Earlier today, Mozilla announced they're
laying off 25% of their workforce (250 people). The announcement heralds the second round of layoffs in 2020, the first of which consisted of 70 employees in mid-January.
Mozilla, founded in 1998, has been a long-time vocal advocate for a free, open, and accessible internet. The non-profit has released free and open-source software such as the Thunderbird email client, Bugzilla (open-source bug reporting for a lot of projects you might use), the Rust programming language, and the entire Firefox Suite.
This most recent round of layoffs sets a disturbing precedent for the future of the web. Sources close to Mozilla report that a large number of the terminated employees were engineers working on projects that were set to secure Firefox's future as a competitive browser (Firefox has seen a steady decline in use in recent years). One such project is Servo, a modern browser engine designed to capitalize on Rust's strong memory safety and concurrency guarantees, resulting in faster and more reliable web rendering. Today, the entire Servo team has been let go, along with the
Firefox Developer-Tools, and MDN (Mozilla Developer Network) teams.
Cutting these efforts is a considerable blow to the open internet. Without Firefox Developer tools, web developers will migrate to Google Chrome when testing their sites, which will likely degrade the web experience for Firefox users. Anyone who has used MDN can tell you how indispensable it is as a reference for veteran web developers and as a guide for those who aspire to contribute to the web.
Today, Firefox stands alone against a tide of Chromium-based browsers. If Mozilla lets Firefox die, we netizens will have no choice but to use a Chromium-based browser, effectively allowing Google to have complete control of the gateway to the world wide web. As people who value the freedom the internet has brought with it, this should serve as a reminder that freedom is not a given; it's earned by those who fight hard to protect it. We can't close our eyes; we have to pay attention because if we don't, the things we value most will be taken from us.
Mozilla's executive's salaries increased while Firefox's market share decreased. The management lost its vision. If you're contributing to open source, make sure you pay attention to what's happening, I have a feeling that this is only the beginning, and we'll look back at this as a pivotal moment in time.