I know that the legal structure of Mozilla the foundation and the corporation makes things a bit complex. But one thing that remains odd to me is that it is not possible to donate money and have...
I know that the legal structure of Mozilla the foundation and the corporation makes things a bit complex. But one thing that remains odd to me is that it is not possible to donate money and have it go towards the development of products like Firefox. If you donate, you donate to the Mozilla foundation, they then use that money for all sorts of stuff but as far as I know nothing goes to the corporation (legal stuff). Since the corporation is the one that does Firefox development, this is a bit of an issue.
I am not saying that donations can replace the income from Google. But combined with better subscription based products like @llehsadam mentions I do think that an actual focus on these areas could actually keep Mozilla afloat or at the very least make it less dependent on search engine deals.
They have made some moves towards this area, but they often seem half-hearted at best. Not to mention that their communication and promotion around it is often seems lacking.
I wonder what it would take for the corp to restructure to eliminate that issue. I’d love to see the formation of some sort of industry group dedicated to funding and defending browser engine...
I wonder what it would take for the corp to restructure to eliminate that issue. I’d love to see the formation of some sort of industry group dedicated to funding and defending browser engine diversity. It would also provide services like legal defense, lobbying, PR/advocacy, etc. kind of like the EFF but more specialized.
The main thing is that charitable donations to non profits is not taxed, and people who donate can use it as a deduction, whereas donations to for profits are taxed on both sides. So money the non...
The main thing is that charitable donations to non profits is not taxed, and people who donate can use it as a deduction, whereas donations to for profits are taxed on both sides.
So money the non profit foundation gets can’t just be moved to the corporation - that’s tax evasion.
They could set up a way to donate to the corporation - companies have done it in the past. Vox media had one.
This confuses me to no end. You can fund a non-profit in EU and have it do business, as long as it's to further the mission. And it can still receive donations tax-free.
This confuses me to no end. You can fund a non-profit in EU and have it do business, as long as it's to further the mission. And it can still receive donations tax-free.
The problem here is that there are two entities -- a non-profit and a for-profit corporation. Shifting donations from one to the other is illegal in a way that a non-profit doing business isn't.
The problem here is that there are two entities -- a non-profit and a for-profit corporation. Shifting donations from one to the other is illegal in a way that a non-profit doing business isn't.
I kind of fail to see how. Why not simply order "Firefox Development" from the for-profit and call it a day? Nonprofits can actually acquire services required to meet their goals. Well at least here.
I kind of fail to see how. Why not simply order "Firefox Development" from the for-profit and call it a day? Nonprofits can actually acquire services required to meet their goals. Well at least here.
That's pretty alien legislation you got there. Foundation over here can do whatever it wants, is tax exampt as long as it's declared activities align with a list of public benefit activities and...
That's pretty alien legislation you got there. Foundation over here can do whatever it wants, is tax exampt as long as it's declared activities align with a list of public benefit activities and is only forbidden to support political parties (there are different non profits for that).
Can they own a separate for profit entity that doesn’t have to do any reporting which it can pay for services? In the US, at least, that’d just be the worlds easiest way to evade taxes. Mozilla...
Can they own a separate for profit entity that doesn’t have to do any reporting which it can pay for services? In the US, at least, that’d just be the worlds easiest way to evade taxes. Mozilla can pay other companies for services, but paying themselves…
I mean the for-profit wouldn't do any special reporting, but the non-profit obviously cannot just send them money. It has to order actual services or goods and authorities would not be very fond...
I mean the for-profit wouldn't do any special reporting, but the non-profit obviously cannot just send them money. It has to order actual services or goods and authorities would not be very fond of them paying e.g. ten times market rate as that would clearly indicate tax evasion.
Also, I fail to see how sending money to a different company would actually defend against tax evasion. I mean, husband could chair a non-profit, wife own a for-profit, non-profit would order overpriced services from the non-profit...
What's the benefit of having two entities that are theoretically aligned and allied but can't cooperate on the things they care about most? What's the benefit of having the corporation exist in...
What's the benefit of having two entities that are theoretically aligned and allied but can't cooperate on the things they care about most? What's the benefit of having the corporation exist in the first place?
I honestly don't know. I know that's how it's set up, but not why you'd do that. Hopefully someone else here is more knowledgeable about that side of things and can comment on it.
I honestly don't know. I know that's how it's set up, but not why you'd do that. Hopefully someone else here is more knowledgeable about that side of things and can comment on it.
(sorry for the response to an old post) why not move software development teams into the non-profit, then? I assume the goal is to keep IP from becoming tainted by the NPO, but this is Mozilla —...
