I’ve recently made the decision to leave Mozilla for various reasons, largely because I’ve been wanting to do something different. Here are some thoughts on this.
I became involved in Firefox and the Mozilla community when I was suckeredtalked into fixing a bug — a bug that involved RDF, bookmarks, and the template builder. (Thankfully, all three of those things — RDF, old bookmarks, template builder — have almost been completely excised from Firefox.) Somehow I ended up sticking around to fix more bugs and get involved in bigger projects, from working with Stuart to rework our graphics engine up to getting the Android port going.
One of the things that I had as a goal when I started at Mozilla was to bring 3D graphics to the web. It took a bit longer than I expected (as usual), but with WebGL, we now have a solid foundation for doing all sorts of 3D apps via the web. Many things had to come together to enable that: fast JavaScript, improvements to overall rendering architecture, emphasis on mobile, etc. all contributed to the viability of WebGL. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work on many projects in those areas with many talented people, and the experiences will certainly help in future efforts.
So, what am I doing next? Something entirely different. I’ll be doing software in a totally different industry, joining some friends in bringing some disruptive innovation there. I’ll still be writing software, though with a much smaller team — something that I’ve come to enjoy, as being small and scrappy has a lot of advantages and is a lot of fun. There’s a lot of interesting technical challenges, mainly related to dealing with large volumes of data (multiple terabytes not being uncommon) — processing, visualization, analysis. You’ll also likely see me hacking various bits in my own spare time, whether in Mozilla, web apps, or mobile apps. I plan on continuing to blog about these topics.
For WebGL in particular, I’ll be around to launch the initial version of the spec, and plan on continuing to be involved in the standards group. I might not be hacking on Mozilla’s implementation as frequently, but it’ll be in good hands.
Thank you to all the people that I’ve had a chance to work with and learn from over the past 5 (almost 6!) years. I’ll still be around irc and other forums so won’t be pulling a disappearing act any time soon, and I’m looking forward to seeing Firefox 4 out there!
Oh, No…
Yet another guru leaves.
Thanks very much for your efforts – WebGL is a gigantic contribution to the web. Hope you find the change you’re after :)
Thanks for your awesome work on Firefox over the years Vlad. I remember seeing your photos.svg demo and being amazed at what was possible using native browser features. The improvements in graphics performance and capabilities in the last few years are just fantastic.
Best of luck with your new position!
So, if you’d known that your patch was going to be cruelly made redundant, would you still have worked on it ;-)
Thanks Vladimir for the blog and sharing news about WebGL !
Hmm… probably, because it was more a learning experience than an actual thing that I cared deeply about :-) It took a few years for it to be made redundant, too!
Vlad, sorry to hear you’re moving away from Mozilla and ultimately further from WebGL — but it sounds like a great new opportunity, and I hope it goes well. Many many thanks for what you’ve done to create the WebGL implementation and standard.
Wishing you all the best, and more kick-ass innovations in the new venture.
WOW, does this come as a mixture of heartbreakey and exhilarating news. I can’t wait to see what you’ll do out there. What an interesting new space! FWIW, working on WebGL with you was an incredible experience, from inception as Canvas3D to much talked about technology in Chrome and Firefox.
“I might not be hacking on Mozilla’s implementation as frequently” – that sounds like a more-than-zero level of involvement, which makes me happy. Thanks for all the work that you’ve done.
Best of luck in the new job Vlad!
Best wishes Vlad! If you ever want to work on browsers again, we on the Chrome team would be glad to have you :)
Vlad, this stuff is gonna change the world. Thanks! You’re the man!
If you have a minute checkout my demos at http://www.pcprogramming.com
With some of the gpu optimized noise just coming out, things are really gonna start rocking in the next couple months on the ray marching side of things.
JD