I'm sure many of you have or will soon read about the recent organizational changes with Mozilla. From where I'm sitting, not much is changing. 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.
If you've got any questions, let me know. I'll be up for a bit longer and then checking back in first thing in the morning before I dive back into prepairing my two O'Reilly presentations and trying to help get Firefox closer to 1.5.
Just to pre-empt a question I expect a few people will ask, no, there's no IPO in our future :) The Mozilla Foundation maintains ownership of all of the intellectual property (the code, the trademarks, etc.) and the new subsidiary is owned by the Mozilla Foundation - with a board of directors appointed by the Mozilla Foundation so not much is really changing there.
update: you can find some more info over at the reorg page.
Posted by asa at August 2, 2005 11:54 PM | TrackBackWill this mean changes to licensing such as the changes Apache made?
Posted by: gary on August 3, 2005 12:55 AMI guess after reading the article I'm still not clear on why there's a need for the Mozilla Corp.?
Posted by: brooks on August 3, 2005 01:14 AMhttp://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2005-08-03.html
Posted by: Peter on August 3, 2005 01:26 AMSo as of now, you and Gervase Markham are no longer colleagues, since you're working for Mozilla Corporation and he's working for Mozilla Foundation. I hope you'll still be able to stay in touch somehow. ;)
Posted by: David Tenser on August 3, 2005 02:27 AMI have a couple of questions.
Firstly, could you guys elaborate on what "revenue generating opportunities" there are for Mozilla? It's hard to make money out of a free product - so far only search engine relationships have been mentioned as a concrete example of this. What sort of plans do you have for making money out of Firefox?
Secondly, the Mozilla Foundations mission is "to promote choice and innovation on the internet". That's quite a wide mission statement. It could be read to mean the Mozilla Foundation might start working on non-Mozilla-suite related projects in future. Are there any concrete ideas for what the Foundation may do now it's been partly disconnected from Firefox/Thunderbird? Are any new projects waiting in the wings?
Posted by: Mike Hearn on August 3, 2005 02:48 AMDoes this mean that in the (not so distant) future, the MoFo can actually hire some key developers and sort out the current horrible mess with Firefox development (which is really hurting the project)?
Posted by: Dude on August 3, 2005 03:11 AMThis was, actually, the first place that I heard about this. As it happens, many of my questions were answered by the large mozilla.org Reorganisation FAQ, and Mitchell's blog post.
Posted by: Malcolm on August 3, 2005 03:55 AMHurray for http://www.mozilla.com/
Posted by: Anonymous on August 3, 2005 04:16 AMYou should see Daniel Glazman's post.
It answered all my questions ,fears ...
http://glazman.org/weblog/dotclear/index.php?2005/08/03/1145-mozco#co
Daniel Glazman's post really answered most of my questions! ;-)
Posted by: minghong on August 3, 2005 09:12 AMAs far as "revenue generating opportunities" goes, I suspect that that includes sales from the currently closed store (t-shirts, CDs, other merch). I don't know if a corporation can accept donations while being charged so little tax to make it worth while.
Posted by: Tom on August 3, 2005 10:27 AMSounds good to me. I trust the Mozilla Foundation to do the right thing. (And this sounds right to me.) Great that you're making too much money for a non-profit!
Posted by: David Naylor on August 3, 2005 03:37 PMForgive me if this is a stupid question, but will AOL/Netscape have any influence on the mission/direction of Mozilla Corp? If so, then I can't say I'm liking this.
AOL/Netscape? They haven't had a say in what, two years now?
Posted by: Neil Paris on August 3, 2005 04:51 PM@Neil Paris:
Yes, the Mozilla Foundation is in principle an independent organization, but you can never be really sure what goes on. Maybe I'm too paranoid.
Posted by: Remy on August 3, 2005 05:01 PMYeah, a little bit too paranoid :)
Posted by: Neil Paris on August 3, 2005 09:41 PMSounds like some people want new Porsches. Oh well, it was a nice ride while it lasted. Thanks for all the fish.
I see this as a natural evolution to help break into new markets easier. If I understood things correctly, this is to help giving better support to companies and so on. Keep up the good work! :-)
"Sounds like some people want new Porsches. Oh well, it was a nice ride while it lasted. Thanks for all the fish."
Yeah, it sucks for the devs and testers to be paid at all, doesn't it?
Work for free, you bastards! :-p
Posted by: Jug on August 4, 2005 01:38 AM"...............................................And Bill leans back in his sumptious leather chair, hands behind his head and smiles....................."
Posted by: Tony on August 4, 2005 06:50 AMWill the users get the same wondeful product from Mozilla? (e.g. Firefox/Thunderbird/Seamonkey ect. remains fit for user needs; highly customizable, free, safer, and overall better than whats available?
Posted by: Guest on August 4, 2005 11:09 AMPorsches...
Yea, right. There are NO STOCK OPTIONS, no IPO, no getting rich (and that's too bad, incidentally...I can certainly think of less deserving millionaires).
Quit reading the provocative headlines and read about requirements for non-profit businesses. One article even referred to Mitchell Baker as "he"...watch what you read. One doesn't need an MBA to do enough research to realize that this is a result of things going better for Mozilla than anyone predicted when they originally scrimped, people made sacrifices, and they set up the foundation in 2003.
This is a way to keep the money fortunately now coming in to continue and to be channeled right back into Mozilla so they can keep producing great stuff and promoting open source...not make people rich. This is basically a change on paper to allow Mozilla to do well.
If anyone gets a raise it's probably just trying to retain good people who, instead of going elsewhere for a lot more, might stick with Mozilla for just a little more. Yank someone else's chain.
But then again...Jug had a point:
"Work for free, you bastards! :-p "
Yea...pimp out your spouses and children to pay that ridiculously inflated Silicon Valley rent! I just hate it when the underdog I root for actually does well!
Posted by: Observant Bystander on August 4, 2005 01:31 PMSomething must be incorrect in my understanding here:
MoFo (not-for-profit) owns MozCom (for-profit). MoFo can still receive tax exempt donations. MozCom can generate non-tax-exempt revenue. MoFo can continue to fund development by giving money to MozCom. Excess revenue generated by MozCom may or may not go back to MoFo.
If its that simple, is it somekind of tax loophole that every corporation would love to exploit, but maybe not everyone knows about it yet?
I just hope Mozilla doesn't fall into the bottomless hole that Netscape has driven into.
Posted by: Guest on August 6, 2005 04:56 PM