5 ms·

Mozilla Inc is not a non-profit. The parent organization is.

by fierarul 6y ago

findthewords 6y ago
How is it possible that non-profitness does not inherit to a child company? Seems like a conflict of interest.
- jansan 6y ago
  And why should anyone contribute to an open source project of a for-profit company without being compensated?
  - rv-de 6y ago
    what idiots downvoted this very reasonable statement?
    - tomp 6y ago
      It's not reasonable. The whole thread is stupid. Non-profit just means that the company cannot make / pay out profit. It can still pay its employees a lot of money. It can still own for-profit corporate entities, take their profit, and spend it on other (non-money-making) causes.
      - rv-de 6y ago
        the context is "for-profit" ... if a company is for-profit and somebody is contributing for free then that is a very personal choice - but there are more obvious reasons for not doing so.
        tomp 6y ago
        It's not for-profit. The whole organisation is non-profit. It's being funded by contributions, as well as profits from a subsidiary. The fact that one of the subsidiaries is structured as a for-profit is a red herring. Just a legal structure. The whole organisation is non-profit.
        rv-de 6y ago
        If a CEO can justify such a salary then it is very much for-profit ... your argument is just a play with words.
        tomp 6y ago
        No, the problem is that people don't understand what non-profit means. It has nothing to do with the internal structure of the company, employee salary (CEO is also an employee) etc. It has to do with external structure, i.e. ownership and distribution of profits (which there cannot be any). Mozilla CEO's salary isn't even that big, in the large scheme of things. https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2020 https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at... I agree, though, that non-profit shouldn't automatically be conflated with beneficial or working for the common good, as is common.
        untog 6y ago
        What is the acceptable salary for the CEO of a non-profit?
        fierarul 6y ago
        The IRS would disagree with this. Mozilla Foundation has a staff of 80 and "manages" about 1000 volunteers. It's unclear how much donations it gets as they published a consolidated report that includes the corporation. I expect that very little. Mozilla Corporation has a staff of 750 and $400M revenue (I expect most from the Google search deal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
      - stingraycharles 6y ago
        You do know that any donation to Mozilla goes to the for-profit side projects and not Firefox, the browser, right? To me there seems there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Mozilla is set up.
        boomboomsubban 6y ago
        Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, which largely does advocacy. The CEO works for the Mozilla Corporation, which makes far more money than the donations.
        kelnos 6y ago
        If you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, then by law that donation can only be used toward the non-profit activities of the Foundation. It cannot go toward Mozilla Corporation activities.
        stingraycharles 6y ago
        I’m not arguing the law, I’m arguing that Firefox should be a beneficiary of those donations. There is currently no way for anyone to donate to Mozilla for Firefox development, even though that is the main product that people derive value from. To me, it seems like Mozilla Corporation should not have existed, and everything should have been part of the non-profit foundation.
        judge2020 6y ago
        IIRC if you write what something's for on a check in the memo/for line, it legally has to be used for that purpose for nonprofits, but I can't find a source and I doubt something like that would be a high-priority thing to audit for the IRS.
    - bdcravens 6y ago
      I think it's a one-dimensional view, assuming that there is no compensation. For starters, most of us work for for-profit companies and use open source to do our jobs.
  - slightwinder 6y ago
    non-profitness does not mean no pay. Just that the payment is moderate and not profit-orientated.
    - jansan 6y ago
      I mean contributing as an outsider. I really have a problem contributing to open source projects of a company where I get the feeling that the upper management is simply filling its pockets.
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    Compensation takes many forms.
- josalhor 6y ago
  I'm from Spain, so my knowledge may not be translatable, but I will give it a crack. A business that is set up as a "non-profit" means that it can't pay dividends. If the business earns one million dollars, I can't profit from it. This does not mean there aren't people in the organization with salaries. Sometimes big salaries. You can have a "for-profit" company owned by a "non-profit" one. The dividends paid by the "for-profit" go to the "non-profit" but those can only be reinvested. In a way, yes, "non-profitness" is inherited. I guess that the "for-profit" organization provides legal benefits. If one of your child companies goes bankrupt, it shouldn't affect the other ones nor the parent company. I have a few more guesses but I am not confident enough to write about them, especially when I am not from the US.
  - smsm42 6y ago
    As far as I know (not a lawyer or CPA) the US non-profits are absolutely the same, your description is accurate.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Non-profits can have business activities that support their non-profit mission, and many of those business activities are subject to income tax. So many non-profits split out the profit-making activities into a separate (for-profit) company so that they can keep non-profit financial streams separate from the for-profit ones.
- ssivark 6y ago
  It’s the converse that is not possible. A non-profit could reasonably have an investment arm that tries to maximize return on endowment (or likewise a for-profit subsidiary, by analogy) and various projects which are funded from the generated surplus. A for-profit entity owning/operating a non-profit entity would be more difficult to justify without calling on other goals.

