6 ms·

Firefox Money: Investigating the Finances of Mozilla

124 points by BryanLunduke 3y ago

evasb 3y ago
Mitchell Baker needs to go and let people do their job.
- emptysongglass 3y ago
  How has she not been ejected after so many years of falling market share? I have a really hard time understanding the business sense of a board that hasn't taken a very hard look at Mozilla's leadership.
  - BrendanEich 3y ago
    I couldn't possibly say, but one might suspect she has old connections with early Googlers, and Mozilla is still (at ever lower revshare rates in successive deals) a cheap source of search traffic for Google, and good PR aka "antitrust repellant". At $5.6M/year comp, wouldn't you sell your soul this way? https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990-ty21-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...
  - evasb 3y ago
    She is an old timer that is with Mozilla since the beginning. Should be pretty hard to challenge her from the inside after Brendan Eich departure. What I have to say is that Brendan Eich lost his respect with hia peers inside Mozilla after donating for the campaign against gay marriage, so it was entirely his fault.
    - BrendanEich 3y ago
      Mitchell was a Netscape lawyer who wrote the NPL and MPL. She was not part of mozilla dot org from the beginning. Your irrational animus toward me may be making you sloppy with that false claim about Mitchell in your first sentence, but your second paragraph just makes stuff up out of whole cloth. Lying, in a word. Mozilla rank and file as far as I know wanted me to stay. I have many letters and emails testifying to this. It doesn't do you any credit to fulfill wishes this way, even on HN where a noisy but surprisingly small cohort do it vs. me, endlessly.
    - billiam 3y ago
      Was there. Baker has constructed (and deconstructed) Mozilla to provide her with money and power. Full stop. The Google search deal is an easy way to keep Brussels off Google's back. Any normal Board would have fired her many years ago for non-performance. Brendan was popular with most engineers but a small but vocal minority had problems with a single political contribution he made years before and his somewhat cavalier way of explaining it. IMHO he was unsuited as a Mozilla CEO but he has made Brave what he wanted Mozilla to be, so happy ending.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      Pretty sure his peers were fine with him continuing at Mozilla. Not so much staff
  - ohgodplsno 3y ago
    Because the board is perfectly content with sucking Mozilla dry. Mitchell Baker - Lawyer, wrote the MPL (involved since Netscape) Laura Chambers - Stanford MBA, ex-McKinsey, ex-eBay C-suite, ex AirBnB, ex Paypal. Currently CEO of a wearable breast pump company. Kerry Cooper - Harvard MBA, currently also in the board of PG&E, Upstart, Gradient, Fernish, Fictiv as well as an executive-in-residence at Acrew Capital. Karim Lakhani - PhD in management at MIT, Professor of Business Administration, publishes papers on management and once a decade a paper on open source/open contribution. Bob Lisbonne - Stanford MBA, venture capitalist, ex Netscape/Mozilla Hugh Molotsi - Computer Engineering Masters, ex Intuit, specializes in intrapreneurial actions Kristin Skogen Lund - INSEAD MBA, ex Coca-Cola, ex Unilever, various governmental positions in Norway The amount of people with technical knowledge on that board is low. The amount of people that aren't MBA leeches is low. The board is perfectly happy to keep the grift going.
Reubend 3y ago
Disgusting. I hope that Mozilla can re-focus on their original mission, and align their finances with building the best browser possible rather than wasting it on political activism.
- st3fan 3y ago
  What is their original mission?
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Developing Firefox.
    - st3fan 3y ago
      Nope. Not correct.
      - vntok 3y ago
        How is it not correct? Have you read the original statements by Netscape and Mozilla? Fortunately, they are very easy to read if you haven't done so yet, thanks to Archive.org. 1. Here is the first statement by Netscape, clearly showing Mozilla's original intent to help develop Netscape's client: (https://web.archive.org/web/20021004080737/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease577.