From what I understand Firefox is only a source of income, not a prioritized product.
And yes: IMO this is kibd of backwards. Firefox has been their biggest contribution to the open web and it seems they are treating it as just an income source.
This is disappointing, but not surprising: there seems to be very little interest these days in funding the sort of work that created computers, the major operating systems and the internet. Software and tech is basically treated as a cost by everyone.
Totally agree, but I'm not sure which government would fund it. I know the US heavily funds quite a few dev tools, but would be reluctant to fund large consumer facing tools without multiple country cooperation.
(EDIT: mainly talking about Firefox here)
I don't think it's inherently unprofitable (and neither is most public infrastructure), but more that any possible step towards more profit would be almost always against the users' interest.
Like with motorways and much of other public infrastructure, competition is basically impossible (and would be too inefficient) due to the sheer scale of the project, and letting a for-profit run it would be nothing but harmful to the public.
We're not saying Firefox isn't being maintained, we're saying donations don't go to Firefox, they go to the foundation which is also apparently funded by Firefox. Something really needs to change... We shouldn't have heard about basically what is crucial for developers being scrapped to keep the show running.
No, Firefox is developed by Mozilla Corporation, which is a for-profit company owned by Mozilla foundation. As I understand it, this opens up the possibility of revenue sources not available to a non-profit for Firefox, but otoh, means you can't donate to support Firefox.
And yes: IMO this is kibd of backwards. Firefox has been their biggest contribution to the open web and it seems they are treating it as just an income source.