Mozilla's Incredible Speech-To-Text Engine Is At Risk Following Layoffs

[OneTimeShot]

A speech to text project? Sadly that's just overhead that Mozilla cannot afford.

I am more annoyed that they (sort-of) cancelled the Thunderbird email client, and offloaded their HTML designer tools. I am pretty sure that if they had kept them ticking over, they'd rival Outlook and Adobe by now. Who knows - maybe they could have sold a few support contracts them to Enterprise orgs...

[Charlie68]

I disagree with many posts ... it's not Chromium's fault (by the way it's an open source project) that Mozilla is in trouble. If it hadn't been Chromium it would have been another and nothing would have changed! It is also wrong to blame Google for Mozilla's problems, also because I understand that Google is somehow funding Mozilla. Companies obviously look after their own interests, but companies like Google are also a great asset to Linux, does anyone really think Linux is developed by some hackers in their spare time?
I think Mozilla has made wrong choices, that together with the difficult period we are all experiencing is in difficulty, blaming others for their own misfortunes is absurd.

[Vistaus]

Face it. It's a Google world now. They are the ONLY company that has taken Linux and made usable, performant products for the masses. Android, ChromeOS and Chrome browser.

LOL. ChromeOS and Chrome are great, but calling Android "performant" and "useable" is a long stretch IMHO. Performance is good, but not optimal, even on high-end hardware and I find it a very confusing OS with stuff and different workflows all over the place. And I know a lot of people who share my opinion.

[Vistaus]

Mozilla still gets it's fair share in my yearly donations, but thats just a drop in the ocean if most people focus on the wrong "free" in "FOSS" :/

No, no, no. Haven't you read Jumbotron's post above yours? None of you have paid Mozilla a dime

[andre30correia]

they only focus is windows, I really don't care anymore, they should use chromium base and forget their useless browser

[Jumbotron]

Nice rewriting of history of Android by the way...


So, what's your point?
War is lost, we should stop complaining and submit to our Googapple overlords?
Don't see them as what they want you to... They are wolves in savior clothes.
And you are the flock.


I agree on one point though with you, for almost all of the reasons you put there, FirefoxOS may have been the best worst strategical mistake of Mozilla since many years.
Putting the voice recognition initiative in the fridge is a mistake this huge.

Yes...the war IS lost. It was NEVER going to be won anyway. FOSS was destined to fail from the very beginning in terms of "Freedom in computing" because the Corporations were just going to take that "Free stuff" and the GPL and look for ways to monetize it and get around the legalities of the GPL. Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Amazon have ALL done to FOSS, Linux and the GPL what Microsoft has historically done....."Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".

With one exception. "Extinguish". Unlike Microsoft that would totally extinguish competitors from existence, what the Tech Cartel has done is extinguish true competition. The competitors ( ie Mozilla ) are still around. They are just relegated now to niche and are irrelevant and increasingly moribund because they were never going to have the breath and scope and monetary resources as the Tech Cartel to call the shots and set the standards.

Laughingly now....the GPL is nothing but a "Virtue Signaling" license. All you assholes who decry and bitch and moan about the SJW's in society and the halls of computing particularly shut really just shut up now. Because the GPL is NO more effective than BSD in keeping the Big Tech Cartel from setting the agenda. Oh sure...the Big Tech Cartel has to contribute back if they choose the GPL for licensing some product as opposed to BSD. But then in going with GPL, Big Tech simply applies massive resources and their power and positions in the Tech World and sets THEIR standard for whatever THEIR computing vision is and we all have to follow. AND yet.....GPL right. At least its not that DAMN BSD license that lets vendors make "black box" closed source products. OOOOhhhh......we're BETTER than them because...you know GPL. It's all good...right?

Is THAT not " Virtue Signalling" at its finest ??

Apple took a free kernel, XNU, and free stuff from BSD, and other free FOSS bits and bobs, and have made THE MOST walled off eco-system in computing history. At least for consumers. And they became not only the FIRST 1 Trillion dollar valuated company in human history, they are now the FIRST 2 Trillion dollar evaluated company in human history.

Google took Linux and other FOSS bits and bobs and ALSO have become a 1 Trilllion dollar valuated company and now makes THE MOST ACTIVELY USED Linux kernel based OS in the world and the MOST ACTIVELY USED OS based around ANY kernel with Android and ChromeOS. And Google is NOTHING but ONE BIG GIANT SPY AGENCY because of it.

IBM, once a huge UNIX player has BORGED the most successful Linux OS company the world has ever produce, that namely being Red Hat.

Oracle has jettisoned Solaris to the backwaters of legacy products to release "Unbreakable Linux" for their OS platform.

I could go on. But all these Tech Behemoths have gobbled up all the "Free Shit" that FOSS and Linux and the GPL could provide. And have turned around and have walled us in. NOT LIKE Apple and their curated "Walled Garden". NOT LIKE Microsoft and their "Jack Boot" destruction of whole companies and products that competed with them.

No....The Big Tech Cartel has taken all this free shit and have walled us off with "STANDARDS" and "FRAMEWORKS". All still "Open Source". Most "Free". Most under the "GPL"

They used "Freedom" to make a prison. But BSD is still the devil....right ??

[Awesomeness]

LOL. ChromeOS and Chrome are great, but calling Android "performant" and "useable" is a long stretch IMHO.

Android has smooth scrolling on hardware way less powerful than a modern Core i7. ChromeOS lags all the time.

[Awesomeness]

second Worst business decisions go Mozilla after yahoo take number 1 spot

Come on, buying Pocket was way worse.

[Awesomeness]

Gecko now called Servo

Gecko isn't called Servo. Servo is dead. The devs have been fired.

[Vistaus]

Android has smooth scrolling on hardware way less powerful than a modern Core i7. ChromeOS lags all the time.

Not in my experience, and my Android hardware is pretty powerful. But my main gripe, as I said, is the entire OS experience and workflow. It doesn't have to be super smooth if the OS is at least nice to work with. I had that with webOS on my Pre 3: it was smooth enough, but not iOS-like smooth, but the OS was absolutely perfect otherwise, so "smooth enough" was good enough for me.