RSSMozilla Goes For-Profit with Subsidiary
By Nate Mook | Published August 3, 2005, 11:06 AM
The Mozilla Foundation announced Wednesday the formation of a for-profit subsidiary that will take over development of Firefox and Thunderbird. The Mozilla Corporation will better enable the organization to generate revenue and build a successful business around the browser platform.
The majority of the Mozilla Foundation's employees will migrate to the new corporation, which will be headed by current president Mitchell Baker. But despite its change to commercial status, Baker insists not much else will change; development will continue as planned and Firefox will remain free.
"The Mozilla Corporation is legally a taxable, or in general terms, a "for-profit" entity. However, it is not a typical commercial entity," Baker said.
"Its purpose is not to generate a return on investment in the financial sense. It is not an investment vehicle or an IPO candidate. It is completely owned by the Mozilla Foundation to promote an open Internet, where consumers have choice and innovation thrives."
With Firefox approaching 10 percent market share and opening the eyes of consumers around the globe, Mitchell said new opportunities arose that a non-profit was simply not prepared to handle.
"Non-profit law is reasonably well understood for traditional non-profit organizations like museums, universities and the traditional style of charities. But organizations like the Mozilla Foundation, which develops and distributes consumer software, are new in the non-profit world and the application of nonprofit laws to their activities is a developing area," Baker explained. "We've found that this uncertainty makes responding to Mozilla Firefox's success very complex."
Security fixes and distribution will remain the same, according to a detailed FAQ on the reorganization. Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird will continue to be open source.
"From where I'm sitting, not much is changing," wrote Mozilla developer Asa Dotzler. "I'm still working with all the same people and towards all the same goals. We've got a new structure that should make it somewhat easier for us to do what we've been doing - taking Firefox (and Thunderbird) to the masses."
Ok people, I know that you are all tunnel visioned, the comment was intended this way...."Anything that is worth anything(Firefox is questionable on that), cannot escape the American business thought process...that is...add staff, bloat it up, hire a CEO and well...just forget what the original idea was. Si comprendo? Hope that clears this up...by the way a little thoughtful creativity on some of your parts might make your lives more interesting.
Score: 0
|American business thought process?
What, America is the only place where business is? They don't have businesses anywhere else in the world. Only American businesses want to make a profit? The best place to live is not in America? Please!
Score: 0
|The USA is the best place to live. Next to england
Score: 0
|Can people please read before they post!!!
Firefox, Thunderbird and others alike will still be free, but now they will have full time staff working behind them, and they all will still be open source.
Is it really that hard to read a simple article before you post complete crap.
Score: 0
|Sorry for the double post, but its this website that did that, not me.
Why pay for Firefox when people can get IE for free? Or even pay for the much more stable Opera browser?
Score: 0
|I think you missed this:
"development will continue as planned and Firefox will remain free."
Score: 0
|Considering Firefox/Mozilla is even more buggy than IE is.... good luck making any profit.
This world is so full of complete hypocrites. Welcome to the club Mozilla authors.
Score: 0
|Considering Firefox/Mozilla is even more buggy than IE is.... good luck making any profit.
This world is so full of complete hypocrites. Welcome to the club Mozilla authors.
Score: 0
|I guess US-CERT, a branch of Homeland Security didn't consult with you before they issued this statement:
"CERT recommends that Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by the attack, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera."
Score: 0
|They aren't planning on charging for Firefox OR Thunderbird. You a little slow today?
Score: 0
|This is just like the Red Cross. Welcome to business 101 folks.
Score: 0
|The Red Cross makes open-source software? J/k ;)
Score: 0
|I think this will be for good!
Firefox will be having a bunch of full-time employees behind.
Score: 0
|Yep, now it will cost money :)
Score: 0
|Yeah, I think so!
If Mozilla worked fine with a bunch of volunteers now I think will be better. ;)
Score: 0
|wtf are you talking about?
From the above article: "Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird will continue to be open source"
Score: 0
|If is is free, it is open source, how can you get paid?
Score: 0
|Companies do it every day, just look at google.
Score: 0
|Only now I know this
Today, the only real revenue generator for Mozilla is a secondary pull-down search box that lets users choose which search engine they want to use, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay and Creative Commons.
Score: 0
|As I have always have said there is no money in Open Source.
Score: 0
|Tell that to Red hat, amazon, IBM and Novell which pretty much bet the farm on OSS.
Score: 0
|That is why all of them except for amazon are going broke, or have poor products(IBM, Novell)
Score: 0
|Probably because after you get a copy you can redistribute (depends on the license) to everyone else. Or, you can make a derrivative work that outsells the first product.
Score: 0
|IBM profit up 11%
http://www.redherring.co...&subsector=Americas
Novell is obviously not hurting either.
http://www.novell.com/of.../pressroom/pr05017.html
Why can't you ever get your facts straight?
Score: 0
|Heh. That's funny, cos they're doing this because they're already getting too much money for a non-profit. Hence, they're creating a corporation (which is completetly owned by Mozilla Foundation, if you didn't read the article) so that they more easily (and in more ways) can have large incomes from various other corps.
Score: 0
|You have got to be kidding right. Novel is up only because MSFT paid them. For WordPerfect, which trust me was not perfect after they messed it up. IBM ha. They lost a big customer for their prossors Apple.
Score: 0
|If you think that IBM is going to hurt over Apple's s*** to Intel, you need to stay in 10-12 . IBM's execs toilet paper cost more than what they made off of Apple.
Score: 0
|No wounder why they need a free OS. THey can't afford windows. The poor basterds
Score: 0
|Mozilla.org:
Upcoming Events
August 4th at 5pm p.d.t. we will host a podcast from OSCON 2005.
Score: 0
|///////It's ***NOT*** f0R-pRoF!t!!!////////
Score: 0
|I can't wait until they go public! Can you say payoff!
Score: 0
|Both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation are to remain in a non-profit status. If you actually read the information being released, this restructuring has nothing to do with going 'For-profit' as it were, rather it allows them to generate revenue to feed back into the development and perhaps expand existing, or create new intiatives, furthering the cause of the original Mozilla Foundation. Also of note is the fact that Mozilla Corporation will be privately owned by the Mozilla Foundation, and thus subject to it's rule.
Score: 0
|That is not accurate. The Mozilla Corporation will be a for-profit, taxable entity. Read what Mitchell Baker wrote:
"The Mozilla Corporation is legally a taxable, or in general terms, a "for-profit" entity."
Score: 0
|I think his (or her) point was that it is "for-profit" in legal status only; their goal isn't to make a ton of money, it's to better deal with some legal and tax issues. Any profits will be invested in the Foundation.
In other words, the Foundation is launching a wholly-owned taxable subsidiary; they aren't selling out.
Score: 0
|I sincerely hope this shuts up all the whiners about Microsoft and IE, you should have known anything possibly worth anything is not totally free.
Score: 0
|Well, this is completely different. Not only will all the software remain free and open source, Mozilla Corporation will not hold an IPO or try to make huge profits.
Microsoft, on the other hand, makes $1 billion in proft each month, so I think you're comparing apples and oranges here.
Score: 0
|Read the article again........
QUOTE: "Baker insists not much else will change; development will continue as planned and Firefox will remain free."
Score: 0
|where in that article did it say you were going to pay for ANYTHING from Mozilla?
Score: 0
|Both Mozilla and IE have always been and will be technically free. This changes nothing for that aspect of the browser wars.
Score: 0
|"Microsoft, on the other hand, makes $1 billion in proft each month, so I think you're comparing apples and oranges here."
Most people do that all the time, too bad
Score: 0
|