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Mozilla Raking in Millions?
truthsearch writes "Internetnews.com wonders about the money Firefox is making in revenue thanks to Google. From the article: 'Mozilla gets paid a publicly undisclosed amount for each Google search query made from Firefox by a user.' This revenue is used to pay the recently formed Mozilla Corporation's 40 full-time equivalent employees and fund project and infrastructure development."
...if the dollar figure is in the hundred thousands, millions, or billions? Just a thought...people seem to be overrating how much they are actually making (costs aside).
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
good on them.
I salute them!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
Again, maybe they could spend some of that money refactoring their modular implementation to allow disable-output-escaping in XSLT when the output method isn't xhtml... (even if it causes a second pass when disable-output-escaping is set to true)..
l y_implement_XSLT_in_Firefox
http://digg.com/technology/Mozilla_refuses_to_ful
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
Hey, if they make a great browser like Firefox, they deserve it. I just tried the new IE7, and it's horrible imo. Too overdone. I like firefox's simplicity and power.
I really don't understand the question here. Is he implying that Mozilla pockets the money? Or do they want to audit the profits? Just because an Open Source company is making money pundits start to ponder what will the money be used for?
They get the money from the search bar from gogle. Users benefit, google benefits, Mozilla benefits. Profits go to development of their current and future products. Want to know more? Why not contact them directly?
But is this really sustainable in the long run? That seems to be a lot of money.
I guess its a stupid question - seems to be a win-win situation at the outset - though google paying firefox seems more "dont be evil" driven than bottom-line minded. I mean even if they didn't pay, what were the chances that it wasn't going to be google up there?
Sounds like they are playing the guilt-trip card.
:)
Of course it's publically undisclosed. Why do they need to disclose it? They have no obligation to, really, as a private entity (rather than being on the stock market or so).
If they are raking in the money, great! Software developers need to get paid!
Do they also get $ from searches on ebay, amazon, or yahoo (which are also listed on the toolbar)?
They don't have much choice...Microsoft had essentially destryed "direct" market by driving browsers price to zero. And they need _some_ ways to fund their development.
One that hath name thou can not otter
So you are telling me that for every googeling I do in the quick search bar mozzila gets paid. I was under the impression that this was free software. Not some scam to make $$.
By using this link to get to the story ;-)
Interesting to note the default "google" keyword for the address bar puts the sourceid=firefox in there
As an aside, for those who want to make their own custom keywords (and don't know how to), here's an example: Bookmarks->Manage Bookmarks, click on any of the bookmarks under "quick searches", click new bookmark (top left), I made one for acronyms using acronym finder.
Name: Acronym Finder
Location: right click here, copy link location, paste (/. chews up the link)
Keyword: af
Description: You can put whatever you want here, it's optional
Then you click ok. Now when in firefox you can just search for acronyms by typing af + the acronym, for example: af HTTP
For other websites that use a link similar to the acronymfinder one, just insert %s where your query would go. In my example it's in Acronym=%s. You can also note the other default quicksearches that already exist (ex. slang for urban dictionary, dict for dictionary.com)
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Lets do some basic math and see how the numbers add up.
... but still A LOT MONEY !!
- Of the 100 million downloads lets say 20% are daily/active users -> 20 2illion users.
- Of the 20 million daily users, lets says 20% do make at least 1 search query. -> 4 million queries/day.
- If google pays around 0.02c a query. They get 80k/day x 30 days = 3.2Mil x 12 months =~ 38 Mil right there. A conservative number
I salute them!
With which finger?
Some moron in an online editorial is curious what mozilla is doing with its money , why the heck should mozilla disclose how its using its money ? free software doesnt mean you have to account for every penny you earn , they built a heck of a browser let them reap the benefits of what they sowed. --- Must be a dull day for the editors @ /. Go home and have a beer fellas tis the weekend --
What are they making? In Opera I type "g my_search_terms", and I get an instant Google search on "my_search_terms." I like it.
Bill missed phase 2
.... other open source software.
Firefox has been mentionned based on their search bars, a while ago the German version of Firefox was said to have "spyware"
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
This is a great example of an open source program making money off its success. It wouldn't be impossible for other open source programs to do similar sponsorship deals with other companies.
Maybe Linux could have a "You know, Windows has a lower TCO" message when it's booting up.
I believe Google would tweak their financial contributions such that the developers of firefox can do their work, and nothing more.
Personally, I am also not using the search box at all, nor the google: keyword, I just use a link to google in the toolbar. I'll try to rig it a bit in firefox's favor now, but I won't rig every pc I work on this way.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
If you use the firefox search box for google, you'll notice it inserts a huge query string into google, including stuff like "client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official", which i what I assume allows google to pay them.