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021004080737/http://wp.netscap... ) > NETSCAPE ANNOUNCES MOZILLA.ORG, A DEDICATED TEAM AND WEB SITE SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT OF FREE CLIENT SOURCE CODE > Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:NSCP) today announced the creation of mozilla.org, a dedicated team within Netscape with an associated Web site that will promote, foster and guide open dialog and development of Netscape's client source code. 2. Here is the second statement by the newly formed entity, clearly showing its goal to "lead open-source browser efforts": (https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2003/07/mozilla-org-announces-launch-of-the-mozilla-foundation-to-lead-open-source-browser-efforts/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2003/07/mozilla-org-announces...) > Mozilla.org announces launch of the Mozilla Foundation to lead open-source browser efforts There's even a side paragraph "About mozilla.org and the Mozilla Foundation" that states the following mission statement: > Mozilla.org (www.mozilla.org) is the group that exists to make Mozilla a successful open source project. Mozilla.org provides open source Internet client software that includes a browser, mail and news functionality, and a toolkit for developing web-based applications. Mozilla.org was founded by Netscape Communications Corporation.
constantcrying 3y ago
As with Wikipedia, what I assumed how the organization operated and how it does is vastly different. Basically everything here seems biazarre and makes trusting Mozilla very hard. Does anybody believe that they can stand up against Google, when Google, at any point they want to, could crash their whole operation? I think it is quite likely that Google is keeping Mozilla afloat to avoid anti-trust allegations. Mozilla existing is worth a few hundred millions to Google. But Mozilla apparently has no real use for that money, they spend around 200M on software developmemt that means one thousand high paying software developer positions. And they could hire hundreds of more developers at any point.
- dralley 3y ago
  HN loves to simultaneously criticize Mozilla for 1) being financially dependent on Google 2) spending resources on literally anything except Firefox 3) doing anything that smells like monetizing Firefox, no matter how innocuous Spoiler alert: They have essentially no hope of avoiding 1 without doing at least a little bit of 2 or 3. Unlike Google, Apple, and Microsoft, they don't have billions of dollars coming through the backdoor from other business units. As for "whether they can stand up to them", they can and do, all the time. Including _literally this week_ with Google's Web integrity bullshit. Whether it accomplishes much is a different matter, but it's not for lack of an attempt on their part.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - constantcrying 3y ago
    I do get that they aren't in a position where they have easy choices, but what they are currently doing is wrong. They need to be a much smaller and focused organization, which can generate funds from various sources and use them to do effective development. You don't need 200M to develop firefox. In their current position they exist to give Google some protection against anti-trust allegations. That is about the worst spot for their organization to be in. >As for "whether they can stand up to them", they can and do, all the time. You are right. Google likely knows that they can completly ignore them, so they can say whatever they want.
linuxwhat 3y ago
Not going to argue the article, Mozilla should be doing better. But the author obviously is trying to push some politics not so subtly. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/muc18q/whats_the_deal_with_bryan_lunduke/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/muc18q/whats_the_dea...
- fallfrom 3y ago
  Ah yes, it is the author who pushes agenda not "not profit" Mozilla "donating" $480000 to political organizations.
  - ohgodplsno 3y ago
    It is both, but Mozilla has never tried to hide it. Read their blog for a bit and you'll see ton of advocacy for various subjects. Cherry-picking expenses that total barely 500k out of a 500M budget and hiding it behind "noooo we don't get political here promised" is also pushing an agenda. The Mozilla Foundation does plenty of stupid shit. I don't agree with much of what they're doing, starting from Baker's insane pay for how terrible of a job she does. But 400k to an association... At best that pays for two rallies that total 500 people, at worst it's giving money to friends.
yesbut 3y ago
Mozilla should convert to a worker owned enterprise and stop giving all of that money to execs.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  >Mozilla should convert to a worker owned enterprise and stop giving all of that money to execs. The compensation to execs seems irrelevant. That is almost literally just a Google bribe. Mozilla pays 200M for software development, from that I can only assume that they pay quite generously and they seem to have absolutely no issue with money, as they are funded by Google. To me it seems hey have more money than they know what to do with. Hardly something which could be fixed by workers rising up and taking care of distributing Googles Millions.
