10 ms·

I agree it would be best if FF was it's own foundation. I would like to hear some arguments from Mozilla about this. It seems an idea that only has upsides to m

I agree it would be best if FF was it's own foundation. I would like to hear some arguments from Mozilla about this. It seems an idea that only has upsides to me. I get the feeling Mozilla is kind-of hijacking the donations people think are going towards Firefox.

dleslie 6y ago
Some folks believe very strongly in the advocacy that Mozilla undertakes, and believe that separating the software efforts from the advocacy would diminish the funding for advocacy. Which is probably true; Google is unlikely to spend half a billion a year on Mozilla's advocacy efforts.
- whyever 6y ago
  > Google is unlikely to spend half a billion a year on Mozilla's advocacy efforts. AFAIK, Google's money goes to the Mozilla Corporation, while the donations go to the Mozilla Foundation. So the advocacy is already separated, isn't it?
  - dleslie 6y ago
    2% of annual net-revenues from MozCorp go to the Foundation; and Google's deal is with the Foundation, but I'm iffy on how much makes it straight into MozCorp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing
    - dangoor 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure MoCo owns the Google deal. From that same Wikipedia article in the section about MoCo: > It also handles relationships with businesses, many of which generate income. 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. From 2004 to 2014, the majority of revenue came from a deal with Google, which was the default search engine in the Firefox web browser.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - dleslie 6y ago
        I did more digging, looks like it's with the corp: > In CY 2018, Mozilla Corporation generated $435.702 million from royalties, subscriptions and advertising revenue compared to $542 million in CY 2017. 2017 was an outlier, due in part to changes in the search revenue deal that was negotiated that year. Despite the year-over-year change, Mozilla remains in a strong financial position with cash reserves to support continued innovation, partnerships and diversification of the Firefox product lines to fuel its organizational mission. However, as noted earlier, the corp does pay for the foundation's advocacy: > A portion of search revenue combined with grants and donations is used to fuel the advocacy and movement building work of the Mozilla Foundation and its broad network of supporters of Mozilla’s mission. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bgorman 6y ago
  This is the problem with SJW driven organizations. Once advocacy becomes the main reason for existing, literally anything is justifiable - and the core business rots.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    Yeah, the reason businesses fail is because people believe in things. Great observation.
hu3 6y ago
That would mean the death of Mozilla financially. Mozilla will never let their golden goose Firefox become a separate Foundation.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
This topic keeps coming up. Mozilla is viewed as a bloated entity whose only legitimate activity is maintaining Firefox. No-one cares about the other initiatives they spend money and resources on, and they especially don't want their donations going toward Mozilla's overpaid leadership. People would like to donate directly to Firefox, but as things stand, this isn't an option. This isn't because Firefox falls under the Mozilla brand, it's because Mozilla choose not to accept Firefox-specific donations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129926
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Mozilla Foundation can't accept Firefox specific donations because the Mozilla Foundation does not develop Firefox. The Mozilla Corporation does and the foundation cannot give money to the corporation (only the other way around). So you'd need to redo a whole lot of things for this to be possible.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
    They can change that though, by having the foundation directly employ Firefox contributors
    - freshsqueeze 6y ago
      Or at least not funnel millions of donation dollars to Mitchell Baker.
      - marcinzm 6y ago
        Mitchell Baker is paid by the Mozilla Corporation which in turn is paid by it's search deals. She is paid $0 by the Mozilla Foundation and it's donations. Feel free to checkout the foundation financial statement from 2018 (it's on page 7): https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-form-990.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-fo...
philwelch 6y ago
If Firefox were spun off, why still have the Mozilla foundation?
freshsqueeze 6y ago
This is true. Execs at the non-profit foundation have been pocketing millions of dollars. And I cannot really point out what they do. I guess this is common in many non-profits, where people donate, and people at the top siphon it off. There's some corruption at play at the top.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  The problem is not per se that execs at NPOs pocket millions of dollars. After all, that is the market rate - and NPOs have an interest in attracting (and retaining!) high quality staff. NPOs and NGOs should not have to depend on people willing to exploit themselves for the cause, not on the leadership level and not on the base level (where this is even more common). The problem is rather that CxO payment in general has gone through the roof over the last 60 years, with the problem becoming ever worse since the fall of the USSR. The ratio of CxO to average worker pay was 20-to-1 in 1965, 58-to-1 in 1989 - and in 2018 it hit 278-to-1!
  - tasogare 6y ago
    > The problem is not per se that execs at NPOs pocket millions of dollars. It is, because money is not infinite so those resources spend on high level execs could be spend way effectively elsewhere. > interest in attracting (and retaining!) high quality staff. I know ton of high quality people (researchers) and they aren’t pay millions of dollars. A C-level desk warmer could do its job as effectively if paid a high, yet decent (in comparison to the average wage) amount.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > A C-level desk warmer could do its job as effectively if paid a high, yet decent (in comparison to the average wage) amount. The problem is you won't even find a desk warmer, at least none with actual experience in leading a ~750 employees organization, without taking part in the wage racket. The only ones you'll end up hiring are either newbies wanting to use your organization as a "career trampoline" (which is bad because you want stability, not a change of course every other year) or failures that don't have a chance anywhere else. The system must be fixed, and the system is absurd CxO pay. Relying on individuals sacrificing themselves/their orgs won't work.
danudey 6y ago
On the other hand, Mozilla has done a lot of stuff which is outside the scope of "Firefox", but which is good for the community as a whole. I mean, that's what Firefox was originally: an offshoot of the Mozilla monstrosity that Mozilla (the organization) took and ran with, to everyone's appreciation. Plus, if people were donating towards Firefox specifically, how many of them would be upset that Mozilla was spending "their" money on developing a whole new programming language? "This is a waste of my money, just use C++ or something instead of reinventing the wheel".

