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The Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit. It is involved in a number of efforts, including policy advocacy, but does not itself develop a web browser. When peopl
by bzbarsky 8y ago
The Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit. It is involved in a number of efforts, including policy advocacy, but does not itself develop a web browser. When people make donations to "Mozilla", those go to the Foundation.
The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation. It is _not_ a nonprofit and develops a web browser as well as most other software you would associate with "Mozilla". It pays dividends to the Foundation which the Foundation uses, alongside donations, to fund its work. The Corporation pays taxes on its profits, like any other corporation that is not explicitly a nonprofit. Note that I am explicitly not using "for-profit" to describe the Corporation, because profit is not the Corporation's goal. Again, the only shareholder in the Corporation is the Foundation, though they do have separate boards and somewhat separate governance.
- jannes 8y agoAnd why do they need to be a corporation in the first place? Can't the foundation develop the web browser?
- bzbarsky 8y agoI don't know the legal details, but I think there are constraints on how much revenue a nonprofit can receive from non-donation sources. So back when the initial search deal with Google was signed that created the initial funding stream for developing Firefox, the Foundation could not have signed it itself. Again, this is my best guess about an area way outside my expertise; you'd really want to talk to a lawyer specializing in this area for details.