(sorry for the response to an old post) why not move software development teams into the non-profit, then? I assume the goal is to keep IP from becoming tainted by the NPO, but this is Mozilla — ostensibly everything they work on is already open source.
Fair enough, but I wonder how the Apache Foundation and the Linux Foundation get around this? Afaik they operate just fine; maybe Mozilla has an increased need for engaging with the for-profit...
Fair enough, but I wonder how the Apache Foundation and the Linux Foundation get around this? Afaik they operate just fine; maybe Mozilla has an increased need for engaging with the for-profit market …?
(these are rhetorical questions; please don’t feel obliged to answer. If I get bored I might even respond to myself)
Firefox is almost entirely funded by the Google deal (which is b2b, and technically quid-pro-quo unlike the donations Linux and Apache get). It’s not a trivial amount of money - Google pays...
Firefox is almost entirely funded by the Google deal (which is b2b, and technically quid-pro-quo unlike the donations Linux and Apache get). It’s not a trivial amount of money - Google pays Mozilla more than DuckDuckGo’s entire annual revenue (not profit - revenue!).
Ah … yeah that tracks. I remember pulling up their financials a while back and took away that they rake in a tonne of cash, but I didn’t connect all the dots or compare against other orgs. Sorry...
Ah … yeah that tracks. I remember pulling up their financials a while back and took away that they rake in a tonne of cash, but I didn’t connect all the dots or compare against other orgs.
Sorry to drag you into this conversation, but thank you for the info :) honestly it’d be really cool to see Mozilla focus on its original mission ie making a kick ass browser, and supporting an open web, rather than getting lost in get rich quick schemes (the VPN, the metaverse project, a phone, random acquisitions). Firing the Rust/Servo team was an insane misstep, since it was supposed to be their on-ramp for making browser engine improvements sustainably, so hopefully losing their primary funding source (85% per Wikipedia!) focuses what remains of their organization away from distractions and towards what will draw in donations.
Ah, I summarized myself better why rereading this message! IMO: capital growth should never have been the goal for an org built out around a not-for-profit corp, but Mozilla took the money hose...
Ah, I summarized myself better why rereading this message! IMO: capital growth should never have been the goal for an org built out around a not-for-profit corp, but Mozilla took the money hose they were given and wasted it cosplaying as a tech megacorp.
The reality is that all the megacorps have money to burn because of a core, unassailable, money printing machine (eg e-commerce, ads, cloud services, government contracts, etc.) whereas Mozilla had a sweetheart, under the table deal with the devil. Assuming it was legal to do so (I genuinely do not know what sorts of strings apply in contracts like these, or beyond that, tax law), they should’ve banked those several decades of money in a trust and draw only enough to service their primary mission of being stewards of an open web.
Well, I don’t think they were trying to have capital growth - Mozilla is more of a fight for survival. Making a browser isn’t easy, you’re effectively a developer of a virtual machine. If you...
Well, I don’t think they were trying to have capital growth - Mozilla is more of a fight for survival. Making a browser isn’t easy, you’re effectively a developer of a virtual machine.
If you can’t keep up with Chrome and the new web standards being set up, people will just stop using your browser. To keep up with Chrome and their highly paid, highly skilled dev team, you can’t go at it with a skeleton crew of interns and outsourced labor.
Mozilla has been trying to diversify, but that too is survival - being entirely dependent on one revenue source, let alone with your rival business, is a bad place to be. The source is exactly why; now the DoJ may force Google to rip up the deal. Now you’ll have to lay off like 70% of your staff.
I suppose I don’t understand why they had to spend all the money they were receiving this whole time. It looks like the Chrome dev team is a couple dozen people? That could be sustained pretty...
I suppose I don’t understand why they had to spend all the money they were receiving this whole time. It looks like the Chrome dev team is a couple dozen people? That could be sustained pretty easily without becoming a skeleton crew. And it seems like Mozilla had, over the pandemic, around a thousand in its org. For context, that’s an article where they discussed shutting down (among several others) the Rust and MDN teams, both of which are absolutely critical for the goal of developing a browser sustainably. Notably, the CEO’s plan was to invest in:
[…] Pocket, Hubs, VPN, Web Assembly, and security and privacy products. […] we are creating a new Design and UX team […] [and] a new applied Machine Learning team that will help our products include ML features.