But, even if you look in about:config, this extra string is nowhere to be found! I wanted to disable it, because I don't need google (or anyone else) to know I'm using firefox.
The way to remove it, as I eventually found out, is to rename the search engine name,
on windows it would be in %programfiles%\mozilla firefox\searchplugins.
Just renaming google.src to somethignelse.src wouldnt work, you need to go inside and change its name to like "Jewgle", and reload firefox. Then, select the new "Jewgle" as your search engine, and boom, no more extra money-generating user agent spying info is inserted into the query string.
Am I supposed to have a problem with people who are making good products making money together? Especially when it doesn't cost me any?
They could spend some of the money to fix printing.
As a good geek I don't usually like things on dead tress, but every other person in my company does.
I had to hold back firefox 1.5 because it hangs indefinitely trying to print certaing pages (both linux and windows, pity that I already deployed thunderbird 1.5 which suffer from the same problem), and even 1.07 prints very badly (missing pages, not really scaled to fit the page, etc.)
Safari has Apple. Internet Explorer has Microsoft. Firefox has Google. All 3 companies have the resources to fund development of their free browsers.
Opera is the stand out -- in the rain. Opera has Opera Software, but Opera Software is a tiny 230-person company. Unless the anti-establishment mavericks in tech communities like SlashDot aggressively support Opera by buying commercial Opera-Software products, Opera just might disappear, being squeezed to death by the big 3 browers: Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox.
Having used Internet Explore, Firefox, and Opera, I can swear that Opera is the fastest, most compact browser for the Windows environment. I hope that the best-marketed product (i.e. either Internet Explorer or Firefox) will not extinguish the technically best product (i.e. Opera). Still, business history has not been kind to the technically best products: e.g., DEC's Alpha processor and Sony's Betamax.
Seriously, I've been using Firefox for 2+ years, and I've never had a problem with it (save the memory hog prob..(cough*bs*cough)), who gives a shit what money they make? I say, hell yeah for prompt fuckin security releases and god damn web standard adherence! Just my two...
i didn't know open source meant non-profit
The real risk is that Google might start wanting some more out of Mozilla. If they fund the whole thing one might consider that they have too much to say. Of course you'd have to be very creative to figure out an example...
Also, Google might actually be dependant on being represented in Firefox. What if Mozilla screws them and get a deal with Yahoo? Ooops... there goes say 100 mio. daily searches..
Statistically speaking firefox users are more tech savy. Which therefore transaltes to more socially dysfunctionally people, which ends is a much more searches for pr0n. Remove the pr0n searches and Firefox employees are picking up cans after hours in the Google parking lot to subsidize their salary.
I have no problem with that, since funding from Google enables the Mozilla.org to invest in the future and stable code.
As a webdeveloper I am a heavy user of Mozilla, especially because of the extensions such as 'Web Developer'. Without it my work would be much harder, because the lack of easy DOM accessibility in other browsers.
GO MOZILLA !
Damnit Jim, I'm [root@localhost w00t]#, not an AD-Adminstrator(tm) !
Do no evil indeed...firefox could fall prey to market forces
"That Google pays content and search partners, as well as AdSense participants, is not new. What is interesting, however, is the amount that Mozilla earns from its users' Google queries.
One blogger has speculated that the figure is as high as $72 million in fact.
Mozilla Corporation board member Chris Blizzard said that the $72 million figure is not correct, "though not off by an order of magnitude."
Why not call it by its name? What's wrong with giving actual numbers? If someone gives these guys money why not advertise it?
Anyway, of course this kind of money helps firefox to progress. But what I don't like is the idea that this project may act too much dependend and not transparant. I like Google's money to be in open source project, but I hate the idea this project will be seduced by corporate interests instead of user interest that will maybe occur in th future. As a user and open source developer I highly value transparency.
The way to remove it, as I eventually found out, is to rename the search engine name, on windows it would be in %programfiles%\mozilla firefox\searchplugins.
I just delete the damn thing. There doesn't seem to be any negative effect in doing so. While I'm in that folder I delete the rest of the directory too. What bothers me is the Firefox folks have forced this spying shit on the users without consent. Even if you compile it from scratch, the f-ing Makefile forces these plugins to be installed. Anyway, I don't know what's so hot about an extra box for searching. I'd rather search directly from the address bar. Good thing Firefox supports bookmark keywords.
If you RTFA, a Mozilla board member says that the quoted figure of $72 million is too high, but "not off by an order of magnitude".