dleslie 6y ago

Some folks believe very strongly in the advocacy that Mozilla undertakes, and believe that separating the software efforts from the advocacy would diminish the funding for advocacy. Which is probably true; Google is unlikely to spend half a billion a year on Mozilla's advocacy efforts.

whyever 6y ago
> Google is unlikely to spend half a billion a year on Mozilla's advocacy efforts. AFAIK, Google's money goes to the Mozilla Corporation, while the donations go to the Mozilla Foundation. So the advocacy is already separated, isn't it?
- dleslie 6y ago
  2% of annual net-revenues from MozCorp go to the Foundation; and Google's deal is with the Foundation, but I'm iffy on how much makes it straight into MozCorp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing
  - dangoor 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure MoCo owns the Google deal. From that same Wikipedia article in the section about MoCo: > It also handles relationships with businesses, many of which generate income. 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. From 2004 to 2014, the majority of revenue came from a deal with Google, which was the default search engine in the Firefox web browser.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dleslie 6y ago
      I did more digging, looks like it's with the corp: > In CY 2018, Mozilla Corporation generated $435.702 million from royalties, subscriptions and advertising revenue compared to $542 million in CY 2017. 2017 was an outlier, due in part to changes in the search revenue deal that was negotiated that year. Despite the year-over-year change, Mozilla remains in a strong financial position with cash reserves to support continued innovation, partnerships and diversification of the Firefox product lines to fuel its organizational mission. However, as noted earlier, the corp does pay for the foundation's advocacy: > A portion of search revenue combined with grants and donations is used to fuel the advocacy and movement building work of the Mozilla Foundation and its broad network of supporters of Mozilla’s mission. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bgorman 6y ago
This is the problem with SJW driven organizations. Once advocacy becomes the main reason for existing, literally anything is justifiable - and the core business rots.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  Yeah, the reason businesses fail is because people believe in things. Great observation.

hu3 6y ago

That would mean the death of Mozilla financially. Mozilla will never let their golden goose Firefox become a separate Foundation.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

This topic keeps coming up. Mozilla is viewed as a bloated entity whose only legitimate activity is maintaining Firefox. No-one cares about the other initiatives they spend money and resources on, and they especially don't want their donations going toward Mozilla's overpaid leadership. People would like to donate directly to Firefox, but as things stand, this isn't an option. This isn't because Firefox falls under the Mozilla brand, it's because Mozilla choose not to accept Firefox-specific donations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24129926

marcinzm 6y ago
Mozilla Foundation can't accept Firefox specific donations because the Mozilla Foundation does not develop Firefox. The Mozilla Corporation does and the foundation cannot give money to the corporation (only the other way around). So you'd need to redo a whole lot of things for this to be possible.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  They can change that though, by having the foundation directly employ Firefox contributors
  - freshsqueeze 6y ago
    Or at least not funnel millions of donation dollars to Mitchell Baker.
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      Mitchell Baker is paid by the Mozilla Corporation which in turn is paid by it's search deals. She is paid $0 by the Mozilla Foundation and it's donations. Feel free to checkout the foundation financial statement from 2018 (it's on page 7): https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-form-990.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-fo...

philwelch 6y ago

If Firefox were spun off, why still have the Mozilla foundation?

freshsqueeze 6y ago

This is true. Execs at the non-profit foundation have been pocketing millions of dollars. And I cannot really point out what they do. I guess this is common in many non-profits, where people donate, and people at the top siphon it off. There's some corruption at play at the top.

mschuster91 6y ago
The problem is not per se that execs at NPOs pocket millions of dollars. After all, that is the market rate - and NPOs have an interest in attracting (and retaining!) high quality staff. NPOs and NGOs should not have to depend on people willing to exploit themselves for the cause, not on the leadership level and not on the base level (where this is even more common). The problem is rather that CxO payment in general has gone through the roof over the last 60 years, with the problem becoming ever worse since the fall of the USSR. The ratio of CxO to average worker pay was 20-to-1 in 1965, 58-to-1 in 1989 - and in 2018 it hit 278-to-1!
- tasogare 6y ago
  > The problem is not per se that execs at NPOs pocket millions of dollars. It is, because money is not infinite so those resources spend on high level execs could be spend way effectively elsewhere. > interest in attracting (and retaining!) high quality staff. I know ton of high quality people (researchers) and they aren’t pay millions of dollars. A C-level desk warmer could do its job as effectively if paid a high, yet decent (in comparison to the average wage) amount.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > A C-level desk warmer could do its job as effectively if paid a high, yet decent (in comparison to the average wage) amount. The problem is you won't even find a desk warmer, at least none with actual experience in leading a ~750 employees organization, without taking part in the wage racket. The only ones you'll end up hiring are either newbies wanting to use your organization as a "career trampoline" (which is bad because you want stability, not a change of course every other year) or failures that don't have a chance anywhere else. The system must be fixed, and the system is absurd CxO pay. Relying on individuals sacrificing themselves/their orgs won't work.

danudey 6y ago

On the other hand, Mozilla has done a lot of stuff which is outside the scope of "Firefox", but which is good for the community as a whole. I mean, that's what Firefox was originally: an offshoot of the Mozilla monstrosity that Mozilla (the organization) took and ran with, to everyone's appreciation. Plus, if people were donating towards Firefox specifically, how many of them would be upset that Mozilla was spending "their" money on developing a whole new programming language? "This is a waste of my money, just use C++ or something instead of reinventing the wheel".