Armchair CEO speaking, but again, that seems nuts. I know hindsight is 20/20, but given a firehose of money, they probably should’ve eg bought stock in other industries to diversify, kept their Firefox and web teams intact, and saved any remaining money for a rainy day. Not invested into weird ML products, the metaverse, …
I think we’re in agreement that they needed to find a path towards sustainability, I’ve just always been of the belief that that is best accomplished through (1) focusing on keeping the engine up to date, (2) keeping the development barrier of entry as low as possible via tech investments, so that (1) is more affordably achieved, (3) shoving all remaining money under the mattress. It’s the goal of a profit-seeking business to seek profit with its labour; imo they should’ve leaned on one of those instead of trying to be profitable themselves. Less profit that way, but way less risk, since the goal is (in theory) not capital growth.
The Google AI result is wrong. The chromium team has several hundred developers and you can’t discount broader teams like HR or accounting which support it, but Mozilla has to have its own version...
The Google AI result is wrong. The chromium team has several hundred developers and you can’t discount broader teams like HR or accounting which support it, but Mozilla has to have its own version of.
The money goes mainly to salaries. Good developers cost a lot - minimum 500k with benefits factored in, but often 1 million+.
I was quoting Quora, please, a much more reputable source XP And no, that’s way too much money to spend on developers. I can appreciate that VM development is a specialized field, but the...
I was quoting Quora, please, a much more reputable source XP
And no, that’s way too much money to spend on developers. I can appreciate that VM development is a specialized field, but the principles at play here are not intrinsically worth quite that much money. Especially in the global market.
Maybe that’s justifiable if you can only hire out of Silicon Valley, but Mozilla should have no difficulty attracting international talent.
Anyways, unless you’re secretly a high level manager at Google or Mozilla, I doubt you have more (edit - reworded since this sounded 40% more asshol-ish than intended) expect you have just as much context than I do. Cards on the table: I do distributed systems and backend work at a tech company, and have been in software dev for ~a decade. That’s just to underline that I vaguely know what I’m talking about when it comes to technical matters specifically (business ops are beyond me). Browser engine development is a couple nodes adjacent to my area of expertise, so I’m stretching a bit to make these claims, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by much.
… are we arguing? I can’t tell. Anyways, my assertion is that Mozilla Corp has massively misplayed their hand over the years and behaved more like a profit generating company than a foundation maintaining critical OSS. I think your assertion is that they made all these choices in order to attempt to turn enough of a profit to live w/o Google’s assistance, but failed.
Imo the crux of our disagreement is whether Mozilla Corp would be sustainable relying on fundraising (a la Wikipedia or Internet Archive); I think yes, and I think you think no.
Yes, I think that their path makes sense. Their failure may just be an unfortunate reality. Far from profitability, Mozilla would be happy if they could just break even with a diversified revenue...
Yes, I think that their path makes sense. Their failure may just be an unfortunate reality. Far from profitability, Mozilla would be happy if they could just break even with a diversified revenue stream.
Ultimately, Firefox is different from Linux and Apache in that other companies don’t care about them. Linux gets its contributions from companies, which use Linux servers and have a vested interest in their improvement.
Companies ultimately don’t care about what browser their employees use, and in terms of development, are more than happy to just target Chrome.
While I’m not a manager at Google, I have a friend who works adjacent to the Chromium team and I know how massive they are.
I don’t think they could have funded a dev team that can compete with only courting donations. You’re functionally making an OS, in a feature race against Google.
Mozilla may be able to get more revenue through their subscription-based products. They’re pretty solid but I don’t think so many people know about them. I may even pay for Firefox and Thunderbird...
Mozilla may be able to get more revenue through their subscription-based products. They’re pretty solid but I don’t think so many people know about them. I may even pay for Firefox and Thunderbird “pro" if they come up with some nice-to-haves. I love the password manager, the email masks and the add-on marketplace that is independent of Google.
It sucks that they are so dependent on that deal with Google, because once they are gone, everything is Google or Apple.
Crazy that Firefox hasn't offered a proper Pro product ever. When people are willing to pay a subscription for a search engine like Kagi, I imagine plenty would pay for a premium browser...
Crazy that Firefox hasn't offered a proper Pro product ever. When people are willing to pay a subscription for a search engine like Kagi, I imagine plenty would pay for a premium browser experience. Remove the tracking, the sponsored home page content, and actually put some effort into your mobile browser, and I'd happily pay a subscription.
I agree. I've been thinking that maybe the problem is their focus. Market share is a buzz word out there, but they don't need to pay attention to it. If they are trying to make money through ads,...
I agree. I've been thinking that maybe the problem is their focus. Market share is a buzz word out there, but they don't need to pay attention to it. If they are trying to make money through ads, they need more market share.
Honestly if they take care of their users and get a portion to support a pro version, they could probably make a good profit. And taking care of the users will just get more people to switch to Firefox. Gradual growth based on a good product is what they need.
