3 ms·

Their news operations are subsidised to the tune of ~£30m/yr by the charitable trust that owns them. Not in and of itself problematic, but accumulating a sizeab

by jsty 6y ago

Their news operations are subsidised to the tune of ~£30m/yr by the charitable trust that owns them. Not in and of itself problematic, but accumulating a sizeable enough endowment to sufficiently fund operations isn't an option for most orgs. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/07/guardian-broke-even-last-year-parent-company-confirms https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/07/guardian-broke...

bawolff 6y ago
Mozilla corporation is owned by a non profit. Having a sizeable endowment is hard, but that sweet sweet google money has totaled over a billion dollars so its not like they didn't have the opportunity.
- owenversteeg 6y ago
  Yes, that totals a couple billion dollars at this point. Mozilla's mismanagement of that money is really unfortunate. Up until 2012 Mozilla ran just fine on about 100MM a year. Why they didn't care to save any significant portion of the Google dollars is beyond me. If they had simply been a somewhat leaner organization they would be in a far better place right now.
gwd 6y ago
> ...accumulating a sizeable enough endowment to sufficiently fund operations isn't an option for most orgs. And one of the claims / complaints of TFA is that Mozilla had a massive income for many years, and could have built up an endowment; but instead chose to live "hand-to-mouth", spending their income on useless failed projects that have nothing to do with Firefox. (And CEO pay of course.)
- modo_mario 6y ago
  > that have nothing to do with Firefox Not arguing against the overall point but Thunderbird has nothing to do with Firefox either and is still a thing Mozilla's reason for existing is not just their browser.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    I get the point you're putting across, but you chose a terrible example. Mozilla cut thunderbird loose years ago, after neglecting it (Thunderbird remained XUL-based long after Mozilla decided that XUL was a technological dead-end). Yes, Mozilla's mission to to make the internet better for all users - not just the web. But I think they forgot what their mission is sometime back.

by jsty 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago

Mozilla corporation is owned by a non profit. Having a sizeable endowment is hard, but that sweet sweet google money has totaled over a billion dollars so its not like they didn't have the opportunity.

owenversteeg 6y ago
Yes, that totals a couple billion dollars at this point. Mozilla's mismanagement of that money is really unfortunate. Up until 2012 Mozilla ran just fine on about 100MM a year. Why they didn't care to save any significant portion of the Google dollars is beyond me. If they had simply been a somewhat leaner organization they would be in a far better place right now.

gwd 6y ago

> ...accumulating a sizeable enough endowment to sufficiently fund operations isn't an option for most orgs. And one of the claims / complaints of TFA is that Mozilla had a massive income for many years, and could have built up an endowment; but instead chose to live "hand-to-mouth", spending their income on useless failed projects that have nothing to do with Firefox. (And CEO pay of course.)

modo_mario 6y ago
> that have nothing to do with Firefox Not arguing against the overall point but Thunderbird has nothing to do with Firefox either and is still a thing Mozilla's reason for existing is not just their browser.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  I get the point you're putting across, but you chose a terrible example. Mozilla cut thunderbird loose years ago, after neglecting it (Thunderbird remained XUL-based long after Mozilla decided that XUL was a technological dead-end). Yes, Mozilla's mission to to make the internet better for all users - not just the web. But I think they forgot what their mission is sometime back.