7 ms·

Mozilla's Gary Kovacs to step down as CEO

161 points by arturadib 13y ago

arturadib 13y ago
It's a bummer, not sure why this happened. I liked Gary, and saw him as the right man to shepherd Firefox OS from conception to production. Searching for a new CEO is a huge distraction, particularly at this crucial time when they're trying to prove a major pivot and work out commercial deals with device makers. I'm sending positive vibes to my former colleagues!
- keithpeter 13y ago
  OK, can someone explain this 'pivot'? I'm typing this into a laptop running Kubuntu (in my kitchen) which is based on a mainframe operating system (I used to talk to a PDP11 via teletype half a lifetime ago). Won't mobile phones be running Unix soon as well?
  - jfb 13y ago
    Aren't they already? What's iOS? Android?
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      Exactly my point. Is this 'pivot' basically the provision of a fat finger friendly interface to existing technology? PS: I'm not against this, I'd really love to be able to dock a phone and use it for desktop tasks with a 1080p monitor and proper keyboard. Sort of the Rob Pike approach. http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/ http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/
  - derleth 13y ago
    The PDP-11 wasn't a mainframe. It was a minicomputer, which is how Unix came to exist for it in the first place: A mainframe would have been too expensive for such a small project, but a PDP-11 minicomputer was within the budget.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      Correction accepted. The mainframe was an IBM 360? and I talked to that one with punched cards. The PDP-11 was on a single rack I remember.
      - hollerith 13y ago
        >The mainframe was an IBM 360? Yes.
  - mbrubeck 13y ago
    User interfaces matter. Optimization matters. Design matters. The same software that's ideal for a laptop or minicomputer isn't always ideal for a touch-screen mobile phone, whether they are both running "Unix" or not.
georgemcbay 13y ago
I heard that he resigned because Rust won't support tail call optimizations.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  Context. [1] [1] - https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-April/003557.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-April/00355...
- DannyBee 13y ago
  Well, how could he face the board after that?
  - mixedbit 13y ago
    He would need to unwind the stack
  - Cyranix 13y ago
    Only with his tail between his legs.
napoleoncomplex 13y ago
Whoever takes charge, I hope he/she keeps Mozilla going in the same direction it has been in the recent past, because the work coming out of that company has been nothing short of amazing in my opinion. Basically, Mozilla, don't change, you're awesome.
- btipling 13y ago
  Mozilla's "phoenix" legacy is alive and well. I have been very skeptical of Mozilla even very recently as Firefox's many performance problems seemed insurmountable. But here I am after many years of using Chrome typing in this box using Firefox. I also hope they don't change direction. They're on fire and rising once again.
  - bmj 13y ago
    Agreed. I've noticed some rather nice performance improvements over the last six months, and, like you, I've switched back to FF from Chrome.
    - hollerith 13y ago
      I'm guessing the computer you're running FF on has a solid-state drive; amiright ? added: my reason for asking is that I run FF (release update channel) and I genuinely wonder whether it would be more responsive if it weren't for my slow hard drive. (in particular, I am hypothesizing that every time I visit a new page, its URL gets committed to disk.) was not trying to slam FF; please don't downvote me!
      - btipling 13y ago
        It's more than performance, they've also picked up must have features like opening up just closed tabs (cmd+shift+t), and cmd+9 to go to last tab, private windows (used to be all of firefox went private), quick updates.
        hollerith 13y ago
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
I gotta agree with napoleoncomplex - Mozilla has truly hit its stride in recent years and for my money is an example of the corporation of tomorrow - code literate and transparent, yet still kicking arse and taking names Edit: even corporations of tomorrow will not be immune to politics it seems - rereading the post and blog makes it sound much more like a Eich/Baker coup than a well planned transition. It will be very odd to have him stay on the board - two ex-CEOs on your board makes for a lot of looking up not down for the next one
- stephen 13y ago
  Perhaps I'm overly skeptical, but I have a hard time envisioning them as a "corporation of tomorrow" when, AFAIK/naively assume, they exist (as a corporation that can pay salaries) merely because Google dumps $x00 millions into their lap every year. To me, this is less "how companies of tomorrow can run", and more like a bunch of techies who hit the jackpot and so can have fun building whatever technology they want. (Which is awesome, I'm just saying I think Mozilla has a pretty unique situation.)
  - asadotzler 13y ago
    Google doesn't dump money into Mozilla's lap every year. Google pays Mozilla (and various other companies) for search traffic acquisition.
    - sharkweek 13y ago
      Yeah nobody should think for a minute that this relationship is in danger of Google dropping that contract either; Microsoft/Bing would KILL to have that default product visibility at the top of another mainstream browser.
      - SkyMarshal 13y ago
        It sounds like you're saying MS could outbid Google to be Mozilla's default search engine, which validates Mozilla's business model even further.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
trotsky 13y ago
never tinker with your lineup when you're leading your division
- jfb 13y ago
  Which division is Mozilla leading, exactly?
mlinksva 13y ago
Kovacs didn't really have any public visibility during his tenure. But Mozilla has been doing great, so I assume at a minimum he "just" ran things, and didn't ruin them, which by my calculus is high praise for any imported CEO, let alone one coming into an unusual organization from a very different background. Well done!
gcb0 13y ago
Did GMoney withdraw affected employee/execs pays/bonuses? or is he moving to some other company? opera?
rikacomet 13y ago
I'm curious as to why google continues to be a important revenue stream for mozilla, despite having 'chrome' itself. Why can't google stop being lovvy dovey with mozilla?
- vitno 13y ago
  because microsoft would love for that google box in the upper right to turn into a bing box.
  - rikacomet 13y ago
    Ahh, I see! Clever answer. Now I know, why they share revenue.
- asadotzler 13y ago
  Google isn't being "lovvy dovey" with Mozilla. They are paying for traffic. They pay for traffic from other browsers and from iOS as well. Do you think Google has a loving relationship with Apple? I sure don't. It's a fine relationship for both sides that simply doesn't require love, or even very much like. That being said, there's a lot to like about a relationship that's been such a win-win for Mozilla and Google for nearly a decade. How many other business relationships between major Web players have done so well for so long?
programminggeek 13y ago
It took til 2010 for them to realize that the future is mobile?! Why would we be looking to Mozilla for leadership on anything? iPhone came out in 2007, one could argue that mobile was growing fast even before the iPhone. By 2010 Android was a huge thing too. So, what took Mozilla 3 years to figure out about mobile exactly? Even Opera seemed to see mobile as a huge deal long before 2010.
- BrendanEich 13y ago
  Open source needs near-commodity hardware with open specs and kernel source (mostly). Otherwise the hardware vendor uses its secrets to build a proprietary software stack. We had Minimo, MicroB, etc. before 2010, for all the good it did. Were you paying attention? Did you see any open source smartphone winners back then? I did not. Android did help flatten and uplift the smartphone space, and make it open. Qualcomm helped too. Kudos to those two! /be
  - puppet1024 13y ago
    Android is still far from open,and that mostly seems to be because of hardware vendors. My experience says Qualcomm is actually one of the worst here. I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves, and if it truly becomes open. Seems unlikely because hardware has really long release cycles. Did Mozilla get any promises from vendors on that front?
  - backspaces 13y ago
    The Facebook "phone" approach is interesting: take over the phone to such a degree that it delivers a FB "experience". No dependencies of the Evil Triangle of the cell world: Handset mfgr, OS provider, Carrier. Yet Moz apparently is looking to become another OS provider? I'm wondering if they might take the FB approach instead. FB will succeed now with Android, there appears to be no App Store issues. But my bet they'll also force Apple to cry Uncle! relatively soon. Now THAT would be progress
    - BrendanEich 13y ago