While I wouldn't be theoretically opposed to it in this instance, "Pay a competitor straight out of your pocket and without having inflicted any damages or such" is kind of... Radical statement...
While I wouldn't be theoretically opposed to it in this instance, "Pay a competitor straight out of your pocket and without having inflicted any damages or such" is kind of... Radical statement which I don't expect happening any time soon. And tbh I'm not sure I'd like it as a general principle either.
On hand I consider Firefox to be the best current alternative platform(not as a browser, not even remotely) to the effective Chrome monopoly in the sea of garbage. On the other they made enough...
On hand I consider Firefox to be the best current alternative platform(not as a browser, not even remotely) to the effective Chrome monopoly in the sea of garbage. On the other they made enough despicable decisions and pushed enough "modern-design" elements that I am lukewarm about its future.
It would be bad if it could not continue, or had to become even worse to get funding but as far as I am concerned the actual problem is the bloated nature of the web standards and experience and the effect it has on making choices sparse.
It is harsh, but I also don't quite see what it contributes to the conversation. Without the context of your own thoughts, it is in my opinion quite a meaningless statement. Lapdog implies they...
It is harsh, but I also don't quite see what it contributes to the conversation. Without the context of your own thoughts, it is in my opinion quite a meaningless statement. Lapdog implies they have been willing to do anything that Google tells them to do. You can point all sorts of criticism towards how Mozilla has been (mis)managed in the last decade or so, but I don't get the impression the term "lapdog" applies here.
If I was on desktop, I would have left a more seasoned response, but I was under the assumption that this was a known topic, that Mozilla has always been a hedge for Google against any monopoly...
If I was on desktop, I would have left a more seasoned response, but I was under the assumption that this was a known topic, that Mozilla has always been a hedge for Google against any monopoly related judicial hearings or arguments, that funding over 80% of their revenue was an obvious hold over Mozilla.
Their decade plus failures can be directly linked to not wanting to step on the toes of their corporate patron, they can't and won't do anything that infringes on their revenue streams because they can't without endangering their own paychecks, and reality of remaining intact.
As Mozilla has always been a hedge against a monopolistic justice review, they are an in-situ lapdog, and they have now been finally called to heel as they are arguing that Google does not have a monopoly and should be able to continue.
The article title buries the lead, Mozilla isn't asking that Google be allowed to continue just financing them in return of google-as-default, they are practically advocating for the entirety of the case to be relieved.
Mozilla: "If implemented, the prohibition on search agreements with all browsers regardless of size and business model will negatively impact independent browsers like Firefox and have knock-on effects for an open and accessible internet, [ ..] As written, the remedies will harm independent browsers without material benefit to search competition.”
This is why they have been financed and coerced to be in this position, in nearly all cases, Firefox is a Google product by-proxy, not as a browser company, but as an insurance policy for this exact case.
On the futility of discussion, I suppose
I write this not to continue the contribution of the conversation remark, but to only say that I believe that making that type of remark about "contributions to the conversaion" are even worse of a contribution to a conversation, especially as there was a secondary conversation already continuing in response to this conversation at the time you made this.
It's a weird response to make, and creates an environment where no one leaves any remarks because in all reality, they are all not contributing to the conversation since we aren't in the court case.
The secondary part makes sense, and I have explained above my reasoning, but the inclusion of the primary response is a bit much.
The thing is, if you had included this, I still wouldn't have agreed with what you have said. But I would have happily replied in context, now I could not as you did not provide that context. That...
The thing is, if you had included this, I still wouldn't have agreed with what you have said. But I would have happily replied in context, now I could not as you did not provide that context.
I was under the assumption that this was a known topic,
That part of the revenue stream of Mozilla inc is the search engine deal is a known topic for many people, not all people. The arguments you put forward for Mozilla just being a lapdog aren't. In fact, without any type of sourcing, I'd say that it is merely speculation. I am not denying that it is quite possible that it influenced business decisions, but that is a far cry from positioning Google as a puppet master directly dictating the direction Mozilla takes. To be very clear, I am not saying that there has been no influence from Google whatsoever. I just don't think it is as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
They are practically advocating for the entirety of the case to be relieved
I am not sure how you are making this leap. You do realize that this is actually a relatively tiny part of the entire case? A case where Google being forced to sell off chrome is a real possibility?
In short, no, your own interpretations and extrapolations are not automatically known topics.
Edit:
It looks like I replied before you were done with your edit.
The secondary part makes sense, and I have explained above my reasoning, but the inclusion of the primary response is a bit much.