  - yesbut 3y ago
    Should still convert to a worker owned enterprise. Democratically the workers most likely wouldn't vote to waste money on Google bribes like the execs have.
    - constantcrying 3y ago
      Sure, they would equitably distribute the Google bribe amongst themselves.
      - yesbut 3y ago
        As they should.
        constantcrying 3y ago
        No, they should develop a browser.
        yesbut 3y ago
blacksmith_tb 3y ago
Obviously relying on Google for money is fraught, but it isn't exactly clear where they'd get an equivalent source of income. Otherwise the subtext seems to be "I don't like their politics" which suggests maybe the author shouldn't donate any money to them. Personally I would be sad if Firefox was neglected, but that doesn't seem to be happening, as far as I can see.
- arp242 3y ago
  I suppose Microsoft might be willing to broker a deal to have Bing as the default search, although that would probably attract similar levels of criticism from the same people. DuckDuckGo would be the "obvious" choice, but I doubt they can come up with the same kind of numbers. Brave Search might be an option, but unlike Google and Microsoft the browser is Brave's main product so they might not want to deal with a competitor, they probably have a lot less cash lying around, and they have some history with Mozilla. Yahoo! Search is still around, maybe some others? I don't think anyone other than Microsoft and Google have a spare ~$500 million lying around for this though.
  - st3fan 3y ago
    Wait what? "spare money lying around?" that is a complete misunderstanding of how this works. You make it sound as if that money is some kind of "donation". THat Google is doing Mozilla a _favour_ here. But nothing could be further from the truth: instead this is a business deal where everyone wins. (Read: generates a stupid amount of revenue) Google probably makes at least 3x of what it pays Mozilla in search royalties. At least. Who knows what Google makes with what it does after Firefox has done its small part. This is a hugely profitable business for Google. That has _nothing_ to do with "spare money lying around". This is a cash cow for Google. Specially since they do the same with other players like Apple. Many many billions of dollars are at stake.
    - mike_hearn 3y ago
      Realistically Google is doing Mozilla a favor and the money is a donation. Firstly, Firefox's remaining userbase is pretty technical. They aren't the sort of people to blindly use defaults because they don't know how to change them. Even if Google cut Mozilla off entirely, tomorrow, 90% of Firefox users would continue to search on Google by default. Secondly, what would Firefox switch to? Bing? What if MS don't care about paying Mozilla either, or only are willing to pay a fraction of what Google pays? What's Mozilla going to do? They'd have to go with Bing anyway because it's that or nothing. There are no other search engines willing and able to pay lots of money for browser traffic. So Mozilla would be in a double bind: even if MS paid them to replace the Google deal, (a) most of their users would change the default back again, so they'd refer very little traffic and (b) Microsoft could cut them a very bad deal and they'd have to take it anyway. They'd still suffer a huge drop in income overnight. No matter what Mozilla does, they will be depending on one of two companies BOTH of which make competing browsers and frankly, both of which would be quite happy if Mozilla just went away and died, given that from their perspective Mozilla's primary contribution to the web is telling the Chrome/Edge teams they can't do things. I don't get the anti-trust angle. There is browser competition: Chrome, Edge, Safari, Brave, Vivaldi, etc. If Mozilla tried to claim that Google ending their deal was anti-competitive, they'd just immediately lose in court. My guess is that Google continue to be Mozilla's sugar daddy for legacy reasons. They've done it for a long time, cutting Mozilla off would upset a lot of techies and the money is irrelevant to Google. But one day that calculus will change. What might cause the calculus to change? Most obviously, if Google decides that Mozilla is no longer actually developing their browser properly, or if Mozilla's management just upsets the relevant point-person at Google badly enough. Baker obviously stopped caring about web browsers years ago, if she ever did at all, and is now treating the Google deal as a piggybank for pushing her political ideology. All it takes is for the person responsible for the Mozilla deal to be replaced by someone who hates anti-white wokeness and they've got all the ammo they need to just defund Mozilla completely. A less sympathetic organization is hard to imagine.
