Like many here, I think Mozilla has done a terrible job managing their money and they are largely to blame for the pickle they are in.

However, I don't see who picks up the reigns if Mozilla dies. Like it or not, Firefox is essential for a somewhat (increasingly less) open web, and (at least for now) Mozilla is essential to Firefox. For those who want to see Mozilla die but Firefox live on, what are the more likely outcomes in your opinion if Mozilla went down? Do you see a big corp (which it increasingly seems is the only way to keep up with the needed pace for a browser) stepping up?

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pjmlp 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not at all, the golden age of FOSS is gone.

It might appear that FOSS has won, however in reality what happened is that corporations have managed to control the message thanks to business friendly licenses.

	▲	mempko 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, and now that these same businesses have LLMs, the savings they got using open source is no longer relevant. I expect we will see far more personal open source projects and a divestment from larger ones. More 1 or two people open source projects and less 100+.

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dleslie 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Firefox will continue to exist and be maintained by open source efforts.

I often wonder if the current model has been driving away contributors, since it _feels like_ contributing effort to support someone else's paychecque.

	▲	cgyvbunji 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Continue to exist in what form? Seamonkey aka Netscape Navigator still exists. Firefox can keep existing but not get updated enough to be a viable alternative to Chromium anymore.

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irishcoffee 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

How is firefox essential to the open web?

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JoshTriplett 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

We've seen what happens when almost everyone uses one browser engine (Internet Explorer): that vendor gets undue influence over the direction of the web, and their proprietary extensions make it difficult for others to compete.

We would end up in the same place if everything is based on Blink/WebKit; arguably we're partway there already.

Hopefully Servo will provide a competitive browser engine and full browser in the future as well, with the bonus of being great for embedding. But it's not quite there yet. And other potential competitors have their own problems. Firefox is, for the moment, the most popular and only viable browser not based on Blink/WebKit.

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fancyfredbot 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Firefox provides one of two browser engines.

If there's only one browser engine the Web immediately closes up like a giant impenetrable clam. All of humanity will be left outside, doomed to scrape forlornly on the shell with our nails and dream of the pearls within.

	▲	Klonoar 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Blink and WebKit have diverged enough that there are minimum 3 engines now, not 2.

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pjmlp 16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If what is left are Chrome forks, the Web is gone, replaced by Chrome OS Platform.

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cgyvbunji 17 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

How is firefox not essential to the open web?