I don't think it is much, it is quite frank and to the point, I'll give you that. The reason I called it out is that it is an emotional sentiment put down as a definitive statement. Which will make some people agree with you as it resonates on an emotional level but doesn't actually trigger much critical thought. For those who stop to consider your statement, it mostly opens up questions what you actually mean by that.
You mention a second conversation was ongoing. Which is true in the sense that someone asked what you could possibly mean, and someone tried to provide context on what effectively is guesswork. In this case, they got fairly close to the meat of what turns out to be your argument seems to be, although in a much more nuanced way. But since you didn't provide that context, they could also have been way off the mark.
I do have to admit, it is also a personal pet peeve. As I have grown tired of sweeping binary statements on discussion forums on the internet. Things like this are almost always more complex.
This is all off the top of my head so definitely take any details with a grain of salt, but Google has been funding the majority of Mozilla's budget (via the aforementioned default search provider...
This is all off the top of my head so definitely take any details with a grain of salt, but Google has been funding the majority of Mozilla's budget (via the aforementioned default search provider deal) for many years.
Alongside the obvious immediate benefit of keeping people using google search, the existence of Firefox has acted as a defense for Google against Chrome (and other related browsers built on Chrome) having a monopoly on browsers.
It's been a precarious position, I'm not looking forward to the likely scenarios of Mozilla scrambling for a new revenue stream and enshittifying Firefox in the process or dying a slow death. The latter taking us back closer to the bad old days of one browser engine being so overwhelmingly dominant it gets to use it's implementation as the defacto spec of how the web works.
Unfortunately I know way to many developers that already only test for (non-standard) behaviour in chrome and then complain that a site doesn't work properly in firefox.
one browser engine being so overwhelmingly dominant it gets to use it's implementation as the defacto spec of how the web works.
Unfortunately I know way to many developers that already only test for (non-standard) behaviour in chrome and then complain that a site doesn't work properly in firefox.
That's why the strongest bulwark against a Chrome monopoly is currently Safari. iOS is big enough nobody can afford to ignore it, and as annoying as Apple's policy against other rendering engines...
That's why the strongest bulwark against a Chrome monopoly is currently Safari. iOS is big enough nobody can afford to ignore it, and as annoying as Apple's policy against other rendering engines on iOS is...it's stopping Google from pushing Chrome on iOS and removing the remaining competition.
While Blink technically started as a fork of WebKit, over a decade of divergence probably makes it as different as WebKit is to its KHTML roots.
I know that the legal structure of Mozilla the foundation and the corporation makes things a bit complex. But one thing that remains odd to me is that it is not possible to donate money and have it go towards the development of products like Firefox. If you donate, you donate to the Mozilla foundation, they then use that money for all sorts of stuff but as far as I know nothing goes to the corporation (legal stuff). Since the corporation is the one that does Firefox development, this is a bit of an issue.
I am not saying that donations can replace the income from Google. But combined with better subscription based products like @llehsadam mentions I do think that an actual focus on these areas could actually keep Mozilla afloat or at the very least make it less dependent on search engine deals.
They have made some moves towards this area, but they often seem half-hearted at best. Not to mention that their communication and promotion around it is often seems lacking.
I wonder what it would take for the corp to restructure to eliminate that issue. I’d love to see the formation of some sort of industry group dedicated to funding and defending browser engine diversity. It would also provide services like legal defense, lobbying, PR/advocacy, etc. kind of like the EFF but more specialized.
The main thing is that charitable donations to non profits is not taxed, and people who donate can use it as a deduction, whereas donations to for profits are taxed on both sides.
So money the non profit foundation gets can’t just be moved to the corporation - that’s tax evasion.
They could set up a way to donate to the corporation - companies have done it in the past. Vox media had one.
This confuses me to no end. You can fund a non-profit in EU and have it do business, as long as it's to further the mission. And it can still receive donations tax-free.
The problem here is that there are two entities -- a non-profit and a for-profit corporation. Shifting donations from one to the other is illegal in a way that a non-profit doing business isn't.
I kind of fail to see how. Why not simply order "Firefox Development" from the for-profit and call it a day? Nonprofits can actually acquire services required to meet their goals. Well at least here.
Mozilla would have to divest their ownership of Mozilla corporation to do that.
That's pretty alien legislation you got there. Foundation over here can do whatever it wants, is tax exampt as long as it's declared activities align with a list of public benefit activities and is only forbidden to support political parties (there are different non profits for that).
Can they own a separate for profit entity that doesn’t have to do any reporting which it can pay for services? In the US, at least, that’d just be the worlds easiest way to evade taxes. Mozilla can pay other companies for services, but paying themselves…
I mean the for-profit wouldn't do any special reporting, but the non-profit obviously cannot just send them money. It has to order actual services or goods and authorities would not be very fond of them paying e.g. ten times market rate as that would clearly indicate tax evasion.
