifically to Firefox, but it seems like Mozilla tries to be unclear about how money is used.
Makeshift@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
just so you know, Mozilla vpn is just a repackaged mullvad vpn, they’re partnered
Desistance@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The competitor to ChomeOS didn’t take off. So it was discontinued. An Indian company picked up the codebase and renamed it KaiOS. They now have an agreement to support each other to make it easier to uplift code and collaborate.
They also used that money to fund a lot of Open Source projects, like XiphOrg and AV1 development and Rust development just to name a few. Firefox itself already has a number of Rust components as the first consumer of the language.
Also every company out there uses their money for political agendas. It’s how they lobby to get favorable laws.
HipPriest@kbin.social 1 year ago
That is indeed interesting. I would like to know more about the people they're giving huge amounts of money to who are political speakers. Does seem very odd
chaogomu@kbin.social 1 year ago
Mozilla has been fighting to keep the web free and open since the beginning. There are a lot of stupid laws that are introduced constantly that will hurt or even kill the open internet.
Sure, you can pay lawyers to fight these laws after they're passed, or you can work to make sure they aren't passed in the first place.
donut4ever@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Sounds like they’re using free and open source sentiment to raise money, to keep users who in turn bring in revenue from Google so they can do “activism”. I don’t know this as a fact, but a personal conclusion from past events and reading this article, Mozilla is a social justice activist company. I can’t say it is good or bad because I don’t know details of what they do.
Engywuck@lemm.ee 1 year ago
My conclusion, since already a few years ago, is that donating to Mozilla does actually nothing “for the free web”. Most people donate thinking that their money fuel FF development. They’re basically scammed.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This user summed it up well
donut4ever@lemm.ee 1 year ago
That’s exactly why I said I can’t say it’s good or bad because I don’t know the details. But if that’s what they’re doing (which kind of seems like it from what I’ve seen so far), then that’s good. We do need a big corporation on our side to fight to rest of them. Again, I don’t know for certain, but I am going to be positive about it because I haven’t seen too much bad from them. Their good has outweighed their bad so far. So
traveler01@lemdro.id 1 year ago
Yeah this is why I don’t donate to Mozilla.
jet@hackertalks.com 1 year ago
The trouble with a political organization that produces software is that people are interested in the software, and if the politics are very focused and in line with whatever the software is doing. Everybody’s happy. As soon as the politics get more generalized and defocused then you’re going to end up with conflict. You’re going to upset somebody’s politics, and the more issues you try to umbrella under the software foundation, the more users you’re going to dissatisfy.
If you’re very keenly focused and have a clear philosophy then this makes sense. Like the EFF, they produce some software, but their mission is very clear. I can donate to the EFF knowing exactly what my money is going to support.
Mozilla has demonstrated over time they’ve become sort of a umbrella for various activists, so a new person enters leadership and Mozilla starts to fund a new activist project, which is fine and they’re allowed to do. But that muddy’s what my donations would do, and I don’t want to support necessarily all of their projects. Absolutely want to support the browser, a free and open internet is a part of the internet.
But I feel even if I donate $10 if only $0.05 is going to the browser and the rest is going to various other random activisms, I’m not going to donate. Not even because I don’t agree with them, it’s just not focused.
So instead I donate to the tor project so they can keep the tor browser with the right patches, and maybe some of that trickles back to Mozilla and maybe it doesn’t. But it’s more focused and less opinionated.
ahal@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
One option could be to sign up for the VPN or pocket premium. That goes to the corporation rather than the foundation. Though it would still partially fund products other than Firefox.
Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Bryan Lunduke is just another right winger who’s butthurt that Mozilla spends any of their money advocating for liberal values. Meanwhile the massive amounts of corporate cash that get funneled into conservative ‘think’ tanks (oxymoron much?) and superpacs apparently isn’t a problem for him. While I acknowledge he does raise some valid points about Mozilla’s over dependence on Google revenue, nearly all large corporations try to peddle influence with political parties and donate to social/charitable causes, so there’s nothing unusual about that at all. If they were a more right wing organization, this article would never have been written by him, that’s obvious takeaway here - it’s just a stock standard conservative hit job.