161 points by arturadib 13y ago

It's a bummer, not sure why this happened. I liked Gary, and saw him as the right man to shepherd Firefox OS from conception to production. Searching for a new CEO is a huge distraction, particularly at this crucial time when they're trying to prove a major pivot and work out commercial deals with device makers. I'm sending positive vibes to my former colleagues!

keithpeter 13y ago
OK, can someone explain this 'pivot'? I'm typing this into a laptop running Kubuntu (in my kitchen) which is based on a mainframe operating system (I used to talk to a PDP11 via teletype half a lifetime ago). Won't mobile phones be running Unix soon as well?
- jfb 13y ago
  Aren't they already? What's iOS? Android?
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    Exactly my point. Is this 'pivot' basically the provision of a fat finger friendly interface to existing technology? PS: I'm not against this, I'd really love to be able to dock a phone and use it for desktop tasks with a 1080p monitor and proper keyboard. Sort of the Rob Pike approach. http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/ http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/
- derleth 13y ago
  The PDP-11 wasn't a mainframe. It was a minicomputer, which is how Unix came to exist for it in the first place: A mainframe would have been too expensive for such a small project, but a PDP-11 minicomputer was within the budget.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    Correction accepted. The mainframe was an IBM 360? and I talked to that one with punched cards. The PDP-11 was on a single rack I remember.
    - hollerith 13y ago
      >The mainframe was an IBM 360? Yes.
- mbrubeck 13y ago
  User interfaces matter. Optimization matters. Design matters. The same software that's ideal for a laptop or minicomputer isn't always ideal for a touch-screen mobile phone, whether they are both running "Unix" or not.

georgemcbay 13y ago

I heard that he resigned because Rust won't support tail call optimizations.

burntsushi 13y ago
Context. [1] [1] - https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-April/003557.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2013-April/00355...
DannyBee 13y ago
Well, how could he face the board after that?
- mixedbit 13y ago
  He would need to unwind the stack
- Cyranix 13y ago
  Only with his tail between his legs.

napoleoncomplex 13y ago

Whoever takes charge, I hope he/she keeps Mozilla going in the same direction it has been in the recent past, because the work coming out of that company has been nothing short of amazing in my opinion. Basically, Mozilla, don't change, you're awesome.