Also, I fail to see how sending money to a different company would actually defend against tax evasion. I mean, husband could chair a non-profit, wife own a for-profit, non-profit would order overpriced services from the non-profit...
US tax laws have their problems, but I don't think being too strict against corporations and non-profits is one of them.
What's the benefit of having two entities that are theoretically aligned and allied but can't cooperate on the things they care about most? What's the benefit of having the corporation exist in the first place?
I honestly don't know. I know that's how it's set up, but not why you'd do that. Hopefully someone else here is more knowledgeable about that side of things and can comment on it.
(sorry for the response to an old post) why not move software development teams into the non-profit, then? I assume the goal is to keep IP from becoming tainted by the NPO, but this is Mozilla — ostensibly everything they work on is already open source.
Per Mozilla the corporation exists because it’s difficult to have b2b deals with a non-profit in the US due to regulatory scrutiny.
Fair enough, but I wonder how the Apache Foundation and the Linux Foundation get around this? Afaik they operate just fine; maybe Mozilla has an increased need for engaging with the for-profit market …?
(these are rhetorical questions; please don’t feel obliged to answer. If I get bored I might even respond to myself)
Firefox is almost entirely funded by the Google deal (which is b2b, and technically quid-pro-quo unlike the donations Linux and Apache get). It’s not a trivial amount of money - Google pays Mozilla more than DuckDuckGo’s entire annual revenue (not profit - revenue!).
Ah … yeah that tracks. I remember pulling up their financials a while back and took away that they rake in a tonne of cash, but I didn’t connect all the dots or compare against other orgs.
Sorry to drag you into this conversation, but thank you for the info :) honestly it’d be really cool to see Mozilla focus on its original mission ie making a kick ass browser, and supporting an open web, rather than getting lost in get rich quick schemes (the VPN, the metaverse project, a phone, random acquisitions). Firing the Rust/Servo team was an insane misstep, since it was supposed to be their on-ramp for making browser engine improvements sustainably, so hopefully losing their primary funding source (85% per Wikipedia!) focuses what remains of their organization away from distractions and towards what will draw in donations.
Ah, I summarized myself better why rereading this message! IMO: capital growth should never have been the goal for an org built out around a not-for-profit corp, but Mozilla took the money hose they were given and wasted it cosplaying as a tech megacorp.
The reality is that all the megacorps have money to burn because of a core, unassailable, money printing machine (eg e-commerce, ads, cloud services, government contracts, etc.) whereas Mozilla had a sweetheart, under the table deal with the devil. Assuming it was legal to do so (I genuinely do not know what sorts of strings apply in contracts like these, or beyond that, tax law), they should’ve banked those several decades of money in a trust and draw only enough to service their primary mission of being stewards of an open web.
Imo, ianal, etc etc
Well, I don’t think they were trying to have capital growth - Mozilla is more of a fight for survival. Making a browser isn’t easy, you’re effectively a developer of a virtual machine.
If you can’t keep up with Chrome and the new web standards being set up, people will just stop using your browser. To keep up with Chrome and their highly paid, highly skilled dev team, you can’t go at it with a skeleton crew of interns and outsourced labor.
Mozilla has been trying to diversify, but that too is survival - being entirely dependent on one revenue source, let alone with your rival business, is a bad place to be. The source is exactly why; now the DoJ may force Google to rip up the deal. Now you’ll have to lay off like 70% of your staff.
I suppose I don’t understand why they had to spend all the money they were receiving this whole time. It looks like the Chrome dev team is a couple dozen people? That could be sustained pretty easily without becoming a skeleton crew. And it seems like Mozilla had, over the pandemic, around a thousand in its org. For context, that’s an article where they discussed shutting down (among several others) the Rust and MDN teams, both of which are absolutely critical for the goal of developing a browser sustainably. Notably, the CEO’s plan was to invest in:
Armchair CEO speaking, but again, that seems nuts. I know hindsight is 20/20, but given a firehose of money, they probably should’ve eg bought stock in other industries to diversify, kept their Firefox and web teams intact, and saved any remaining money for a rainy day. Not invested into weird ML products, the metaverse, …
I think we’re in agreement that they needed to find a path towards sustainability, I’ve just always been of the belief that that is best accomplished through (1) focusing on keeping the engine up to date, (2) keeping the development barrier of entry as low as possible via tech investments, so that (1) is more affordably achieved, (3) shoving all remaining money under the mattress. It’s the goal of a profit-seeking business to seek profit with its labour; imo they should’ve leaned on one of those instead of trying to be profitable themselves. Less profit that way, but way less risk, since the goal is (in theory) not capital growth.