herczegzsolt 3y ago
I sort of understand that Mozilla wants to care for the concept of an open internet which requires a lot more than just software development. I don't particularly understand or like the exact things they finance, but politics is a complex game in which you loose if you don't play. What I absolutely fail to understand though is why they don't have long-term focus on diversifying income? All their alternative revenue sources are neglibile, and their strange attempts to provide paid products seem to be either hobby-projects of someone at mozilla (ex: pocket) or a cheap rebrand of a product (ex: vpn). Am I wrong to expect more from such a technologically capable organisation?
- aleph4 3y ago
  They do have a focus on that, it just hasn't really panned out. To be fair, you're talking about the billion dollar question. It's not exactly an easy problem.
korginator 3y ago
From the report: During 2021, Mozilla paid $387 Thousand dollars to a Mckensie Mack Group whose LinkedIn page describes itself as “Black-led and nonbinary-led, MMG is a global social justice organization”. And another $100K to an "Action research collaborative" that sounds like another social justice org? WTF? This sounds like money laundering. I just want a good browser. I'm now regretful that I was donating regularly to Mozilla.
- samspenc 3y ago
  100% looks like money laundering. They paid six figure amounts to businesses that don't even have a website and are impossible to find any information on: - "What, exactly, is “Action Research Collaborative”? That is a surprisingly difficult question to find an answer to, as they have no website whatsoever. One of the few references to it is in a Cornell newsletter from earlier this year..." - "$30,000 to “MC Technical Inc.” in 2021. Who are they? Well, they don’t have a website, that’s for sure. The business registry listing is about the only thing of the company that seems to exist. The listed address is someone’s house." - "Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?" - "Why does Mozilla continue to take donations if it doesn’t need them?" - "Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?" - "Why is Mozilla decreasing software development funding when development of Firefox is the cash cow?" And the author adds this update at the end of the article: "August 5th, 2023 Update: To date, no request for clarification or additional details has been answered." This is extremely suspicious on Mozilla's part. I hope there is further investigation into all this wild spending they are doing using public donations without any accountability.
  - st3fan 3y ago
    "Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?" should really read "Where does the Mozilla Foundation spend those donated dollars?" Because although the author conflates Foundation and Corporation they are in fact separate entities and money does not go into a single bank account. If you want to know where the Mozilla Foundation spends your donated dollars then you can read their financial report. There are many dozens of line items that list where money goes.
gmerc 3y ago
Is this you Google. Sorry, even if Firefox was run by the mob right now, it’d be better than handing you control of the web.
st3fan 3y ago
What a dumb hit piece. The author Cherry picked things to politicize. How about the many millions of dollars the Mozilla Foundation spends on grands and research supporting so many individuals and organizations that help make the world a better place. The full list can be found at https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990-ty21-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...
- Rocoli 3y ago
  1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism 2) They still have no job focusing on these things when their browser, their main product, is loosing market share like crazy. Why not spend all that money on Servo and Oxidation instead? 3) It's not politicizing to say that a software developer is using money for political purposes instead of making software. You are the one politicizing this because you deflect from this valid criticism into a discussion about the author's politics.
wodenokoto 3y ago
The reason why there is a foundation that owns two for profit corporations, is so the corporations can pay taxes. It is the opposite of shady.
migf 3y ago
Google is paying Mozilla to develop a web browser, to allow Google to develop a web browser without pissing off anti trust. They're doing a merely ok job. It's not clear if that's intentional or because they're badly run. There's a story there, this article seems to mostly be political winging.

