Clarifying what's happening at Mozilla: an Interview with Ryan Sipes from Thunderbird

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[myria]

One cannot give the benefit of doubt when a company includes language that allows the complete change of terms without notice or confirmation you accept the changes.

Saying you have no plans to do something malicious is meaningless when you have laid out all the groundwork to enable malicious activity in your terms.

[savagepro]

Forgive me, this is what I read in the title: ". . . an Interview with Ryan, Spies from Thunderbird"

[tears_falling]

I love that Nick actually pushed against what this guy was saying and didn't just go "Yeah, you seem nice, I'll trust you. Guess all our problems are solved."

[izby]

As I can remember, this is the first attempt at real damage control that Mozilla has made, But that doesn't change the fact that the Mozilla management is doing something completely insane. Over and over again.

[Weissenschenkel]

I feel truly sorry for Ryan, having to be Mozilla's face under open fire.

[JoshuaT]

Issue i have is how they removed all references and promises of not selling your data instead of clarifying or modifing the "definition"

[TheCho-km]

Ryan seems like a good guy but he's been sent out there to sell us a shit sandwich.

[ChrisIsEditing]

Mozilla's communication is absolutely terrible. You need to get an actual representative from Mozilla on a call

(Not complaining btw this is a great video, just think it would be really helpful if they spoke to their community more directly)

[softwarelivre]

A hour long video and no explanation on "why does Mozilla need a license to our data?". Saying "worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive isn't that bad" doesn't change anything.

[EmirKATIRCI]

I'm a lawyer with over 20 years experience. This is nothing but a BS. You'll only need such vague language when you want to do something behind the scenes and get away with it! There is no reason to have such wording because you need to abide by some law in some certain area. This is plain and simple BS. Because there is nothing in there that's stopping them doing what we are suspecting of they will do potentially. Until the day they clear this and put it in clear terms I'm done with Mozilla.

[HickoryDickory]

I like Ryan and appreciate all he's done for Thunderbird, but his whole argument can be summed up into two points: (1) "Trust me, bro, " and (2) "But Mozilla's the only alternative!"

At this point, I don't trust *_ANYONE, _* especially not Mozilla, who has broken that trust and engaged in bad faith arguments for far too long. And second, who cares if Mozilla is the only alternative if they're doing exactly the same thing as the one they're an alternative for? If anything, that makes them _redundant, _ not a genuine alternative.

If Mozilla devs and execs truly believed as Ryan is saying they do, then their actions need to start aligning with his words. And they can start by severely decreasing the CEO's and other execs' ludicrous salaries. If the situation is truly as dire as it is if they lose Google's money, then there's absolutely no justification for them to be getting paid as much as they are! Their whole corporation needs an overhaul and deep cleaning, and a refocus on tech over everything else.

[mattvisaggio]

Another thing is that this interview should have been done with the CEO of Firefox and their PR team not the managing director of Thunderbird where he shares and it's unclear if he represents Firefox, Mozilla or Thunderbird.

[ds-pcys]

The California law is clear. Mozilla is selling user data now or is planning to sell user data in the near future. If Mozilla could legally say they are not selling user data, they would say so.

[LGB-FJB]

I was surprised to see how much executive management makes from a nonprofit. Oh, and the whole, "we won't ever sell your data" part that was removed too.

[Breznak]

Not about profit? How much does the CEO make again?

[jesperbllefr]

I listened to that whole hour and diddent learn anything, i was certainly not reassured in any way quite the opposite

[magicalnoodles]

It really feels like Ryan was sent by the Mozilla Foundation to calm the situation, and maybe brainwash the most gullible listeners. That being said, based on all his arguments trying to deflect points of concern, while also promoting Mozilla's vision as a good thing, it's clear that he's in support of data collection for the sake of "open-source" AI. All the corpo speech and vagueness is doing him no favors whatsoever. Who speaks like that if things are indeed so clear and transparent?

The most Mozilla could achieve is probably what we have right now, with many other "open-source" models available for download, but without the actual training algorithm and training data being available either.

The most pressing thing is that Mozilla, as a foundation driven by the community, for the community, from its very inception, is supposed to respect the wishes of its community. But, they have been ignoring the voices of the people for a few years now, and it's reaching a major breaking point with this ToS nonsense. They are not trustworthy anymore, since clearly, profits and a boost to the CEO's salary seem to be more important than anything else currently.

[User-ymm]

Damage control, nothing else 🙄

Show us the law or add the deleted terms again!

[tdxyz]

Felt like this interview got off on too many tangents -- I expected it to be focused on the terms. It didn't really clarify anything for me about why the terms.
For example: I know what worldwide, royalty free, nonexclusive means. I don't know what 'rights necessary to operate Firefox' means, and the rest of the paragraph doesn't make it any clearer.

[beefyjoe]

How can I trust anything that Mozilla says.... we would need an external auditor to confirm findings to have any sort of trust.