4 ms·

Don't get me wrong, these are amazing news love the project, but I'm a bit confused on how Mozilla works. Just the other day they were requesting donations, now

by dudus 11y ago

Don't get me wrong, these are amazing news love the project, but I'm a bit confused on how Mozilla works. Just the other day they were requesting donations, now they are donating money? Why ask for donations if you are expecting to donate the money away instead of using it to improve your products? I donated to mozilla a few weeks ago, but now I wonder if I should have just donated directly to django instead, skip the middleman that is not adding anything.

wldcordeiro 11y ago
That's a very narrow way of looking at it. Mozilla is both a producer and consumer of OSS, these donations are them being a good citizen of OSS by helping the projects they utilize in the production, management and marketing of their own projects. You aren't skipping any middleman, especially one that isn't adding anything.
nickstinemates 11y ago
Why not donate to both (if you can?) Usually these types of grants come with specific results that are good for both parties.
bad_user 11y ago
These money probably come from Mozilla Corporation and not the Mozilla Foundation, so from Firefox's revenue. Firefox is a self sustainable project and isn't developed from donations. And the MOSS program is one way to give back to the projects that Mozilla depends on. How many companies do you know that are giving back to the open-source projects they depend on? I don't know that many, so I think those that do should be praised for it.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Just the other day they were requesting donations, now they are donating money? Nonprofits often fund themselves through donations, and award grants as a means of advancing their mission. > I donated to mozilla a few weeks ago, but now I wonder if I should have just donated directly to django instead, skip the middleman that is not adding anything. If your primary concern was the mission of the Django project, you should have donated to Django directly. If it was the mission of the Mozilla project, then donating to Mozilla makes sense. That the Mozilla project determined that one of the ways in which it should expend resources to achieve its goals was to give grants to other OSS projects for specific, identified tasks does not, in any way, change that the funds are being used to support the mission of the Mozilla project.
tmnvix 11y ago
> Why ask for donations if you are expecting to donate the money away instead of using it to improve your products? Django is very widely used by Mozilla as far as I'm aware. By supporting djangoproject they are improving their (Mozilla's) products. This is not entirely altruistic on Mozilla's part. I appreciate what you are saying and would agree if Mozilla were just looking around for worthwhile FOSS projects to donate money to without any regard for whether or not they were using or intending to use them to achieve their own goals.

by dudus 11y ago

wldcordeiro 11y ago

That's a very narrow way of looking at it. Mozilla is both a producer and consumer of OSS, these donations are them being a good citizen of OSS by helping the projects they utilize in the production, management and marketing of their own projects. You aren't skipping any middleman, especially one that isn't adding anything.

nickstinemates 11y ago

Why not donate to both (if you can?) Usually these types of grants come with specific results that are good for both parties.

bad_user 11y ago

These money probably come from Mozilla Corporation and not the Mozilla Foundation, so from Firefox's revenue. Firefox is a self sustainable project and isn't developed from donations. And the MOSS program is one way to give back to the projects that Mozilla depends on. How many companies do you know that are giving back to the open-source projects they depend on? I don't know that many, so I think those that do should be praised for it.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Just the other day they were requesting donations, now they are donating money? Nonprofits often fund themselves through donations, and award grants as a means of advancing their mission. > I donated to mozilla a few weeks ago, but now I wonder if I should have just donated directly to django instead, skip the middleman that is not adding anything. If your primary concern was the mission of the Django project, you should have donated to Django directly. If it was the mission of the Mozilla project, then donating to Mozilla makes sense. That the Mozilla project determined that one of the ways in which it should expend resources to achieve its goals was to give grants to other OSS projects for specific, identified tasks does not, in any way, change that the funds are being used to support the mission of the Mozilla project.

tmnvix 11y ago

> Why ask for donations if you are expecting to donate the money away instead of using it to improve your products? Django is very widely used by Mozilla as far as I'm aware. By supporting djangoproject they are improving their (Mozilla's) products. This is not entirely altruistic on Mozilla's part. I appreciate what you are saying and would agree if Mozilla were just looking around for worthwhile FOSS projects to donate money to without any regard for whether or not they were using or intending to use them to achieve their own goals.