The Google AI result is wrong. The chromium team has several hundred developers and you can’t discount broader teams like HR or accounting which support it, but Mozilla has to have its own version of.
The money goes mainly to salaries. Good developers cost a lot - minimum 500k with benefits factored in, but often 1 million+.
I was quoting Quora, please, a much more reputable source XP
And no, that’s way too much money to spend on developers. I can appreciate that VM development is a specialized field, but the principles at play here are not intrinsically worth quite that much money. Especially in the global market.
Maybe that’s justifiable if you can only hire out of Silicon Valley, but Mozilla should have no difficulty attracting international talent.
Anyways, unless you’re secretly a high level manager at Google or Mozilla, I
doubt you have more(edit - reworded since this sounded 40% more asshol-ish than intended) expect you have just as much context than I do. Cards on the table: I do distributed systems and backend work at a tech company, and have been in software dev for ~a decade. That’s just to underline that I vaguely know what I’m talking about when it comes to technical matters specifically (business ops are beyond me). Browser engine development is a couple nodes adjacent to my area of expertise, so I’m stretching a bit to make these claims, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by much.… are we arguing? I can’t tell. Anyways, my assertion is that Mozilla Corp has massively misplayed their hand over the years and behaved more like a profit generating company than a foundation maintaining critical OSS. I think your assertion is that they made all these choices in order to attempt to turn enough of a profit to live w/o Google’s assistance, but failed.
Imo the crux of our disagreement is whether Mozilla Corp would be sustainable relying on fundraising (a la Wikipedia or Internet Archive); I think yes, and I think you think no.
Yes, I think that their path makes sense. Their failure may just be an unfortunate reality. Far from profitability, Mozilla would be happy if they could just break even with a diversified revenue stream.
Ultimately, Firefox is different from Linux and Apache in that other companies don’t care about them. Linux gets its contributions from companies, which use Linux servers and have a vested interest in their improvement.
Companies ultimately don’t care about what browser their employees use, and in terms of development, are more than happy to just target Chrome.
While I’m not a manager at Google, I have a friend who works adjacent to the Chromium team and I know how massive they are.
I don’t think they could have funded a dev team that can compete with only courting donations. You’re functionally making an OS, in a feature race against Google.
Mozilla may be able to get more revenue through their subscription-based products. They’re pretty solid but I don’t think so many people know about them. I may even pay for Firefox and Thunderbird “pro" if they come up with some nice-to-haves. I love the password manager, the email masks and the add-on marketplace that is independent of Google.
It sucks that they are so dependent on that deal with Google, because once they are gone, everything is Google or Apple.
Their VPN is just Mullvad, but more expensive though. :/
Crazy that Firefox hasn't offered a proper Pro product ever. When people are willing to pay a subscription for a search engine like Kagi, I imagine plenty would pay for a premium browser experience. Remove the tracking, the sponsored home page content, and actually put some effort into your mobile browser, and I'd happily pay a subscription.
I agree. I've been thinking that maybe the problem is their focus. Market share is a buzz word out there, but they don't need to pay attention to it. If they are trying to make money through ads, they need more market share.
Honestly if they take care of their users and get a portion to support a pro version, they could probably make a good profit. And taking care of the users will just get more people to switch to Firefox. Gradual growth based on a good product is what they need.
How about the court requires that they fund Mozilla without anything in return, for at least a decade, as an antitrust penalty?
While I wouldn't be theoretically opposed to it in this instance, "Pay a competitor straight out of your pocket and without having inflicted any damages or such" is kind of... Radical statement which I don't expect happening any time soon. And tbh I'm not sure I'd like it as a general principle either.
They wouldn't be a competitor at that point, and it would be seen as damages for stifling the market.
Yep
Isn't that precisely what the DOJ had Microsoft do in the late 90s to prop Apple up? It's basically the only reason Apple didn't go bankrupt!
For some reason published date showing is wrong in the post.
Correct published date: 2024-11-26
On hand I consider Firefox to be the best current alternative platform(not as a browser, not even remotely) to the effective Chrome monopoly in the sea of garbage. On the other they made enough despicable decisions and pushed enough "modern-design" elements that I am lukewarm about its future.
It would be bad if it could not continue, or had to become even worse to get funding but as far as I am concerned the actual problem is the bloated nature of the web standards and experience and the effect it has on making choices sparse.
This is going to be harsh, but Mozilla, the lapdog of Google, have finally been called to heel.