btipling 13y ago
Mozilla's "phoenix" legacy is alive and well. I have been very skeptical of Mozilla even very recently as Firefox's many performance problems seemed insurmountable. But here I am after many years of using Chrome typing in this box using Firefox. I also hope they don't change direction. They're on fire and rising once again.
- bmj 13y ago
  Agreed. I've noticed some rather nice performance improvements over the last six months, and, like you, I've switched back to FF from Chrome.
  - hollerith 13y ago
    I'm guessing the computer you're running FF on has a solid-state drive; amiright ? added: my reason for asking is that I run FF (release update channel) and I genuinely wonder whether it would be more responsive if it weren't for my slow hard drive. (in particular, I am hypothesizing that every time I visit a new page, its URL gets committed to disk.) was not trying to slam FF; please don't downvote me!
    - btipling 13y ago
      It's more than performance, they've also picked up must have features like opening up just closed tabs (cmd+shift+t), and cmd+9 to go to last tab, private windows (used to be all of firefox went private), quick updates.
      - hollerith 13y ago

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

I gotta agree with napoleoncomplex - Mozilla has truly hit its stride in recent years and for my money is an example of the corporation of tomorrow - code literate and transparent, yet still kicking arse and taking names Edit: even corporations of tomorrow will not be immune to politics it seems - rereading the post and blog makes it sound much more like a Eich/Baker coup than a well planned transition. It will be very odd to have him stay on the board - two ex-CEOs on your board makes for a lot of looking up not down for the next one

stephen 13y ago
Perhaps I'm overly skeptical, but I have a hard time envisioning them as a "corporation of tomorrow" when, AFAIK/naively assume, they exist (as a corporation that can pay salaries) merely because Google dumps $x00 millions into their lap every year. To me, this is less "how companies of tomorrow can run", and more like a bunch of techies who hit the jackpot and so can have fun building whatever technology they want. (Which is awesome, I'm just saying I think Mozilla has a pretty unique situation.)
- asadotzler 13y ago
  Google doesn't dump money into Mozilla's lap every year. Google pays Mozilla (and various other companies) for search traffic acquisition.
  - sharkweek 13y ago
    Yeah nobody should think for a minute that this relationship is in danger of Google dropping that contract either; Microsoft/Bing would KILL to have that default product visibility at the top of another mainstream browser.
    - SkyMarshal 13y ago
      It sounds like you're saying MS could outbid Google to be Mozilla's default search engine, which validates Mozilla's business model even further.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

trotsky 13y ago

never tinker with your lineup when you're leading your division

jfb 13y ago
Which division is Mozilla leading, exactly?

mlinksva 13y ago

Kovacs didn't really have any public visibility during his tenure. But Mozilla has been doing great, so I assume at a minimum he "just" ran things, and didn't ruin them, which by my calculus is high praise for any imported CEO, let alone one coming into an unusual organization from a very different background. Well done!

gcb0 13y ago

Did GMoney withdraw affected employee/execs pays/bonuses? or is he moving to some other company? opera?

rikacomet 13y ago

I'm curious as to why google continues to be a important revenue stream for mozilla, despite having 'chrome' itself. Why can't google stop being lovvy dovey with mozilla?

vitno 13y ago
because microsoft would love for that google box in the upper right to turn into a bing box.
- rikacomet 13y ago
  Ahh, I see! Clever answer. Now I know, why they share revenue.
asadotzler 13y ago
Google isn't being "lovvy dovey" with Mozilla. They are paying for traffic. They pay for traffic from other browsers and from iOS as well. Do you think Google has a loving relationship with Apple? I sure don't. It's a fine relationship for both sides that simply doesn't require love, or even very much like. That being said, there's a lot to like about a relationship that's been such a win-win for Mozilla and Google for nearly a decade. How many other business relationships between major Web players have done so well for so long?

programminggeek 13y ago

It took til 2010 for them to realize that the future is mobile?! Why would we be looking to Mozilla for leadership on anything? iPhone came out in 2007, one could argue that mobile was growing fast even before the iPhone. By 2010 Android was a huge thing too. So, what took Mozilla 3 years to figure out about mobile exactly? Even Opera seemed to see mobile as a huge deal long before 2010.

BrendanEich 13y ago
Open source needs near-commodity hardware with open specs and kernel source (mostly). Otherwise the hardware vendor uses its secrets to build a proprietary software stack. We had Minimo, MicroB, etc. before 2010, for all the good it did. Were you paying attention? Did you see any open source smartphone winners back then? I did not. Android did help flatten and uplift the smartphone space, and make it open. Qualcomm helped too. Kudos to those two! /be
- puppet1024 13y ago
  Android is still far from open,and that mostly seems to be because of hardware vendors. My experience says Qualcomm is actually one of the worst here. I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves, and if it truly becomes open. Seems unlikely because hardware has really long release cycles. Did Mozilla get any promises from vendors on that front?
- backspaces 13y ago
  The Facebook "phone" approach is interesting: take over the phone to such a degree that it delivers a FB "experience". No dependencies of the Evil Triangle of the cell world: Handset mfgr, OS provider, Carrier. Yet Moz apparently is looking to become another OS provider? I'm wondering if they might take the FB approach instead. FB will succeed now with Android, there appears to be no App Store issues. But my bet they'll also force Apple to cry Uncle! relatively soon. Now THAT would be progress
  - BrendanEich 13y ago