124 points by BryanLunduke 3y ago

evasb 3y ago

Mitchell Baker needs to go and let people do their job.

emptysongglass 3y ago
How has she not been ejected after so many years of falling market share? I have a really hard time understanding the business sense of a board that hasn't taken a very hard look at Mozilla's leadership.
- BrendanEich 3y ago
  I couldn't possibly say, but one might suspect she has old connections with early Googlers, and Mozilla is still (at ever lower revshare rates in successive deals) a cheap source of search traffic for Google, and good PR aka "antitrust repellant". At $5.6M/year comp, wouldn't you sell your soul this way? https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990-ty21-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...
- evasb 3y ago
  She is an old timer that is with Mozilla since the beginning. Should be pretty hard to challenge her from the inside after Brendan Eich departure. What I have to say is that Brendan Eich lost his respect with hia peers inside Mozilla after donating for the campaign against gay marriage, so it was entirely his fault.
  - BrendanEich 3y ago
    Mitchell was a Netscape lawyer who wrote the NPL and MPL. She was not part of mozilla dot org from the beginning. Your irrational animus toward me may be making you sloppy with that false claim about Mitchell in your first sentence, but your second paragraph just makes stuff up out of whole cloth. Lying, in a word. Mozilla rank and file as far as I know wanted me to stay. I have many letters and emails testifying to this. It doesn't do you any credit to fulfill wishes this way, even on HN where a noisy but surprisingly small cohort do it vs. me, endlessly.
  - billiam 3y ago
    Was there. Baker has constructed (and deconstructed) Mozilla to provide her with money and power. Full stop. The Google search deal is an easy way to keep Brussels off Google's back. Any normal Board would have fired her many years ago for non-performance. Brendan was popular with most engineers but a small but vocal minority had problems with a single political contribution he made years before and his somewhat cavalier way of explaining it. IMHO he was unsuited as a Mozilla CEO but he has made Brave what he wanted Mozilla to be, so happy ending.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    Pretty sure his peers were fine with him continuing at Mozilla. Not so much staff
- ohgodplsno 3y ago
  Because the board is perfectly content with sucking Mozilla dry. Mitchell Baker - Lawyer, wrote the MPL (involved since Netscape) Laura Chambers - Stanford MBA, ex-McKinsey, ex-eBay C-suite, ex AirBnB, ex Paypal. Currently CEO of a wearable breast pump company. Kerry Cooper - Harvard MBA, currently also in the board of PG&E, Upstart, Gradient, Fernish, Fictiv as well as an executive-in-residence at Acrew Capital. Karim Lakhani - PhD in management at MIT, Professor of Business Administration, publishes papers on management and once a decade a paper on open source/open contribution. Bob Lisbonne - Stanford MBA, venture capitalist, ex Netscape/Mozilla Hugh Molotsi - Computer Engineering Masters, ex Intuit, specializes in intrapreneurial actions Kristin Skogen Lund - INSEAD MBA, ex Coca-Cola, ex Unilever, various governmental positions in Norway The amount of people with technical knowledge on that board is low. The amount of people that aren't MBA leeches is low. The board is perfectly happy to keep the grift going.

Reubend 3y ago

Disgusting. I hope that Mozilla can re-focus on their original mission, and align their finances with building the best browser possible rather than wasting it on political activism.

