Yes, Mozilla had/has non-employed contributors. But I (wrongly?) never had the impression the amount of contribution was thaaaat notable (while individuals like

Yes, Mozilla had/has non-employed contributors. But I (wrongly?) never had the impression the amount of contribution was thaaaat notable (while individuals like Ben Buksch, whom I remember from that time, got some attention) How hard it is, we can see even within Mozilla related products: Since Mozilla stopped the Mozilla Suite (SeaMonkey) hasn't seen much uptake, and Thunderbird is mostly stagnating as well.