Max Inden
j-r conlinSo, uh, yeah...
It was the best place I ever worked, along with some of the smartest, kindest people who I will miss dearly, but there comes a time when you have to leave.
Sébastien Barbieri@jrconlin great great great Post.
Thanks for sharing. I am one of the people you are talking about. I still use Firefox... but I really miss the community Mozillian were before... 13 years ago.
I was part of the 2013 Mozilla Summit around the world in Brussels.
I saw the leaders and CEO dance and the usage in the websites I managed going down.
I was really sad when Firefox went below 3% and wasn't allowed to spend time testing on it because it was a second line browser.
I was a FirefoxOS 1/2
Thanks for sharing. I am one of the people you are talking about. I still use Firefox... but I really miss the community Mozillian were before... 13 years ago.
I was part of the 2013 Mozilla Summit around the world in Brussels.
I saw the leaders and CEO dance and the usage in the websites I managed going down.
I was really sad when Firefox went below 3% and wasn't allowed to spend time testing on it because it was a second line browser.
I was a FirefoxOS 1/2
@jrconlin I was a FirefoxOS defender. Because I wanted a way to get out of Android and iOS. I was and still am a Mozillian. I loved the best documentation ever made about the web that was and still is MDN. I'm a big Rust fan. But yes... what happened... Noone was taking the community into account. It's like crazy CEO with huuuge salary came in place and decided to turn down all the community project then went of with most of the money...
Mozilla should be a place where we choose our CEO. 2/2
Mozilla should be a place where we choose our CEO. 2/2
groxxFirst off, Thank You!
Thanks for all the stuff you contributed. You made things better for folk, and that's what matters. FWIW, I still have the satchel / courier bag / murse from 2013. That all-hands was chaos, but it was also fantastic to meet up with folk outside of moco.
FWIW, there has been a bit of noise, and a few moves that things should start improving as far as working with the community again. A lot of folk internal feel the same way, which is encouraging.
I remain optimistic.
Ok, really stupid question, and maybe this is my own fail, but how do you keep stuff from falling out of it? Things like laptops and note books are fine, but I feel like junk like pens and stickers slide out. Do you have any mini-bags you use or is there some other trick?
@jrconlin nothing ever felt... So I queationned myself and I had a look. And I think it's just because it's always full. Post-It, sharpies, usb-c cables, a card deck (the product owner game), a Logitech presenter... A power supply, tissues...
So everything is somewhat compressed there.
So everything is somewhat compressed there.
I mean, that is a completely valid answer.
Guess I just need to load more crap than I normally do ;)
c. meador 🪻 still room art@jrconlin our overlap was brief compared to all your years at moz, but I really appreciated seeing how much energy you put into eng mentoring and support during my time there. Wishing you well with your next steps :)
Ed Neal
Number6 
Mozilla was at about 15% of the desktop market when they jettisoned the extensions that gave their browser super powers the other big browsers didn't have. They did this over the objections of tens of thousands of their users.
Two years later and their desktop usage had dropped to about 5%.
In marketing, you never turn yourself into a commodity, but that is exactly what they did.
It's the total tone-deafness of their "leadership" that is disturbing.
Fabrice DesréBecause Mozilla has traditionally been very transparent about what it does, it can make people believe that they have insight into all the decisions and outcomes.
I do not fault folk for thinking that way (it's human nature, see information bias), but I do encourage folk to remember that we only see a small percentage of anything, and it's important to remember that we all have strong opinions.
PhilSalkie@PhilSalkie @fabrice @jrconlin
I believe that Palemoon was hacked (in its archive). It reminded me of the dangers of a single person trying to support a enterprise-sized project.
I switched to chromium for a couple of years. But then they did the snap thing and I couldn't get native host projects to work.
Now I mostly use Firefox, but switch to chromium or chrome for some features. On Android, FF has problems with websites, so I started using Vivaldi.
What does a browser do? It renders a web page and interprets some javascript. Two browser makes, A & B, should have nearly the identical results.
So why choose "B" over "A", especially if "A" is already accepted by your bank, your work, and all major businesses?
You use "B" because of its special features. When those features go away, you find something else to use because there's no point.
So yes, when FF made itself an "also ran", it started to bleed users.
USB Type-Steve 
@fabrice @number6 @jrconlin I certainly think it did not help. I remember when Firefox went to Quantum and overnight I lost a major portion of extensions I relied upon since the 2000s (and they did not get ported over-they worked far too deep into Firefox's internals to be permitted to do so). It might not have been the number one cause of the user base decline, but it CERTAINLY did not help Mozilla at all. They should have handled the entire situation far better (and maybe listened to the users a bit more than they did).
@USBTypeSteve @number6 @jrconlin Yes, that's small potatoes compared to the effect of Chrome marketing on Google's web sites and others, bundling deals etc.
So how should Mozilla have handled the deprecation of xul/xpcom add-ons?
George Liquor, American@jrconlin Positively brilliant departing letter and even better blog post. Thanks for putting into words what a lot of us lifelong, abnormal af FF users are feeling !
Jeroen Baert@jrconlin Thanks for everything!
Karl T.@jrconlin Thank you, JR, for your kindness and your desire to make things better. I've worked alongside some really amazing people, and you are definitely among my favourites.
Mozilla was very, very lucky to have you for as long as they did. Hell, software engineering as a field has been lucky to have you. I hope you can rest, recharge, find things to do and experience that delight you, and curmudgeon your way down the beach for a good long while ....
Thanks for all of it.
