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The Mozilla Foundation

Posted by michael on from the mozilla-uber-alles dept.

gemal writes "We're very pleased to announce the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization that will serve as the new home for mozilla.org. The Mozilla Foundation will continue mozilla.org's work of coordinating the development of the Mozilla codebase. With an independent non-profit as the legal home for Mozilla, we will also promote the distribution and adoption of Mozilla applications and technologies. In addition, we will raise funds to ensure Mozilla's long-term survival." Update: 07/15 21:47 GMT by T : Yablo writes "MozillaZine is running a blurb about how since earlier today, when the Mozilla Foundation was created, AOL has laid off all the Gecko developers. Ex-mozilla.org has a list of the casualties."

4 of 493 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Two Questions: by bytesmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A better question would be:
    "Why don't you give to the other open-source software projects?"

    I know it seems like a pain, but pick a few of your favorites (maybe 3 to 5) and start setting aside a little money. Collect your spare change, or sell something on eBay, or whatever. Then donate 5 to 10 bucks to each of the projects.

    I would expect you'd want to feel reasonably certain the developers will put the money to good use (buying helpful books or equipment), rather than dipping into the project fund to buy pizza and beer. Still, I imagine that once you've selected some worthy projects and sent them a little money it will make you feel good to have helped, and maybe you'll even be more likely to do it again in the future.

    --
    bytesmythe
    Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
    -- Scott Meyer
  2. Not quite as funny as intended. by markv242 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This may have been modded +5 Funny, but in all honesty it's a very telling/scary story. AOL is shedding Mozilla. Yes, they've chipped in $2M to help run the foundation, but what happens in a few years when the Foundation has A) run out of money, and B) hasn't gotten any significant donations?

    Let the "Mozilla is dead" postings start in 3..2..

  3. Re:looks like Moz is getting serious by r00k123 · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Mozilla will never knock IE down.

    Why?

    Because I know HUNDREDS of people that refer to IE as "the internet".

    If the IE shortcut gets deleted? "My internet is gone."

    You can't fight the internet guys...sorry.

    -Ben

  4. Re: Support from Microsoft Nemeses by hendridm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the parent:

    > what happens in a few years when the Foundation has A) run out of money, and B) hasn't gotten any significant donations?

    From the site:

    > AOL, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, and other companies will continue to support Mozilla through the Foundation.

    I wouldn't worry. Me thinks these companies et al will stop supporting Mozilla when Internet Explorer has a user base of <5%. These are big competitors of Microsoft. Either way, if the money dries up, I would be surprised if people still didn't continue to develop Mozilla (even if it's at a slower pace).

    There will always be alternatives.