Mozilla Inc is not a non-profit. The parent organization is.

findthewords 6y ago

How is it possible that non-profitness does not inherit to a child company? Seems like a conflict of interest.

jansan 6y ago
And why should anyone contribute to an open source project of a for-profit company without being compensated?
- rv-de 6y ago
  what idiots downvoted this very reasonable statement?
  - tomp 6y ago
    It's not reasonable. The whole thread is stupid. Non-profit just means that the company cannot make / pay out profit. It can still pay its employees a lot of money. It can still own for-profit corporate entities, take their profit, and spend it on other (non-money-making) causes.
    - rv-de 6y ago
      the context is "for-profit" ... if a company is for-profit and somebody is contributing for free then that is a very personal choice - but there are more obvious reasons for not doing so.
      - tomp 6y ago
        It's not for-profit. The whole organisation is non-profit. It's being funded by contributions, as well as profits from a subsidiary. The fact that one of the subsidiaries is structured as a for-profit is a red herring. Just a legal structure. The whole organisation is non-profit.
        rv-de 6y ago
        If a CEO can justify such a salary then it is very much for-profit ... your argument is just a play with words.
        tomp 6y ago
        No, the problem is that people don't understand what non-profit means. It has nothing to do with the internal structure of the company, employee salary (CEO is also an employee) etc. It has to do with external structure, i.e. ownership and distribution of profits (which there cannot be any). Mozilla CEO's salary isn't even that big, in the large scheme of things. https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2020 https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at... I agree, though, that non-profit shouldn't automatically be conflated with beneficial or working for the common good, as is common.
        untog 6y ago
        What is the acceptable salary for the CEO of a non-profit?
        fierarul 6y ago
        The IRS would disagree with this. Mozilla Foundation has a staff of 80 and "manages" about 1000 volunteers. It's unclear how much donations it gets as they published a consolidated report that includes the corporation. I expect that very little. Mozilla Corporation has a staff of 750 and $400M revenue (I expect most from the Google search deal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
    - stingraycharles 6y ago
      You do know that any donation to Mozilla goes to the for-profit side projects and not Firefox, the browser, right? To me there seems there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Mozilla is set up.
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, which largely does advocacy. The CEO works for the Mozilla Corporation, which makes far more money than the donations.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        If you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, then by law that donation can only be used toward the non-profit activities of the Foundation. It cannot go toward Mozilla Corporation activities.
        stingraycharles 6y ago
        I’m not arguing the law, I’m arguing that Firefox should be a beneficiary of those donations. There is currently no way for anyone to donate to Mozilla for Firefox development, even though that is the main product that people derive value from. To me, it seems like Mozilla Corporation should not have existed, and everything should have been part of the non-profit foundation.
        judge2020 6y ago
        IIRC if you write what something's for on a check in the memo/for line, it legally has to be used for that purpose for nonprofits, but I can't find a source and I doubt something like that would be a high-priority thing to audit for the IRS.
  - bdcravens 6y ago
    I think it's a one-dimensional view, assuming that there is no compensation. For starters, most of us work for for-profit companies and use open source to do our jobs.
- slightwinder 6y ago
  non-profitness does not mean no pay. Just that the payment is moderate and not profit-orientated.
  - jansan 6y ago
    I mean contributing as an outsider. I really have a problem contributing to open source projects of a company where I get the feeling that the upper management is simply filling its pockets.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  Compensation takes many forms.
josalhor 6y ago
I'm from Spain, so my knowledge may not be translatable, but I will give it a crack. A business that is set up as a "non-profit" means that it can't pay dividends. If the business earns one million dollars, I can't profit from it. This does not mean there aren't people in the organization with salaries. Sometimes big salaries. You can have a "for-profit" company owned by a "non-profit" one. The dividends paid by the "for-profit" go to the "non-profit" but those can only be reinvested. In a way, yes, "non-profitness" is inherited. I guess that the "for-profit" organization provides legal benefits. If one of your child companies goes bankrupt, it shouldn't affect the other ones nor the parent company. I have a few more guesses but I am not confident enough to write about them, especially when I am not from the US.
- smsm42 6y ago
  As far as I know (not a lawyer or CPA) the US non-profits are absolutely the same, your description is accurate.
gamblor956 6y ago
Non-profits can have business activities that support their non-profit mission, and many of those business activities are subject to income tax. So many non-profits split out the profit-making activities into a separate (for-profit) company so that they can keep non-profit financial streams separate from the for-profit ones.
ssivark 6y ago
It’s the converse that is not possible. A non-profit could reasonably have an investment arm that tries to maximize return on endowment (or likewise a for-profit subsidiary, by analogy) and various projects which are funded from the generated surplus. A for-profit entity owning/operating a non-profit entity would be more difficult to justify without calling on other goals.