I use the google search box so much... Even when I don't have to, I accidentally use it just by habit. I must be making them billions!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Mod me up, mode me down but I still have to ask: Where did you pick up this extremely stupid piece of vocabulary: "Is it sustainable...?" This is exactly how the ecosocialist green Agenda 200X crowd of nature loving manhaters would put it as you will find them continually moaning over pretty much anything: "Yes, but tell me, is it sustainable? is it REALLY sustainable??"... Well putting it into the pseudoscientific Sierra Club way of doubletalk: Yes! Mozilla is highly sustainable and part of a new highly sustainable approach to an economy where everybody profits. Tell you all what: I hope they are raking in millions.
They don't have much choice...Microsoft had essentially destryed "direct" market by driving browsers price to zero. And they need _some_ ways to fund their development.
Yup and it isn't as if there is anything morally wrong about OOS projects making money as long as it doesn't violate GPL and the profits go toward funding the project? Personally I don't mind, there are plenty of examples of non-profit organizations that have revenue streams so why get upset over the Mozilla project joining that group as long as the money doesnt' corrupt them?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I wanted to disable it, because I don't need google (or anyone else) to know I'm using firefox.
Ever heard of UA strings?
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060203 Fedora/1.5.0.1-1.1.fc4.nr Firefox/1.5.0.1
Not that its really an idea for Mozilla or any other project. Or is it ? In terms of funding through Google, their ad models not only fund browsers rather well, but pretty much the entire web site eco system. Who isn't getting money from the Google Ad Business Model these days ?
Amazing, although, of course there is a difference between apps getting money and sites getting money. (Have to admit, though, I didn't even know until recently that browsers had that much of an income opportunity just through that Google search field.) Will Google encroach on the big ad agencies' turf soon ?
Yes, and the shit inserted into query string for a search engine plugin named "Google" is totally independent from UA string which you CAN change from inside about:config.
Changing UA string in firefox is easy. Getting rid of the spyware search query is not.
This is what I was talking about.
I'm not opposed to the foundation making money I just want to know where it's going. Why is the foundation so fucking circumspect about telling us?
Time to switch to Opera I guess...at least I know who is making what there.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
heres how much i make a month just from search alone
53,846 @ 3,557clicks = $261.67
now thats per month and im a small publisher
firefox probably gets that many searches every minute!
also they pay up to $1 for every person who downloads firefox from a referal from my site
!!
Imagine that, Mozilla has income.
Here all this time I thought the bandwidth to distribute 100 million coppies at 5 mb each & the occasional updates was being pulled out of the ass of bandwidth faries.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
well, if a get involved, i get a part of that money, too?
'Bill' has the revenue-stream from the ads on MSN-search. Trust me, not missing out on anything, only problem they have is people changing there homepage to google, installing googlebars, that sorta things.
New things are always on the horizon
I wouldn't consider it spyware though, unless you would consider any browser that sends out UA headers spyware. The search bar doesn't tell Google that *YOU* are using Firefox, nor that you were looking for [fill in your fetish here]. It just tells Google that *someone* performed a search for [fetish] through Firefox's search bar. IMHO, that's no different from your browser correctly identifying itself as Firefox in my server logs.
If you're that worried about Google spying on you personally, you should block Google's cookies, which are much more of a threat to your privacy, and make sure you're behind an anonymizing proxy.
I just love how /.ers seem intent on biting the hand that feeds; but, if you are investing time on cleaning your mozoogle searches, it's time wasted.
Unless you're masquerading your browser headers somehow, google will still see all.
Tinfoil hats, anyone?
Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox
My real question is where all this money goes, I had the, maybe stupid, idea that the Mozilla foundation was non for profit, hence all the money they make is to pay their employees and invest. Now, if they make real money out of it, I would be a little bit pissed off, since I donated money to advertise their product, I mean if they have that much money, they can sure do some advertisement, can't they? I'm not saying I'm ennoyed I gave money, but when I see that : "# What is the purpose of this site? As a small, non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation has very limited resources at its disposal to market Firefox to the world. SpreadFirefox was created to fill this void, and was founded on the same principles of community involvement that drive the development and testing of Firefox. We believe there is nothing that a large community of enthusiastic volunteers can't accomplish, and this site exists to unite the community into one cohesive marketing force that even competitors with unlimited resources can't compete with. For more information, see our original announcement." And then I hear about all these arrangements, it sounds to me like their limited ressources are not that limited, so I understand it's not Mozilla directly, but spread firefox in this instance, but it sounds like a lot of bs suddendly.
I wonder if increased competition by other search engines will eventually make google reconsider. I'm sure organizations, school systems, etc would mandate IE over firefox if they earned money via an authorized adsense search.
Hundreds of ISPs would switch to firefox if adsense searches could be "sub branded" to firefox like an MLM scheme.
