Mozilla Foundation Launches Mozilla Corporation

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that the Mozilla Foundation has created a commercial subsidiary to continue development of Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. Don't let the word "commercial" scare you, the new Mozilla Corporation (as it has been dubbed) will be owned 100% by the Mozilla Foundation. The change is mostly a legal/tax thing to avoid the problems of pursuing revenue-generating avenues while remaining a non-profit. There will be no change to the development process and end-users won't notice much difference either. See also the Mozilla Foundation press release about the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla reorganization FAQ."

Comments

deviantART?

[IAmTheDave]

This may be cause for a tiny bit of concern, considering what has been happening over at devianART, with the ousting of jark (one of the two original founders) by the corporate entity.

The lesson of deviantART is that once the corporation starts pursuing profits, and this becomes more important than the community, the origins of the foundation and the original purpose and driving force of the community may become lost.

Re:MHO about possible IPO

[maxwell demon]

If the proper binding contracts are not put in place before hand, then we can say good buy to the popup blockers.

If the Mozilla Corporation should go wrong, the Foundation can just re-start to release the official Firefox/Thunderbird versions themselves, including any improvements dome by the Corporation in the mean time. That's the power of Open Source: Even if the corporation gets evil, it cannot suddenly remove the code. The only possible weak point would be the trademark, but I hope the trademark rights remain at the Foundation.

Re:MHO about possible IPO

[bunratty]

I do have a BIG problem about IPOing. Once there is stock publicly held, the stock holders value is required to be maximized.

From MozillaZine's article on the Mozilla Corporation:

While the Mozilla Corporation will be a for-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is keen to stress that it is not selling out. The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in.

There's no public stock, so the problem you mention cannot happen.