5 ms·

Mission creep has been a fundamental Mozilla flaw for too long. And are they a corporate, a charity, or a corporate non-profit? Charities very often pay substa

Mission creep has been a fundamental Mozilla flaw for too long. And are they a corporate, a charity, or a corporate non-profit? Charities very often pay substantially lower salaries, the tradeoff being you feel you contribute to a greater good. That's how I thought of them, but the wage bill doesn't match up.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
They are a non-profit. Their main income had never been donations. Plus, their main competitors are Google, Microsoft, and Apple. They do pay their executives a substantially lower salary.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > They do pay their executives a substantially lower salary. How much does the team lead for Safari or Edge make? They're competing with a team in Google, Microsoft, and Apple, not with the company as a whole.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    Neither is a fair comparison, those team leaders don't need to manage all the other aspects of a company like Mozilla does.
- acqq 6y ago
  There are two Mozillas: not-for-profit organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation, "established on August 3, 2005, to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
- brabel 6y ago
  > They are a non-profit No they are not. People seem to not understand that there is Mozilla Corporation, the one who pays the salaries, and Mozilla Foundation. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/ puts it like this: there’s a non-profit Foundation at the heart of our enterprise... The Foundation is also the sole shareholder in the Mozilla Corporation, the maker of Firefox and other open source tools. Mozilla Corporation functions as a self-sustaining social enterprise – money earned through its products is reinvested into the organization. This page (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/) says that: With over 1,000 full-time employees worldwide, Mozilla Corporation employee compensation is benchmarked to market by role and level balancing total compensation between individual and company performance with a pay-for-performance compensation model... For VPs and above, we benchmark compensation against a blended peer group comprised of 70% similarly-sized public and private tech companies and 30% non-profit organizations. Also: Mozilla Foundation non-profit programs are carried out by 80 employees and thousands of volunteers around the world. Wikipedia explains a bit more: Unlike the Mozilla Foundation, the Mozilla Corporation is a tax-paying entity, which gives it much greater freedom in the revenue and business activities it can pursue. A tax-paying entity is a regular for-profit company. It's a basically a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Foundation, confusingly. More information about revenue: Today, the majority of Mozilla Corporation revenue is generated from global browser search partnerships, including the deal negotiated with Google in 2017 following Mozilla’s termination of its search agreement with Yahoo/Oath Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ And: The Mozilla Foundation is funded by donations and 2% of annual net revenues from the Mozilla Corporation, amounting to over US$8.3 million in 2016. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation And Google, at least in the early years, seems to have controlled as much as 90% of the Mozilla Corporation Revenue. I couldn't find the current figure, but the above links mention Google as currently a major financer still. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    I was aware there was more complexity than I mentioned, I somehow missed that they mentioned a non-profit. >And Google, at least in the early years, seems to have controlled as much as 90% of the Mozilla Corporation Revenue. I couldn't find the current figure, but the above links mention Google as currently a major financer still. Google paid most of their corporate revenue. The last reported year, 2018, was the first under the new contract, and looking at revenues you can guess how much smaller it was then the Yahoo one. If I remember correctly, the contract information will be on the detailed financial report released this year.
gjvc 6y ago
> Mission creep has been a fundamental Mozilla flaw for too long. They started with Firefox, and they should have stopped with Thunderbird.
- yyyk 6y ago
  They started with 'Mozilla', which was a combined suit including browser, mail, news and page editing.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

They are a non-profit. Their main income had never been donations. Plus, their main competitors are Google, Microsoft, and Apple. They do pay their executives a substantially lower salary.

luckylion 6y ago
> They do pay their executives a substantially lower salary. How much does the team lead for Safari or Edge make? They're competing with a team in Google, Microsoft, and Apple, not with the company as a whole.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Neither is a fair comparison, those team leaders don't need to manage all the other aspects of a company like Mozilla does.
acqq 6y ago
There are two Mozillas: not-for-profit organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation, "established on August 3, 2005, to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
brabel 6y ago
> They are a non-profit No they are not. People seem to not understand that there is Mozilla Corporation, the one who pays the salaries, and Mozilla Foundation. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/ puts it like this: there’s a non-profit Foundation at the heart of our enterprise... The Foundation is also the sole shareholder in the Mozilla Corporation, the maker of Firefox and other open source tools. Mozilla Corporation functions as a self-sustaining social enterprise – money earned through its products is reinvested into the organization. This page (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/) says that: With over 1,000 full-time employees worldwide, Mozilla Corporation employee compensation is benchmarked to market by role and level balancing total compensation between individual and company performance with a pay-for-performance compensation model... For VPs and above, we benchmark compensation against a blended peer group comprised of 70% similarly-sized public and private tech companies and 30% non-profit organizations. Also: Mozilla Foundation non-profit programs are carried out by 80 employees and thousands of volunteers around the world. Wikipedia explains a bit more: Unlike the Mozilla Foundation, the Mozilla Corporation is a tax-paying entity, which gives it much greater freedom in the revenue and business activities it can pursue. A tax-paying entity is a regular for-profit company. It's a basically a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Foundation, confusingly. More information about revenue: Today, the majority of Mozilla Corporation revenue is generated from global browser search partnerships, including the deal negotiated with Google in 2017 following Mozilla’s termination of its search agreement with Yahoo/Oath Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ And: The Mozilla Foundation is funded by donations and 2% of annual net revenues from the Mozilla Corporation, amounting to over US$8.3 million in 2016. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation And Google, at least in the early years, seems to have controlled as much as 90% of the Mozilla Corporation Revenue. I couldn't find the current figure, but the above links mention Google as currently a major financer still. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  I was aware there was more complexity than I mentioned, I somehow missed that they mentioned a non-profit. >And Google, at least in the early years, seems to have controlled as much as 90% of the Mozilla Corporation Revenue. I couldn't find the current figure, but the above links mention Google as currently a major financer still. Google paid most of their corporate revenue. The last reported year, 2018, was the first under the new contract, and looking at revenues you can guess how much smaller it was then the Yahoo one. If I remember correctly, the contract information will be on the detailed financial report released this year.

gjvc 6y ago

> Mission creep has been a fundamental Mozilla flaw for too long. They started with Firefox, and they should have stopped with Thunderbird.

yyyk 6y ago
They started with 'Mozilla', which was a combined suit including browser, mail, news and page editing.