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>[...] wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation. Funds will be reserved for use in the Thunderbird project. [...] Why doesn't Firefox have this?

by MzHN 5y ago

wodenokoto 5y ago
I’d venture it is because Firefox is developed by a for-profit corporation with hundreds of millions in revenue. So the split is: you can donate to the non-profit organization, while the for-profit corporation only handles taxable income. The reason why it is split is due to taxes. Mozilla created the corporation after getting in trouble with the IRS. Edit: I haven’t kept up with Thunderbird for a very long time, but it looks like they’ve also moved to be developed by a for profit corporation, but a different one then the one that develops Firefox, so different people making different decisions. Also, donations to thunderbird are no longer tax deductible.
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > I’d venture it is because Firefox is developed by a for-profit corporation with hundreds of millions in revenue. I think a lot of people are confused about this, myself included. A lot of people want to donate directly to Firefox for development. But there are vast sums of money to the tune of $400M+ already involved here. I assume the $20 donations people give to Mozilla go towards the broader initiatives of the Foundation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
stdbrouw 5y ago
Even if you could donate to Firefox specifically, that's still no guarantee because Mozilla could decide to just channel less money from other sources of funding towards Firefox and you'd end up where you started.
- inetknght 5y ago
  That argument is true for every transaction
- gowld 5y ago
  You end up one step from where you started, and if others join you it's more steps towards exhausting the buffer. But the search ad revenue buffer is huge.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Exactly. I'd really pay for Firefox. But I don't want to sponsor their foundation even though I have a few times in the past. I'd just like to help with Firefox development. I understand about the corporate/foundation split, but they could just sell 'subscriptions' that don't really give anything so they're basically donations. If the pencil pushers really insist something is given in return, they can make a cool subscriber badge in the app or something. Right now they're focusing too much on their VPN stuff which isn't available here and I have no need for anyway.

>[...] wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation. Funds will be reserved for use in the Thunderbird project. [...] Why doesn't Firefox have this?

by MzHN 5y ago

>[...] wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation. Funds will be reserved for use in the Thunderbird project. [...] Why doesn't Firefox have this?

wodenokoto 5y ago

I’d venture it is because Firefox is developed by a for-profit corporation with hundreds of millions in revenue. So the split is: you can donate to the non-profit organization, while the for-profit corporation only handles taxable income. The reason why it is split is due to taxes. Mozilla created the corporation after getting in trouble with the IRS. Edit: I haven’t kept up with Thunderbird for a very long time, but it looks like they’ve also moved to be developed by a for profit corporation, but a different one then the one that develops Firefox, so different people making different decisions. Also, donations to thunderbird are no longer tax deductible.

EMM_386 5y ago
> I’d venture it is because Firefox is developed by a for-profit corporation with hundreds of millions in revenue. I think a lot of people are confused about this, myself included. A lot of people want to donate directly to Firefox for development. But there are vast sums of money to the tune of $400M+ already involved here. I assume the $20 donations people give to Mozilla go towards the broader initiatives of the Foundation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

stdbrouw 5y ago

Even if you could donate to Firefox specifically, that's still no guarantee because Mozilla could decide to just channel less money from other sources of funding towards Firefox and you'd end up where you started.

inetknght 5y ago
That argument is true for every transaction
gowld 5y ago
You end up one step from where you started, and if others join you it's more steps towards exhausting the buffer. But the search ad revenue buffer is huge.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Exactly. I'd really pay for Firefox. But I don't want to sponsor their foundation even though I have a few times in the past. I'd just like to help with Firefox development. I understand about the corporate/foundation split, but they could just sell 'subscriptions' that don't really give anything so they're basically donations. If the pencil pushers really insist something is given in return, they can make a cool subscriber badge in the app or something. Right now they're focusing too much on their VPN stuff which isn't available here and I have no need for anyway.