The Web Sure Seems Quite Fun; Please, Stay with Us

Right off the bat, Lin Clark is amazing. She seems knowledgeable on her interests, and certainly sparks a keenness in Software Engineering Radio Episode 323’s main technological topic: WebAssembly.

Quite recently, I have fancied an attention for web technologies. Much as I praised the web from this blog’s latest entry, now I realize that it must be quite a fun place to deal with. First it was Ruby, then newfound feelings for JavaScript and TypeScript, and now WebAssembly. At the very least, I have an appreciation for how open it is to platforms, and all the efforts and sweat to keep it as open and accessible as possible.

Talking about WebAssembly, though, … the Net truly worries me. I believe I am stating the obvious when I say that everyone, in a way or another, got badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Not that obvious, though, is stating specifically who. Of course, those underrepresented and certainly oppressed felt it much worse. In talking about the web, perhaps one of its gatekeepers and keystone organizations is the Mozilla Foundation.

Given the abysmal revenue gap between Google and Mozilla to the extent that the latter actively depends on the former for any revenue, Mozilla has found itself searching for other ways to increase economic resources. Good for them, until you find out the many employees (up to 25 percent of its workforce) and research, such as Servo and the Rust language itself, have been laid off. Of course, one cannot entirely blame the foundation; it is just sad news, albeit being of the old kind from a year ago.

All the previous is to, once again, invite anyone to keep an eye on the net as for-profit organizations get a larger stake on it, and as other organizations continue to get badly hit too.

Surely, someone in a desk room is already planning on how to take hold of it all. 

 

Brodkin, J. (2020, August 12). Mozilla cuts 250 jobs, says Firefox development will be affected. Ars Technica. Retrieved from: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firefox-maker-mozilla-lays-off-250-workers-says-covid-19-lowered-revenue/

Farwell, M (Host). (2018, May 8). Lin Clark on WebAssembly (No. 323). [Audio podcast episode]. In Software Engineering Radio, IEEE Software. https://www.se-radio.net/2018/05/se-radio-episode-323-lin-clark-on-webassembly/

Hruska, J. (2020, August 11). Mozilla Fires 250 Employees, 25 Percent of Existing Workforce. ExtremeTech. Retrieved from: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/313658-mozilla-fires-250-employees-25-percent-of-existing-workforce