Several people have asked (as people have from time to time even in less uncertain times): Why don't we all just work on Firefox for the Mac instead? I understand why people think that makes sense. Camino is a browser in the Mozilla family, Firefox is a browser in the Mozilla family. Both run on the Mac. Basically the same thing, right?

What the question is missing is an understanding of the sorts of things that motivate people to contribute to open-source software in their free time. I don't know everyone's motivations for working on Camino, but of those I do, none picked it by deciding that they wanted to work on a Mozilla-family browser and then flipping a coin. Even if it were entirely a question of project goals, Camino and Firefox don't have the same goals, once you get beyond the “make a browser” part. But speaking for myself, the project goals are only a small part of why I'm here.

Off the top of my head, major reasons I work on Camino:

• I want to work on software I care about personally.
• I want to build Mac-focused software.
• I want to write Cocoa/Objective-C code.
• I like working with a small group where I know everyone, and interpersonal politics aren't an issue.
• I like having significant influence over the development of the project.
• I like being able to reach decisions quickly, without bureaucracy.

Firefox offers me exactly zero of those things. So the simple answer to the question of why I don't just go work on Firefox is that it wouldn't be rewarding for me. And since since we're talking about my free time, that's the only reason that matters. And while I don't speak for everyone else, I'd be surprised if my list doesn't overlap heavily with most of the other Camino developers.

(I could also list several reasons I would specifically not want to do it, personally, but those are probably not as generalizable to others.)