It is harsh, but I also don't quite see what it contributes to the conversation. Without the context of your own thoughts, it is in my opinion quite a meaningless statement. Lapdog implies they have been willing to do anything that Google tells them to do. You can point all sorts of criticism towards how Mozilla has been (mis)managed in the last decade or so, but I don't get the impression the term "lapdog" applies here.
If I was on desktop, I would have left a more seasoned response, but I was under the assumption that this was a known topic, that Mozilla has always been a hedge for Google against any monopoly related judicial hearings or arguments, that funding over 80% of their revenue was an obvious hold over Mozilla.
Their decade plus failures can be directly linked to not wanting to step on the toes of their corporate patron, they can't and won't do anything that infringes on their revenue streams because they can't without endangering their own paychecks, and reality of remaining intact.
As Mozilla has always been a hedge against a monopolistic justice review, they are an in-situ lapdog, and they have now been finally called to heel as they are arguing that Google does not have a monopoly and should be able to continue.
The article title buries the lead, Mozilla isn't asking that Google be allowed to continue just financing them in return of google-as-default, they are practically advocating for the entirety of the case to be relieved.
this article is a bit better than the one posted above
This is why they have been financed and coerced to be in this position, in nearly all cases, Firefox is a Google product by-proxy, not as a browser company, but as an insurance policy for this exact case.
On the futility of discussion, I suppose
I write this not to continue the contribution of the conversation remark, but to only say that I believe that making that type of remark about "contributions to the conversaion" are even worse of a contribution to a conversation, especially as there was a secondary conversation already continuing in response to this conversation at the time you made this.
It's a weird response to make, and creates an environment where no one leaves any remarks because in all reality, they are all not contributing to the conversation since we aren't in the court case.
The secondary part makes sense, and I have explained above my reasoning, but the inclusion of the primary response is a bit much.
Cheers.
The thing is, if you had included this, I still wouldn't have agreed with what you have said. But I would have happily replied in context, now I could not as you did not provide that context.
That part of the revenue stream of Mozilla inc is the search engine deal is a known topic for many people, not all people. The arguments you put forward for Mozilla just being a lapdog aren't. In fact, without any type of sourcing, I'd say that it is merely speculation. I am not denying that it is quite possible that it influenced business decisions, but that is a far cry from positioning Google as a puppet master directly dictating the direction Mozilla takes. To be very clear, I am not saying that there has been no influence from Google whatsoever. I just don't think it is as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
I am not sure how you are making this leap. You do realize that this is actually a relatively tiny part of the entire case? A case where Google being forced to sell off chrome is a real possibility?
In short, no, your own interpretations and extrapolations are not automatically known topics.
Edit:
It looks like I replied before you were done with your edit.
I don't think it is much, it is quite frank and to the point, I'll give you that. The reason I called it out is that it is an emotional sentiment put down as a definitive statement. Which will make some people agree with you as it resonates on an emotional level but doesn't actually trigger much critical thought. For those who stop to consider your statement, it mostly opens up questions what you actually mean by that.
You mention a second conversation was ongoing. Which is true in the sense that someone asked what you could possibly mean, and someone tried to provide context on what effectively is guesswork. In this case, they got fairly close to the meat of what turns out to be your argument seems to be, although in a much more nuanced way. But since you didn't provide that context, they could also have been way off the mark.
I do have to admit, it is also a personal pet peeve. As I have grown tired of sweeping binary statements on discussion forums on the internet. Things like this are almost always more complex.
Can you expand on what you mean?
This is all off the top of my head so definitely take any details with a grain of salt, but Google has been funding the majority of Mozilla's budget (via the aforementioned default search provider deal) for many years.
Alongside the obvious immediate benefit of keeping people using google search, the existence of Firefox has acted as a defense for Google against Chrome (and other related browsers built on Chrome) having a monopoly on browsers.
It's been a precarious position, I'm not looking forward to the likely scenarios of Mozilla scrambling for a new revenue stream and enshittifying Firefox in the process or dying a slow death. The latter taking us back closer to the bad old days of one browser engine being so overwhelmingly dominant it gets to use it's implementation as the defacto spec of how the web works.
Unfortunately I know way to many developers that already only test for (non-standard) behaviour in chrome and then complain that a site doesn't work properly in firefox.
That's why the strongest bulwark against a Chrome monopoly is currently Safari. iOS is big enough nobody can afford to ignore it, and as annoying as Apple's policy against other rendering engines on iOS is...it's stopping Google from pushing Chrome on iOS and removing the remaining competition.
While Blink technically started as a fork of WebKit, over a decade of divergence probably makes it as different as WebKit is to its KHTML roots.
I believe thats exactly the reason why Chrome should be separated from Google monopoly.