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Comment by spartanatreyu | Hacker News Reader

I honestly think that Wikipedia should buy Mozilla to fund Firefox

I don't think most people realize how huge Mozilla is. Their annual revenue has been flirting breaking a billion dollars for some time now and was ~$500 mil as of 2023 - primarily due to 'partnering' with Google, which was always a bellwether to anybody who cared to see it. Wikimedia has never broken $200 million per year. In other words, it's Mozilla that could buy Wikipedia, not the other way around.

But how much goes into firefox development? Maybe 2% of revenue like with Linux Fiundation and Linux kernel?

Mozilla is ads company, it does activism, outreach, it organizes Marxist conferences, management gets paid millions... Firefox development is just tiny fraction of what Mozilla does.

And frankly Wikipedia has the same overhead problem as Mozilla.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41620146

》 Mozilla isn’t just another tech company — we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible.

》 “Mozilla isn’t your typical tech brand; it’s a trailblazing, activist organization in both its mission and its approach,”

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-brand-next-era-o...

I do not doubt they employ 750 people. I am saying they have tons of other projects. If you go throught their blog posts, Firefox has tiny fraction of posts.

Yep, I linked that subthread cause it puts some actual numbers into perspectives.

The Wikimedia Foundation has developed many of the same corruption issues that Mozilla has. It would just be kicking the can down the road, and not very far at that.

They should directly buy Firefox and let Mozilla perish

Any particular reason to buy what they can fork regardless?

They have enough cash in the bank to fund development, so...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com