st3fan 3y ago
What is their original mission?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Developing Firefox.
  - st3fan 3y ago
    Nope. Not correct.
    - vntok 3y ago
      How is it not correct? Have you read the original statements by Netscape and Mozilla? Fortunately, they are very easy to read if you haven't done so yet, thanks to Archive.org. 1. Here is the first statement by Netscape, clearly showing Mozilla's original intent to help develop Netscape's client: (https://web.archive.org/web/20021004080737/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease577.html https://web.archive.org/web/20021004080737/http://wp.netscap... ) > NETSCAPE ANNOUNCES MOZILLA.ORG, A DEDICATED TEAM AND WEB SITE SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT OF FREE CLIENT SOURCE CODE > Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:NSCP) today announced the creation of mozilla.org, a dedicated team within Netscape with an associated Web site that will promote, foster and guide open dialog and development of Netscape's client source code. 2. Here is the second statement by the newly formed entity, clearly showing its goal to "lead open-source browser efforts": (https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2003/07/mozilla-org-announces-launch-of-the-mozilla-foundation-to-lead-open-source-browser-efforts/ https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2003/07/mozilla-org-announces...) > Mozilla.org announces launch of the Mozilla Foundation to lead open-source browser efforts There's even a side paragraph "About mozilla.org and the Mozilla Foundation" that states the following mission statement: > Mozilla.org (www.mozilla.org) is the group that exists to make Mozilla a successful open source project. Mozilla.org provides open source Internet client software that includes a browser, mail and news functionality, and a toolkit for developing web-based applications. Mozilla.org was founded by Netscape Communications Corporation.

constantcrying 3y ago

As with Wikipedia, what I assumed how the organization operated and how it does is vastly different. Basically everything here seems biazarre and makes trusting Mozilla very hard. Does anybody believe that they can stand up against Google, when Google, at any point they want to, could crash their whole operation? I think it is quite likely that Google is keeping Mozilla afloat to avoid anti-trust allegations. Mozilla existing is worth a few hundred millions to Google. But Mozilla apparently has no real use for that money, they spend around 200M on software developmemt that means one thousand high paying software developer positions. And they could hire hundreds of more developers at any point.

dralley 3y ago
HN loves to simultaneously criticize Mozilla for 1) being financially dependent on Google 2) spending resources on literally anything except Firefox 3) doing anything that smells like monetizing Firefox, no matter how innocuous Spoiler alert: They have essentially no hope of avoiding 1 without doing at least a little bit of 2 or 3. Unlike Google, Apple, and Microsoft, they don't have billions of dollars coming through the backdoor from other business units. As for "whether they can stand up to them", they can and do, all the time. Including _literally this week_ with Google's Web integrity bullshit. Whether it accomplishes much is a different matter, but it's not for lack of an attempt on their part.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- constantcrying 3y ago
  I do get that they aren't in a position where they have easy choices, but what they are currently doing is wrong. They need to be a much smaller and focused organization, which can generate funds from various sources and use them to do effective development. You don't need 200M to develop firefox. In their current position they exist to give Google some protection against anti-trust allegations. That is about the worst spot for their organization to be in. >As for "whether they can stand up to them", they can and do, all the time. You are right. Google likely knows that they can completly ignore them, so they can say whatever they want.

linuxwhat 3y ago

Not going to argue the article, Mozilla should be doing better. But the author obviously is trying to push some politics not so subtly. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/muc18q/whats_the_deal_with_bryan_lunduke/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/muc18q/whats_the_dea...

fallfrom 3y ago
Ah yes, it is the author who pushes agenda not "not profit" Mozilla "donating" $480000 to political organizations.
- ohgodplsno 3y ago
  It is both, but Mozilla has never tried to hide it. Read their blog for a bit and you'll see ton of advocacy for various subjects. Cherry-picking expenses that total barely 500k out of a 500M budget and hiding it behind "noooo we don't get political here promised" is also pushing an agenda. The Mozilla Foundation does plenty of stupid shit. I don't agree with much of what they're doing, starting from Baker's insane pay for how terrible of a job she does. But 400k to an association... At best that pays for two rallies that total 500 people, at worst it's giving money to friends.

yesbut 3y ago

Mozilla should convert to a worker owned enterprise and stop giving all of that money to execs.

