> Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.
I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.
I wish my miserable failures brought in $65 million annually.
HN users complain about that $65 million constantly. Mozilla is stuck in a spot where the same angry nerds that want them to diversify away from Google won't actually let them spin up diverse sources of revenue.
Or maybe the idea is that employees/developers don't need to eat, which is incredibly ironic given who HN users typically are. There isn't a single line in this petition dedicated to how Mozilla should raise funds instead.
Maybe signing the petition should be behind a paywall, I would be very interested to see how many votes that would gather.
The truth is, there are no actual ideas on how to replace it. Donations is not the answer. You can't replace hundreds of millions of $ simply with donations.
Equally you can't just reduce spending by firing swathes of people Twitter style. And even if you could FF would still not have enough to "just pay programmers" (like they work in some kind of vacuum.)
It's really easy to run a business from outside - you can make a lot of obvious points, and ignore realities or accountability.
There's lots of "you should do xxx" in the petition with 0 suggestions on how to fund it.
mozilla probably could.
In the light of ToS changes, I'm sad and feel let down without an option.
I also don't agree that donations are the only way to support Mozilla. As others have mentioned they have spent time and effort contributing to Firefox/Mozilla's projects, and many probably have advocated for the use of Firefox — all of that is value to Mozilla and the community.
I don't have any experience starting an organization, let alone one that has that kind of revenue, but as a user, whether you donate or not, if Mozilla is getting that kind of money and their track record and reputation just seems to go downhill, I'd be surprised that people who are invested in it are not upset.
This is what Mozilla have to say about it:
> How will my donation be used?
> Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the *Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
— https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/help/#frequently-as...
This quite conspicuously does not include Firefox, nor does it include any kind of revenue stream diversification.
> Don’t Mozilla products, like Firefox, earn income?
> Firefox is maintained by the Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. While Firefox does produce revenue — chiefly through search partnerships — this earned income is largely reinvested back into the Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation’s education and advocacy efforts, which span several continents and reach millions of people, are supported by philanthropic donations.
In short, donations do not and can not directly support Firefox development. Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, which is a non-profit that owns the for-profit Mozilla Corporation, which makes Firefox. (In my opinion, the Mozilla Foundation does a lot of good work and is worth supporting independently if that's your thing, but it's separate from Firefox.)