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It would be possible for Mozilla to accept donations with strings attached that specify what the funds are to be spent on. Currently, they probably don't accept

It would be possible for Mozilla to accept donations with strings attached that specify what the funds are to be spent on. Currently, they probably don't accept such donations (as far as I can tell), but that's on Mozilla. We discussed this yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794

simonh 6y ago
Money is the ultimate fungible asset, any restricted funds going to development frees up money that would have gone to development otherwise to go to something else instead. The only way this works is if the restricted fund donations exceed what the dev investment would have been otherwise, then it starts making a difference.
- sukilot 6y ago
  "This idea works better the more people do it" it the most milquetoast criticism ever.
  - simonh 6y ago
    It doesn’t work at all until a lot of people do it. Below a certain, fairly high threshold all the contributions achieve essentially nothing.
prepend 6y ago
As a donor I don’t like this method because unless all donations were like this, since funds are fungible, budgets would still shift around. For example, consider two features: AwesomeFeature - budget has $100 DumdumFeature - budget has $200 They currently receive $300 in donations, $50 of which have no strings attached. So there’s donation stream A with strings and $250, and donation stream B with no strings and $50. Allocation looks like this: AwesomeFeature - budget has $100, funded with A$75, B$25 DumdumFeature - budget has $200, funded with A$175, B$25. If I donate $25 and say “this can only go to awesome feature” the budgets after my donation end up as. AwesomeFeature - budget has $100, funded with A$100 DumdumFeature - budget has $225, funded with A$175, B$50.
- sukilot 6y ago
  What you are saying as you don't want to fund your future because you are mad that other people fund their features.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    In the case of Mozilla, it's more than the money can go to one of two places: Firefox development, or the black-hole of Mozilla's other projects and expenditures, including their overpaid leadership.
  - prepend 6y ago
    What I’m saying is that there are lots of charities working toward a future I think is really good. I’d rather donate there. I’m not mad at anyone, I just want my donations to do as much good as I think they can do.
- labawi 6y ago
  Technically yes, they could shift spending like that, but it would look bad enough, I think at least some would help where you want. Either way, asking for them not to shift funding as appropriate would be asking to control other finances not your own. If they allowed targeted donations to firefox/quantum/rust/MDN I would donate, as I'm sure many other will. As it is, I don't and won't even if firefox were to fail.
throw0101a 6y ago
> It would be possible for Mozilla to accept donations with strings attached that specify what the funds are to be spent on. Best Practical, the company that does most of the work on the open source RT ticketing system, allows for sponsoring specific features or fixes: * https://rt.bestpractical.com/NoAuth/Featured https://rt.bestpractical.com/NoAuth/Featured

simonh 6y ago

Money is the ultimate fungible asset, any restricted funds going to development frees up money that would have gone to development otherwise to go to something else instead. The only way this works is if the restricted fund donations exceed what the dev investment would have been otherwise, then it starts making a difference.

sukilot 6y ago
"This idea works better the more people do it" it the most milquetoast criticism ever.
- simonh 6y ago
  It doesn’t work at all until a lot of people do it. Below a certain, fairly high threshold all the contributions achieve essentially nothing.

prepend 6y ago

As a donor I don’t like this method because unless all donations were like this, since funds are fungible, budgets would still shift around. For example, consider two features: AwesomeFeature - budget has $100 DumdumFeature - budget has $200 They currently receive $300 in donations, $50 of which have no strings attached. So there’s donation stream A with strings and $250, and donation stream B with no strings and $50. Allocation looks like this: AwesomeFeature - budget has $100, funded with A$75, B$25 DumdumFeature - budget has $200, funded with A$175, B$25. If I donate $25 and say “this can only go to awesome feature” the budgets after my donation end up as. AwesomeFeature - budget has $100, funded with A$100 DumdumFeature - budget has $225, funded with A$175, B$50.

sukilot 6y ago
What you are saying as you don't want to fund your future because you are mad that other people fund their features.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  In the case of Mozilla, it's more than the money can go to one of two places: Firefox development, or the black-hole of Mozilla's other projects and expenditures, including their overpaid leadership.
- prepend 6y ago
  What I’m saying is that there are lots of charities working toward a future I think is really good. I’d rather donate there. I’m not mad at anyone, I just want my donations to do as much good as I think they can do.
labawi 6y ago
Technically yes, they could shift spending like that, but it would look bad enough, I think at least some would help where you want. Either way, asking for them not to shift funding as appropriate would be asking to control other finances not your own. If they allowed targeted donations to firefox/quantum/rust/MDN I would donate, as I'm sure many other will. As it is, I don't and won't even if firefox were to fail.

throw0101a 6y ago

> It would be possible for Mozilla to accept donations with strings attached that specify what the funds are to be spent on. Best Practical, the company that does most of the work on the open source RT ticketing system, allows for sponsoring specific features or fixes: * https://rt.bestpractical.com/NoAuth/Featured https://rt.bestpractical.com/NoAuth/Featured