Pride was a 🪿️ Riot@jrconlin you were welcoming from the start, and I always appreciated your kindness and humor. Please enjoy all the accrued vacation!
Timothée Ravier@jrconlin This is spot on! Thanks for writing it.
Jeff Martin@jrconlin wow, you really have a good idea of what Firefox (and ex-Firefox) users are thinking. You basically called me out personally as the weirdo who got fed up with Mozilla leadership, jumped ship to Vivaldi, and didn't tell anyone about it. Just silently sighed and moved on.
They should put you in charge of Mozilla. You could actually fix it.
Thanks for sharing your story and best of luck on your new adventure!
Oh god, no one should ever put me in charge of anything (and not just for Groucho Marx reasons).
Leadership is a skill, and it's not one that's easily learned. Everyone's job is hard. Honestly, my main complaint with a lot of folk in leadership roles (not just at Mozilla, mind you, but other companies and organizations) is that far too many of them do not want to learn from the company's history. Maybe they feel they might be influence by older, bad ideas. Maybe they feel that "a fresh start" is what's needed. Maybe, they realize they're just temporary and they want to make as big an impact as they can in the limited time they have. Maybe they're just that busy.
As someone who studies history, though, it makes me sad, because I keep seeing the same patterns.
So, yeah, please do not put me in charge of anything. I don't have the managerial skills for it. I am, however, willing to be the five-year-old advisor.
@jrconlin sure. But you understand these things, and they do not. That's why you should be in charge.
But being in charge isn't the same thing as leadership. Companies have boards that are in charge, but companies are led by officers. The distinction is a meaningful one.
Being in charge means you get to pick the leaders. =)
Olivier Duclos@jrconlin Your post made me realize something: there is still a community of developers around Mozilla, but instead of contributing to Firefox, they spend their time creating forks of Firefox to fix what they don't like.
Yep, a completely fair thought. The only thing that worries me is that building a virtual machine that runs on any platform, capable of loading and executing code from anywhere on the internet in microseconds is surprisingly difficult.
It's also one of the big reasons that a good number of folk that work at that level are concerned about giving that much control over how that works to one company with strong commercial interests.
Honestly? I'd be happier if a lot of those folk were to revive the Konqueror engine, or work more on Servo. There should not be just one engine. Heck, having just three is deeply concerning. There should be dozens.
But, like I said, building those sorts of things is surprisingly difficult.
ClickyMcTicker@jrconlin “That's like mandating you put a bar on the steering wheel of an armored tank, that's actively crewed, in the middle of a base, with half the population watching.”
Wouldn’t it be more like putting a lock on a glass door that leads into a glass cube that contains an interactive art exhibit open to the public and staffed 24/7?
I could be wrong about your intentions with the point, but I was thinking the absurdity of putting a lock on something that is meant to be viewed and touched by anybody at any time (under supervision). The security measure ignores the realities of the situation and follows a simple checklist.
Wow, that's a far better analogy. May I borrow it and credit you?
(Again, this is why having outside contributors is important. They're often far smarter than you are.)
@jrconlin you are more than welcome to.
Em 
@jrconlin @cederbs I am sad to read this and get confirmation this is exactly how I imagined it must have gone in the inside. We could have nice things if management listened to the community and took the time to build instead of breaking things seems like the sad conclusion for so much of today's tech world.
I wish you all the best in your next projects, whatever they might be. I know that you will be back to build great things for the community at some point, after taking well-deserved time to rest and recover 💚
Cederbs@Em0nM4stodon @jrconlin JR definitely saw more of Mozilla than I did but the post definitely felt very relevant. For moso they really had an dead weight that showed up any time I tried to propose higher community engagement and integration which always felt counterintuitive.
That being said, I was in for a blip of 6 months and knew the project I was signing up for which was more than most folks got. Liked the people a lot, though.
K Lars Lohn@jrconlin My mourning for Mozilla began in 2012 when I was asked to speculate on the evolution of the Firefox crash reporting system in the era of FirefoxOS. As I had always done, I blogged about my thoughts.
The blast came when my post hit Planet Mozilla. I learned that what had always been open work was actually proprietary and secret.
Great lengths were taken to have Planet Mozilla remove my post.
I knew right then that the Mozilla that I loved had died. The org had grown so large, they tapped out on employees that understood the meaning and passion of OSS. They pushed the community away. They moved to proprietary tools. No more OpenOffice documents, no more IRC. They strove to prove they could be just a capricious and callous as any for profit company.
I became a shitty employee, I didn't obey my boss's direction anymore. I only did what I thought needed be done. I bounced around the company milking the gig until my health failed and they discarded me
The good riddance was mutual.
@twobraids @jrconlin to be fair, not obeying your boss's direction doesn't make you a shitty employee.
@jlin I actually walked away from my boss's department and instead contributed to a project in an entire different branch of the company. I used my boss's budget to work for a group that didn't have the money to pay me from their own budget. It was much more interesting work. I didn't give a shit about the company's budget planning.
From my boss's point of view, I was an employee that never showed up for work.
Emma Irwin@jrconlin so much of this about community ❤️
Safe travels
Safe travels
Lincoln Russell@jrconlin Every great software developer I know wants to quit as well, for similar reasons. Our industry is off the rails. It used to be possible to hide, but there's nowhere left.
luna the doggie 
Hell, if I were Mozilla Leadership, I'd be watching Vivaldi closer than I would be watching Chrome or Edge.I know right??? I have been very close to ditching Firefox at multiple points and didn't only because it can do a few niche things better. I settled for using Vivaldi for some things as necessary, and doing the bulk of my browsing in Firefox.