Mozilla

[starseerdrgn]

What the hell happened to Mozilla?

Seriously, what happened? Mozilla used to be this huge community-oriented team that did a lot of cool stuff. Thunderbird, Sunbird, SeaMonkey, Firefox, documentation on web standards, and that was the tip of the iceberg. But now? It's like... Firefox, Firefox mobile, and some web advocacy... That's all I personally know of.

• Thunderbird is effectively in purely maintenance mode.
• Sunbird is now a plugin for Thunderbird (and not really maintained).
• SeaMonkey has been suffering from a lack of leadership and materials.
• Firefox OS was killed off when Brendan Eich was thrown out of Mozilla.
• XUL and XULRunner (and all of the applications that ran on the platform) were thrown under the bus when Mozilla decided to ditch the platform entirely.

Mozilla keeps saying they don't want to be known as the "Firefox Company", but outside of Mozilla Developer Network--sorry, "MDN Web Docs"--I can't think of a single thing they do other than Firefox with any seriousness. They became just like Google, killing off things on a whim while complaining that people know them for one thing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still a supported of Mozilla. I support the free and open web. I use SeaMonkey as my main browser, email client, and IRC client (via ChatZilla). I've been with them since Mozilla Suite 1.0 . I bought into FirefoxOS when I first had the chance, getting a ZTE Open C, and later managing to get my claws on my lovely LG Fx0, which I still love, but can't really use because the platform is dead.

So... What happened? When did Mozilla start becoming like Google in how they act? I mean, I know the time around it: when Brendan Eich was kicked out as CEO by some butthurt members of the LGBTQ+ community (disclaimer: I'm trans*). The shitshow on Twitter really hurt a lot of members of the community, both Mozilla and more general LGBTQ+ community members, because a select few decided to drag up something from five years in the past to enact some form of vengence against Eich. Their toxic behavior really tore members of Mozilla's Community apart from one another, and that helped no one.

I just want to know why Mozilla got the wind taken out of its sails by a small group of social justice vigilantes. Was it the loss of Eich that really caused this, or was it the community being torn asunder for that period of time that did all of the damage? I really don't know.