Mozilla Foundation Forms Subsidiary

muzikool

Act your wage.
Political Access
Joined
27 Dec 2001
Messages
7,626
The Mozilla Foundation that organizes development of the Firefox Web browser has formed a corporate subsidiary, an unusual move for a technology nonprofit.

"The Mozilla Corp. is not a typical commercial entity," said Mitchell Baker, the new subsidiary's president. "Rather it is dedicated to the public benefit goal at the heart of the Mozilla project, which is to keep the Internet open and available to everyone."

Mozilla Corp. will work mainly on developing and delivering free software products such as the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail program. The foundation will manage projects, set policies and organize relationships among developers.

The new business will be based in Mountain View, as is the foundation. It is expected to have about 30 employees, compared with three or four at the foundation, Baker said.

Its software will remain free.

Full Story
 
Now that's a twist.

Will have to see what comes of it. It could be a very good thing, I hope.
 
Not too sure what to take from this, will have to wait and see I guess.
 
I am kind of amazed and perplexed at the same time. Not confused, but just wondering how this is going to work out.

Heeter
 
Interesting move for a tax break. Interesting that forming a "commercial" company sector would give one a better tax stance then being a non-profit. I for one would have thought the secound to be better, though I guess with a "commercial" sector you could perhaps write more off as business exspenses?
 
Hi LordofLA,

The article mentions how Monzilla receives financial restitution from Google for having Google as the default homepage, I am wondering myself what else that this "Non-profit" foundation does to pay over thirty employees.

Heeter
 
how can they have employees if the software is free ?? They expect to get donations from everyone ??
 
Johnny said:
how can they have employees if the software is free ?? They expect to get donations from everyone ??
The software doesn't appear out of think air, and the web server isn't administered by hamsters. Nearly every organisation needs employees.

None-profits are allowed to make enough money to pay employees, just not enough to be rolling in cash Google/Microsoft style. (That's how I always thought it worked anyway)
 
SPeedY_B said:
The software doesn't appear out of think air, and the web server isn't administered by hamsters. Nearly every organization needs employees.

None-profits are allowed to make enough money to pay employees, just not enough to be rolling in cash Google/Microsoft style. (That's how I always thought it worked anyway)
I know this. But, where are they getting the money from if it's free. I don't think some billionaire just said to them; "hey, I want to waste some of y money so here is a couple of million dollars". I don't see how they can get anything if it's free .. They have to be getting money from somewhere ..

Now, if it was a college type thing, then yes, they can get funding from the government. But, a non profit organization that has free software is unexplainable ..
 
Johnny said:
I know this. But, where are they getting the money from if it's free. I don't think some billionaire just said to them; "hey, I want to waste some of y money so here is a couple of million dollars". I don't see how they can get anything if it's free .. They have to be getting money from somewhere ..
The Mozilla Foundation receives a considerable amount of funding and resources from some pretty large organizations like AOL, Sun, RedHat etc.
 
Johnny said:
I know this. But, where are they getting the money from if it's free. I don't think some billionaire just said to them; "hey, I want to waste some of y money so here is a couple of million dollars". I don't see how they can get anything if it's free .. They have to be getting money from somewhere ..

Now, if it was a college type thing, then yes, they can get funding from the government. But, a non profit organization that has free software is unexplainable ..

This is part of the full article:
Already, Google Inc. pays Mozilla an unspecified amount to ship Firefox with a version of Google's search engine as the default home page.
 
NetRyder said:
The Mozilla Foundation receives a considerable amount of funding and resources from some pretty large organizations like AOL, Sun, RedHat etc.
That is just what I was going to post. They have alot of BIG corporations shelling out money (partly to be nice, partly to possible use their code in the future), as well as all the individuals that send donations.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back