Mastodawn

All AI features will also be opt-in. I think there are some grey areas in what 'opt-in' means to different people (e.g. is a new toolbar button opt-in?), but the kill switch will absolutely remove all that stuff, and never show it in future. That's unambiguous.

…

I'm not asking for faith in our direction - the thing I love about the Firefox community is how open, honest, and technical it is.

But I do ask that you don't have the opposite of faith. Like, try not to be determined that we're going to do the wrong thing here.

…

I hope we can (re)gain your trust here.

I don't personally work on this stuff, but I'll try hard to answer any questions you have.

And other than that, I'll get back in my lane, and stick to web platform stuff.

- Jake (@jaffathecake)

Just be glad this thread wasn't a long-ass video. It almost was.

@firefoxwebdevs Yeah I think most people mainly deplore the hype and the resources spent on technological trends whose benefits are not always obvious. Before that, Mozilla advertised about FirefoxOS, before killing it to focus on IoT, before moving on to blockchain, then crypto, then NFT's and now IA. In more that 10 years, none of this projects produced anything useful for the users.

@firefoxwebdevs Right now, Mozilla would probably be the first company to be diagnosed with ADHD. It really can't seem to focus and do something productive. The question was never "should Firefox have IA?". The question is "to do what?". Mozilla is communicating that IA is coming. Not announcing a new feature. TBH, it's worrying. IA should be an implementation detail, not the central point.

@firefoxwebdevs It's like Mozilla is a car company and it's advertising a new car with leather in it. Ok, cool but what is it? A berline, a pickup, a SUV? Will I recharge with electricity or fuel? And Mozilla's answer is: "it has leather in it!"

It's… not great.

Nicolas Silva Dec 18

@christophehenry @firefoxwebdevs look, you have a point about communication. It's hard and Mozilla isn't top notch at it, to be polite. But also, Mozilla never worked on IOT, nor blockchain nor crypto stuff. There were vague talks of transitioning some of the Firefox OS resources into IOT exploration for a very brief time, which didn't end up happening so I'll give you that one. But where the hell hell is the rest coming from?

Nicolas Silva

@christophehenry @firefoxwebdevs no NFT either. Obviously.

@nical I can't find the sources although I remember clearly something about it but they definitively developped a Metaverse thing and IoT. This doesn't really change my argument.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/06/mozilla-foundation-crypto/

catch Dec 18

@christophehenry @nical they very publicly had to walk back accepting crypto donations in 2022. It's not quite putting crypto miner in Firefox or linking it to a crypto exchange but still.

Firefox maker Mozilla pauses crypto donations amid backlash

The Mozilla Foundation, which oversees Firefox development, is pausing the ability to accept donations in cryptocurrencies following a backlash.

TechCrunch

matthias koplenig Dec 18

@catch56 @christophehenry @nical Not quite a crypto miner? Do you even hear yourself?
The payment provider also allowed crypto-transfers, how is that even a scandal?

Somehow the Internet Archive takes in crypto donations to this day, and nobody cares.

catch Dec 18

@metasieben @christophehenry @nical because the Mozilla foundation kept going on about how they accept crypto currencies on their social media. If you don't know why it was a scandal maybe you could have done some research for 5 minutes instead of looking silly.

Gabriel Pires Dec 18

@catch56 @metasieben @christophehenry @nical And? What's wrong with cryptocurrency donations? How are social posts asking for USD donations different than posts asking for crypto?

catch Dec 18

@gsprs @metasieben @christophehenry @nical imagine having so little personality or interests that you have to put 'investor' in your masto profile, and can't think of anything to do with your spare time except to reply to people to 'defend' your pet technology with the most inane comments possible. Not a single post on main.

Felix Dec 18

@catch56 That's... not very kind or thoughtful, and barely relevant to the topic.

just adrienne Jan 8

@felurx @catch56 It's extremely accurate, though!

Gabriel Pires Dec 18

@catch56 @metasieben @christophehenry @nical I have 156 posts and the vast majority are not about crypto, what are you even on about? Your most recent posts are pretty much all about AI, projecting much? 😆

soc Dec 19

@catch56 @gsprs @metasieben @christophehenry @nical 😂

MuhammadFree🇵🇸Jan 26

@catch56 @gsprs @metasieben @christophehenry @nical
Imagine having so litte personality you need to justify, well, defend, your claims like a child

RAK Dec 22

@gsprs @catch56 @metasieben @christophehenry @nical: Cryptocurrency is and has been a technological manifestation of Austrian School "economics". Its entire form reflects that.

Gabriel Pires Dec 22

@raktheundead @catch56 @metasieben @christophehenry @nical In other words it’s bad because it’s existence and success doesn’t fit in your ideology. You know you’re pushing some evil crap when you see personal privacy and security as enemies in your worldview.
(Yet another one of those people who reply and then immediately block you to prevent you from replying back, cult behavior)

mathew Dec 19

@metasieben @catch56 @christophehenry @nical I don’t donate to the Internet Archive precisely because they take crypto donations.

RedwoodSec Dec 19

@catch56 @christophehenry @nical You know what’s funny about that news link is the featured image is the Firefox memorial that recognized the Mozilla community, and where’s that been for years? In some storage facility, it really speaks to how important community is to Mozilla leadership these days.

Nicolas Silva Dec 18

@christophehenry just to be clear, I've been working there for over a decade. I would know. Mozilla did not invest engineering resources into NFT, or crypto, not even IOT for all intents and purposes, although almost. You have a problem with VR? I don't blame you I don't think it's particularly interesting, but if a company decides to have a small team experiment with VR in case it becomes important, then maybe give them a break? The other 1000 employees are still working the usual stuff.

Nicolas Silva Dec 18

@christophehenry how many people will read your toot and think "oh, Mozilla was into NFT, that sucks, I guess I won't fact check, it's been written by someone on the internet, that must be true"? Mozilla is such an easy target with its frequent PR mess ups, could we focus on stuff that is actually real?

@nical I think you're missing my point entirely but it's ok. We don't have to agree.

abben Dec 18

@christophehenry @nical I mean you just falsley listed like a half a dozen things and didn't acknowledge or correct. Why is that?

@abbenm Well then maybe I'm wrong. It's ok. It happens.
@nical

Julien W.Dec 18

@nical
We did a little bit of IOT during a year, but this was a smallish amount of engineers (including me).

And we also did Hubs more recently (is that a metaverse? I don't know).

But well, that's details and wasn't part of Firefox.

@christophehenry

Ian Bicking Dec 19

@christophehenry They did work on both of those in Emerging Technologies (which was disbanded and most folks laid off in 2020).

I think IoT was seldom more than two people, usually one, and maybe some supporting folks around the web standards.

Hubs (a VR meeting space) was a bit larger, and had some external funding. Apparently it's spun off: https://hubsfoundation.org/ (it's always hard to know how successful these things are though)

In cases like these Mozilla usually hoped something would eventually spin off. These were never going to be a new direction for Mozilla or Firefox.

Hubs Foundation

We'll take it from here.

Hubs Foundation