There's the Mozilla Foundation, which is legally a non-profit. More specifically, they are this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)_organization http

There's the Mozilla Foundation, which is legally a non-profit. More specifically, they are this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)_organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)_organization So, there's actual clear specifications of what they're allowed to do and what not. I don't know the exact ramifications either, but some important points are that they're not allowed to keep more than a set amount of money and that any money they get a hold of, which exceeds this amount of money, they have to invest into their specified mission (which in the case of Mozilla is to make the internet a healthier place: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/). They are allowed to pay people appropriate wages, but as you've already pointed out, there's no stock holders. No one gets paid out extra money when they make extra profit. They are legally bound to reinvest this money into their mission. And there's also the Mozilla Corporation. The Corporation is not legally a non-profit. So, they don't get tax exemptions, but can keep around as much money as they want. So, in a way, they can make a profit, which is by increasing the amount of money they keep in their bank account. However, they are a 100% subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. So, the Mozilla Foundation is their only stock holder. If they do make extra profit, they either have to reinvest it right away, put it on their bank account to reinvest later, or they can pay it out to the Mozilla Foundation, where it's again in non-profit hands, and is therefore legally enforced to be reinvested into Mozilla's stated mission. In other words, it's not possible for the Corporation to make profit which is not at some point reinvested. The Corporation being a subsidiary also means that the Mozilla Foundation holds sovereignty over the Corporation. They can throw out Mitchell Baker (Executive Chairwoman) or Chris Beard (CEO) and set their wages. So, the Corporation has motivation to make a profit, because the Foundation could throw out their key people, which in turn could throw out any slackers within the Corporation. The Foundation also continues to hold the Firefox and Mozilla trademarks and has the final say of what's included into Firefox's source code.