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There is nothing to defend there. They could have easily: * Made the donations go directly to funding the browser development. Right now I don't know if it even

There is nothing to defend there. They could have easily: * Made the donations go directly to funding the browser development. Right now I don't know if it even possible to donate purely just to browser development * They could have easily opened a services/consultancy arm, similar to igalia. A great and easy way to fund browser development. (How igalia has funded servo development in the past) * Create a for-pay enterprise support. In the past a lot of government organizations wouldn't use Chrome due to how the Chrome updates worked. They could have made a killing in government contracts just around that And these are just a few simple income directions that are pretty common in other OSS projects. Instead they did braindead ideas like being a VPN reseller, giving away Pocket, and other things no one wanted or asked for.

cge 1y ago
> * Made the donations go directly to funding the browser development. Right now I don't know if it even possible to donate purely just to browser development The problem goes beyond them making it impossible to donate purely to browser development: they have arranged their structure such that you cannot donate to browser development at all. The Mozilla Corporation develops Firefox; it is a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, and donations to the foundation can't be used for the for-profit browser development subsidiary at all. They've built their entire legal structure around reliance on Google's payments.
- einsteinx2 1y ago
  Yeah it’s super frustrating. I donate $50/mo to Ladybird development and would do the same for Firefox tomorrow if they gave me any way to actually do it. I have no interest in funding their foundation initiatives.
- pseudalopex 1y ago
  Few for profit companies accept donations. The compliance costs exceed the expected revenue. You can fund Mozilla Coporation by paying for Mozilla VPN, Mozilla Monitor, Firefox Relay, or MDN Plus.

cge 1y ago

> * Made the donations go directly to funding the browser development. Right now I don't know if it even possible to donate purely just to browser development The problem goes beyond them making it impossible to donate purely to browser development: they have arranged their structure such that you cannot donate to browser development at all. The Mozilla Corporation develops Firefox; it is a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, and donations to the foundation can't be used for the for-profit browser development subsidiary at all. They've built their entire legal structure around reliance on Google's payments.

einsteinx2 1y ago
Yeah it’s super frustrating. I donate $50/mo to Ladybird development and would do the same for Firefox tomorrow if they gave me any way to actually do it. I have no interest in funding their foundation initiatives.
pseudalopex 1y ago
Few for profit companies accept donations. The compliance costs exceed the expected revenue. You can fund Mozilla Coporation by paying for Mozilla VPN, Mozilla Monitor, Firefox Relay, or MDN Plus.