6 ms·

I hope this works for them, but it seems a little bit contrived to me. If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do, I would

I hope this works for them, but it seems a little bit contrived to me. If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do, I would gladly contribute a few times per year when a big banner shows up asking for donations. That would be a nice direct value proposition -- "please contribute so we can keep this awesome resource free and high quality" But paying for customizations? This seems like a distraction for all parties involved. It will take away product resources, it will make their code more complex and harder to work with, and worst of all I don't think anyone will really want it in the first place. I truly hope I'm wrong, but so far this seems a questionable move.

_m4ua 5y ago
There isn't even a way to donate. All "mozilla" donations go to the foundation and their social justice causes, not useful things like MSN and Firefox.
- pbronez 5y ago
  That’s kinda the point of TFA. Open Web Docs is funded by donations and works with MDN on the free-forever web focused content. MDN is part of Mozilla and just as lost in the woods as the rest of that organization. You can donate to Open Web Docs here: https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs
- IshKebab 5y ago
  That's because donations will never even remotely cover Mozilla's costs. They get something like $3m in donations. Wikipedia gets something like $120m. Mozilla's costs and Google income are like $400m.
  - themihai 5y ago
    Is a browser so expensive to maintain? $400m/year?
    - zarzavat 5y ago
      A web browser is some of the most complicated software in existence.
    - vbezhenar 5y ago
      Mozilla management is so expensive to maintain.
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        Mozilla management is probably around 1% of the budget, more if you count middle management but I doubt you're discussing positions like those.
        vbezhenar 5y ago
        "Mozilla CEO Increased Her Salary From 2.5 Million Dollars to Over 3 Million" This person alone receives around 1% of the budget.
        boomboomsubban 5y ago
        When she "increased her salary" she became the CEO seemingly without replacing her old role, becoming the only executive.
    - RobertMiller 5y ago
      It's worse than this. While money does not flow from Mozilla Foundation to Mozilla Corporation, the opposite is not true. A lot of the money that Mozilla Corporation manages to make is not spent on Firefox development, but is instead paid to Mozilla Foundation, ostensibly to license the Mozilla brand. The Foundation is actively holding Firefox back with this organizational scheme. > For 2019, the Mozilla Foundation received $15,858,258 per a trademark license agreement with Mozilla Corporation, allowing us to reinvest earnings from our products into advocacy and grant making that grow the internet health movement. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2019/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2019/
  - dzikimarian 5y ago
    TBH they they could do a little more in regards of donating. For eg. I can very easily ask my government to donate 1% of my taxes to Wikimedia foundation, but Mozilla is not registered as such in my country.
  - abbe98 5y ago
    I wonder how much of Mozilla budget is actually spent on Firefox. Wikimedia Foundation had a revenue of $157 million in 2021 and >550 staff and contractors.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  You can contribute directly to Thunderbird, I often wonder if it's poor performance is one of the reasons similar things aren't tried with Firefox. https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/ https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/
  - lucideer 5y ago
    Thunderbird is a separate and entirely voluntary project that Mozilla don't manage. But even apart from Mozilla's lack of involvement, it's also a wildly different - and so incomparable - product (local email in a webmail dominated world, compared to a browser in a browser dominated world). Thunderbird would absolutely be worse off if they didn't have that (great, well organised) facility.
  - dorfsmay 5y ago
    Same I contribute too, and seriously wish the same was setup for Firefox. I suspect the Thunderbird fund is not doing well because people assuming giving to Mozilla funds mainly technical work and most people don't know about Mozilla issues nor about the smaller direct funds like Thunderbird's.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
chrisseaton 5y ago
> If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do People notoriously _hate_ both these group's approach to funding.
- brimble 5y ago
  Public Radio wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't also constantly run ads.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    They have to sometimes because the donations (sadly) aren't always enough
    - brimble 5y ago
      It's more than "sometimes", these days. They've long moved on from a quick "this program made possible by..." to straight up reading ads on air, frequently. Between that and all the time they spend promoting their own programs, plus the pledge drives, I doubt their content/non-content time is any better than most commercial radio. Maybe worse.
- notriddle 5y ago
  Also, Wikipedia is able to make so much money from just donations because their target audience is "literally everyone." MDN has a smaller set of users, and the thing with running websites with user-generated content is that it scales up pretty well. MDN probably only costs about a tenth as much as Wikipedia to run, but has much, must less than a tenth as many users.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  The evidence says otherwise: They donate a lot to those organizations and use them heavily.
maccard 5y ago
> If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do, I would gladly contribute a few times per year when a big banner shows up asking for donations There's nothing stopping you donating to mozilla [0] right now, however I suspect many people here will reply that that's donating to mozilla, and not to FF/MDN/whatever, but that's no different to donating to wikimedia [1] or the linux foundation [2]. [0] https://donate.mozilla.org/en-GB/ https://donate.mozilla.org/en-GB/ [1] https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give [2] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/donate/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/donate/

