* Google stands up for privacy^W, user control, and open standards like HTTP2
* They back it up with high quality technical products like Chromium
* They built Go, a language I love
I could have written the same with Microsoft/VSCode/C# and Apple/Safari/Swift.
Seriously: Mozilla is good, but they're not saints, they're not totally different from other companies. They sometimes erred, even on the privacy of their users, which is their strong point. They are a commercial entity that sells services. It's easier to to keep enforcing a "Don't be evil" policy when you're not powerful enough to be evil.
And the Mozilla Corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. That means their only stakeholder that they could pay out their profits to, is the Foundation, which can't take the money, because it's a non-profit. The Corporation can only really save up the money to reinvest it later.
The Mozilla Foundation's legally-binding mission statement is therefore also effectively enforced for the Corporation. The Foundation could throw out the CEO of the Corporation and in general gets to decide what happens in the Corporation, which they're legally bound to tell to follow the Foundation's mission statement, i.e. making the web a healthier place, improving privacy etc.
As a result, the only profit-motive that exists in the Corporation is that the employees want to keep their job.
A small correction: if I recall correctly, the Corporation is legally allowed to give some money to the Foundation, and it does so. But the allowed amount is quite small -- maybe a couple a million a year? I don't remember exactly -- and only a tiny fraction of the Corporation's profits.
Yeah, I simplified there. I remembered it being a really insignificant amount that they're limited to, and then more importantly, it's still a non-profit. If they take the money, they're just as well forced to reinvest it into their mission statement.
* They back it up with high quality technical products like Chromium
* They built Go, a language I love
I could have written the same with Microsoft/VSCode/C# and Apple/Safari/Swift.
Seriously: Mozilla is good, but they're not saints, they're not totally different from other companies. They sometimes erred, even on the privacy of their users, which is their strong point. They are a commercial entity that sells services. It's easier to to keep enforcing a "Don't be evil" policy when you're not powerful enough to be evil.