constantcrying 3y ago
>Mozilla should convert to a worker owned enterprise and stop giving all of that money to execs. The compensation to execs seems irrelevant. That is almost literally just a Google bribe. Mozilla pays 200M for software development, from that I can only assume that they pay quite generously and they seem to have absolutely no issue with money, as they are funded by Google. To me it seems hey have more money than they know what to do with. Hardly something which could be fixed by workers rising up and taking care of distributing Googles Millions.
- yesbut 3y ago
  Should still convert to a worker owned enterprise. Democratically the workers most likely wouldn't vote to waste money on Google bribes like the execs have.
  - constantcrying 3y ago
    Sure, they would equitably distribute the Google bribe amongst themselves.
    - yesbut 3y ago
      As they should.
      - constantcrying 3y ago
        No, they should develop a browser.
        yesbut 3y ago

blacksmith_tb 3y ago

Obviously relying on Google for money is fraught, but it isn't exactly clear where they'd get an equivalent source of income. Otherwise the subtext seems to be "I don't like their politics" which suggests maybe the author shouldn't donate any money to them. Personally I would be sad if Firefox was neglected, but that doesn't seem to be happening, as far as I can see.

arp242 3y ago
I suppose Microsoft might be willing to broker a deal to have Bing as the default search, although that would probably attract similar levels of criticism from the same people. DuckDuckGo would be the "obvious" choice, but I doubt they can come up with the same kind of numbers. Brave Search might be an option, but unlike Google and Microsoft the browser is Brave's main product so they might not want to deal with a competitor, they probably have a lot less cash lying around, and they have some history with Mozilla. Yahoo! Search is still around, maybe some others? I don't think anyone other than Microsoft and Google have a spare ~$500 million lying around for this though.
- st3fan 3y ago
  Wait what? "spare money lying around?" that is a complete misunderstanding of how this works. You make it sound as if that money is some kind of "donation". THat Google is doing Mozilla a _favour_ here. But nothing could be further from the truth: instead this is a business deal where everyone wins. (Read: generates a stupid amount of revenue) Google probably makes at least 3x of what it pays Mozilla in search royalties. At least. Who knows what Google makes with what it does after Firefox has done its small part. This is a hugely profitable business for Google. That has _nothing_ to do with "spare money lying around". This is a cash cow for Google. Specially since they do the same with other players like Apple. Many many billions of dollars are at stake.
  - mike_hearn 3y ago
    Realistically Google is doing Mozilla a favor and the money is a donation. Firstly, Firefox's remaining userbase is pretty technical. They aren't the sort of people to blindly use defaults because they don't know how to change them. Even if Google cut Mozilla off entirely, tomorrow, 90% of Firefox users would continue to search on Google by default. Secondly, what would Firefox switch to? Bing? What if MS don't care about paying Mozilla either, or only are willing to pay a fraction of what Google pays? What's Mozilla going to do? They'd have to go with Bing anyway because it's that or nothing. There are no other search engines willing and able to pay lots of money for browser traffic. So Mozilla would be in a double bind: even if MS paid them to replace the Google deal, (a) most of their users would change the default back again, so they'd refer very little traffic and (b) Microsoft could cut them a very bad deal and they'd have to take it anyway. They'd still suffer a huge drop in income overnight. No matter what Mozilla does, they will be depending on one of two companies BOTH of which make competing browsers and frankly, both of which would be quite happy if Mozilla just went away and died, given that from their perspective Mozilla's primary contribution to the web is telling the Chrome/Edge teams they can't do things. I don't get the anti-trust angle. There is browser competition: Chrome, Edge, Safari, Brave, Vivaldi, etc. If Mozilla tried to claim that Google ending their deal was anti-competitive, they'd just immediately lose in court. My guess is that Google continue to be Mozilla's sugar daddy for legacy reasons. They've done it for a long time, cutting Mozilla off would upset a lot of techies and the money is irrelevant to Google. But one day that calculus will change. What might cause the calculus to change? Most obviously, if Google decides that Mozilla is no longer actually developing their browser properly, or if Mozilla's management just upsets the relevant point-person at Google badly enough. Baker obviously stopped caring about web browsers years ago, if she ever did at all, and is now treating the Google deal as a piggybank for pushing her political ideology. All it takes is for the person responsible for the Mozilla deal to be replaced by someone who hates anti-white wokeness and they've got all the ammo they need to just defund Mozilla completely. A less sympathetic organization is hard to imagine.

