They were not very clear on where the cuts are, but here is the quote from the linked article:
"In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team," Baker wrote.
The article prepends the paragraph with another sentence to impose its own interpretation on it, but the way I read it is that the browser division is reorganized around the user experience and everything else is moved in products and operations. Not sure how to highlight the words "browser growth".
Regarding Servo, the project is killed and part of the people had been kicked out, but the rest were merged with the core engine team. My understanding is that Mozilla decided that even Google is not doing two browser engines at the same time and decided to move the old one to rust the evolutionary way.
Did they fired someone from the ff team? Maybe, but I don't think that it is because the browser is no longer important for them. The fact that they moved there best rust devs to it testifies that at least they are not giving it up so far.
I think the sentence you've quoted makes it clear that cuts have happened to certain Firefox teams.
Now, we can argue about what the effect is of this cuts is but at least you have to accept that some Firefox teams have received cuts and likely those people have either been moved or dismissed.
When you say they moved their best Rust devs onto Firefox, yes but in part that is possible because they have made cuts to the Rust toolchain teams.
From their message, it's not clear to me how COVID-19 is to blame for the layoffs. Especially in Taiwan, since Taiwan has been among the best in the world[1] at handling the pandemic and is doing relatively well.
Did Google reduce their payments in the new search deal because people search less when they work remotely due to COVID-19?
Did Mozilla reduce investment in tooling because developers' need for tools is reduced by COVID-19?
I think what they're referring to is that COVID has damaged the advertising industry from which Mozilla receive royalties but in fact the problem is much more likely to be that only a small minority continue to use Firefox.
The teams were downsized, but I'm not sure what happened to the people because it was bundled with the products and operations team. This is what I meant. Not a hill worth dying for though. It will be most clear if someone knows what the Taiwan office were doing because they were hit the hardest as far as I get.
Regarding the rust toolchain, all the FAANG are using rust one way or another. The project is healthy and Mozilla is not key there already. I'd even say that it would've been ugly if a non-profit corporation had to pay for the development of tools that trillion dollar companies are using.
"In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team," Baker wrote.
The article prepends the paragraph with another sentence to impose its own interpretation on it, but the way I read it is that the browser division is reorganized around the user experience and everything else is moved in products and operations. Not sure how to highlight the words "browser growth".
Regarding Servo, the project is killed and part of the people had been kicked out, but the rest were merged with the core engine team. My understanding is that Mozilla decided that even Google is not doing two browser engines at the same time and decided to move the old one to rust the evolutionary way.
Did they fired someone from the ff team? Maybe, but I don't think that it is because the browser is no longer important for them. The fact that they moved there best rust devs to it testifies that at least they are not giving it up so far.