_m4ua 5y ago

There isn't even a way to donate. All "mozilla" donations go to the foundation and their social justice causes, not useful things like MSN and Firefox.

pbronez 5y ago
That’s kinda the point of TFA. Open Web Docs is funded by donations and works with MDN on the free-forever web focused content. MDN is part of Mozilla and just as lost in the woods as the rest of that organization. You can donate to Open Web Docs here: https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs
IshKebab 5y ago
That's because donations will never even remotely cover Mozilla's costs. They get something like $3m in donations. Wikipedia gets something like $120m. Mozilla's costs and Google income are like $400m.
- themihai 5y ago
  Is a browser so expensive to maintain? $400m/year?
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    A web browser is some of the most complicated software in existence.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Mozilla management is so expensive to maintain.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      Mozilla management is probably around 1% of the budget, more if you count middle management but I doubt you're discussing positions like those.
      - vbezhenar 5y ago
        "Mozilla CEO Increased Her Salary From 2.5 Million Dollars to Over 3 Million" This person alone receives around 1% of the budget.
        boomboomsubban 5y ago
        When she "increased her salary" she became the CEO seemingly without replacing her old role, becoming the only executive.
  - RobertMiller 5y ago
    It's worse than this. While money does not flow from Mozilla Foundation to Mozilla Corporation, the opposite is not true. A lot of the money that Mozilla Corporation manages to make is not spent on Firefox development, but is instead paid to Mozilla Foundation, ostensibly to license the Mozilla brand. The Foundation is actively holding Firefox back with this organizational scheme. > For 2019, the Mozilla Foundation received $15,858,258 per a trademark license agreement with Mozilla Corporation, allowing us to reinvest earnings from our products into advocacy and grant making that grow the internet health movement. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2019/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2019/
- dzikimarian 5y ago
  TBH they they could do a little more in regards of donating. For eg. I can very easily ask my government to donate 1% of my taxes to Wikimedia foundation, but Mozilla is not registered as such in my country.
- abbe98 5y ago
  I wonder how much of Mozilla budget is actually spent on Firefox. Wikimedia Foundation had a revenue of $157 million in 2021 and >550 staff and contractors.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
You can contribute directly to Thunderbird, I often wonder if it's poor performance is one of the reasons similar things aren't tried with Firefox. https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/ https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/
- lucideer 5y ago
  Thunderbird is a separate and entirely voluntary project that Mozilla don't manage. But even apart from Mozilla's lack of involvement, it's also a wildly different - and so incomparable - product (local email in a webmail dominated world, compared to a browser in a browser dominated world). Thunderbird would absolutely be worse off if they didn't have that (great, well organised) facility.
- dorfsmay 5y ago
  Same I contribute too, and seriously wish the same was setup for Firefox. I suspect the Thunderbird fund is not doing well because people assuming giving to Mozilla funds mainly technical work and most people don't know about Mozilla issues nor about the smaller direct funds like Thunderbird's.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

chrisseaton 5y ago

> If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do People notoriously _hate_ both these group's approach to funding.

brimble 5y ago
Public Radio wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't also constantly run ads.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  They have to sometimes because the donations (sadly) aren't always enough
  - brimble 5y ago
    It's more than "sometimes", these days. They've long moved on from a quick "this program made possible by..." to straight up reading ads on air, frequently. Between that and all the time they spend promoting their own programs, plus the pledge drives, I doubt their content/non-content time is any better than most commercial radio. Maybe worse.
notriddle 5y ago
Also, Wikipedia is able to make so much money from just donations because their target audience is "literally everyone." MDN has a smaller set of users, and the thing with running websites with user-generated content is that it scales up pretty well. MDN probably only costs about a tenth as much as Wikipedia to run, but has much, must less than a tenth as many users.
wolverine876 5y ago
The evidence says otherwise: They donate a lot to those organizations and use them heavily.

maccard 5y ago

> If they just took a fundraising approach like how public radio and Wikipedia do, I would gladly contribute a few times per year when a big banner shows up asking for donations There's nothing stopping you donating to mozilla [0] right now, however I suspect many people here will reply that that's donating to mozilla, and not to FF/MDN/whatever, but that's no different to donating to wikimedia [1] or the linux foundation [2]. [0] https://donate.mozilla.org/en-GB/ https://donate.mozilla.org/en-GB/ [1] https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give [2] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/donate/ https://www.linuxfoundation.org/donate/