herczegzsolt 3y ago

I sort of understand that Mozilla wants to care for the concept of an open internet which requires a lot more than just software development. I don't particularly understand or like the exact things they finance, but politics is a complex game in which you loose if you don't play. What I absolutely fail to understand though is why they don't have long-term focus on diversifying income? All their alternative revenue sources are neglibile, and their strange attempts to provide paid products seem to be either hobby-projects of someone at mozilla (ex: pocket) or a cheap rebrand of a product (ex: vpn). Am I wrong to expect more from such a technologically capable organisation?

aleph4 3y ago
They do have a focus on that, it just hasn't really panned out. To be fair, you're talking about the billion dollar question. It's not exactly an easy problem.

korginator 3y ago

From the report: During 2021, Mozilla paid $387 Thousand dollars to a Mckensie Mack Group whose LinkedIn page describes itself as “Black-led and nonbinary-led, MMG is a global social justice organization”. And another $100K to an "Action research collaborative" that sounds like another social justice org? WTF? This sounds like money laundering. I just want a good browser. I'm now regretful that I was donating regularly to Mozilla.

samspenc 3y ago
100% looks like money laundering. They paid six figure amounts to businesses that don't even have a website and are impossible to find any information on: - "What, exactly, is “Action Research Collaborative”? That is a surprisingly difficult question to find an answer to, as they have no website whatsoever. One of the few references to it is in a Cornell newsletter from earlier this year..." - "$30,000 to “MC Technical Inc.” in 2021. Who are they? Well, they don’t have a website, that’s for sure. The business registry listing is about the only thing of the company that seems to exist. The listed address is someone’s house." - "Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?" - "Why does Mozilla continue to take donations if it doesn’t need them?" - "Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?" - "Why is Mozilla decreasing software development funding when development of Firefox is the cash cow?" And the author adds this update at the end of the article: "August 5th, 2023 Update: To date, no request for clarification or additional details has been answered." This is extremely suspicious on Mozilla's part. I hope there is further investigation into all this wild spending they are doing using public donations without any accountability.
- st3fan 3y ago
  "Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?" should really read "Where does the Mozilla Foundation spend those donated dollars?" Because although the author conflates Foundation and Corporation they are in fact separate entities and money does not go into a single bank account. If you want to know where the Mozilla Foundation spends your donated dollars then you can read their financial report. There are many dozens of line items that list where money goes.

gmerc 3y ago

Is this you Google. Sorry, even if Firefox was run by the mob right now, it’d be better than handing you control of the web.

st3fan 3y ago

What a dumb hit piece. The author Cherry picked things to politicize. How about the many millions of dollars the Mozilla Foundation spends on grands and research supporting so many individuals and organizations that help make the world a better place. The full list can be found at https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990-ty21-public-disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...

Rocoli 3y ago
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism 2) They still have no job focusing on these things when their browser, their main product, is loosing market share like crazy. Why not spend all that money on Servo and Oxidation instead? 3) It's not politicizing to say that a software developer is using money for political purposes instead of making software. You are the one politicizing this because you deflect from this valid criticism into a discussion about the author's politics.

wodenokoto 3y ago

The reason why there is a foundation that owns two for profit corporations, is so the corporations can pay taxes. It is the opposite of shady.

migf 3y ago

Google is paying Mozilla to develop a web browser, to allow Google to develop a web browser without pissing off anti trust. They're doing a merely ok job. It's not clear if that's intentional or because they're badly run. There's a story there, this article seems to mostly be political winging.