On the one hand I'm glad there is firefox, on the other - easy money just out of reach...
"....to astroturf even. And I wonder if they are - they appear to have an unreasonable amount of support on sites like this...."
They get "an unreasonable amount of support" because they use the GPL, there is no conspiracy, take away the GPL and they all look pretty much the same. In fact that is the whole point, they can't legally take away the GPL for code that has already been released. Rightly or wronly many "intellectuals" associate open source with freedom and indepenence.
Money motivates and astroturf happens, but "on sites like this", the GPL stamp is what drives the genuine enthusiasim amongst people who do know their stuff. If you don't "do software" for a living the GPL may seem obscure, but trust me, the GPL is important not only to geeks, but also an ever growing number of corporations and governments.
When I worked for IBM in the 90's, the then CEO, Lou Gerstner said: "All software has been written, it just needs to be managed". None of us geeks had a fucking clue what he was talking about and simply laughed at his seemingly bizzare pronouncments. Ironically I now make a good living by stiching software components together, many of them open source.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Map of Mozilla HQ
Map of Google HQ
I don't think I understand this right... some people seem to suggest Mozilla and co. making some money is a bad thing ? It's the new fashion to hate people when they finally get some real money for the work they've done and are doing ? Maybe, if they were some huge bad company making buggy and unsecure and unstable and unusable software and would get bloody rich with it. Other than that, I just wish them good luck, and even more luck and money in the future, until they continue to make good and free apps, and I absolutely don't have anything against them getting per click/search/ad/etc money from Google. For other companies which produce closed source good or bad software for sh*t loads of money with lenghty release cycles and unfrequent patches and updates, I don't feel anything for them, they are just another fish in the pond that try to take our money.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
it should be possible to confirm this to a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
Non-profits, while they don't pay taxes, go through the same auditing process that private companies do. They also have to submit a "Form 990" to the Feds, which is roughtly equivalent except that it is public information. The first section of the form is gross revenues, under which income from contributions and program service revenue are different lines.
So, if the line for program and service revenue is nearly 100 million, they're probably not getting it from giving backrubs.
There may be additional state disclosures required, depending on where they're incorporated. For example, here in Massachusetts, it's possible to find out CEO salaries for non-profits. This is designed to prevent people from funneling estate money to their heirs through shell charities.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you don't start trolling properly again I might have to stop reading slashdot and get married or something.
I cannot have the people behind the browser I use making money from it, that may in turn lead to improvements and new features etc.
/lol
Of course, everyone knows that is a lie, as soon as they get money they will tie the product to intel and force me to upgrade to large and larger versions which do the same thing with built in backward incompatability!
Damnit! I am going back to Firefox 0.4a thankyouverymuch.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
And then disconnect your computer and lock yourself in your basement bedroom you fucking paranoid dumbass. Are you really getting your silk panties in a wad because of a fucking user agent? Pathetic. (This is to the GP, btw... just adding to your suggestions.)
---John Holmes...
I've never used the integrated Google search within Firefox, nor have a used the Google search box on the home page. I immediately change my preferences, dragging the Google search box off of the main interface. I, personally, would rather do my searches from a Web page itself. And I'd rather do it from the main Google page. I wonder what percentage of Firefox users actually use the integrated search boxes? Over 90%, I suppose?
Oh, that seems much easier. 1. Create Browser 2. Create Google workalike global information service 3. Profit!
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
More ways for webmasters to suck down my CPU cycles is not what I would call an improvement.
show "OS of google!" before booting up. But if it is payed on the times the word google will be shown, I don't think linux developers will get rich.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
It's pretty interesting. It's a long shot enough a Search Engine making that much money, let alone them having enough to hand out to their favourite Web Browser.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
I just wonder what the reaction of the community will be if let say that the search be redirected to MSN, Yahoo, et al. Will it be something to the tune that they are getting "tainted money"?
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Their tax returns are a matter of public record and can be requested by anyone by contacting the IRS. There are watch dog organizations out there who request these records for certain non-profit orgs, so they may be tracking Mozilla Foundation already.
The benefits to 501(c)(3) organizations come at a cost of having to share a lot of information with the government/public that for-profit organizations don't have to. This way, we can see how much they're making, what they're spending it on, and the like.
Your argument misses the point. Nobody begrudges an organization's efforts to stay financially solvent, but transparency is crucial to ethical behavior, and I would like to know that Mozilla is making money from its search partners. IMHO, that knowledge is critical in understanding where and why an organization makes certain decisions.
I don't see mention of Mozilla's "business model" anywhere on their site, and that disappoints me...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
but did you know that Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagon, Saab, and Volva sales in the US, all taken in the aggregate only add up to 1% of the US auto market? How's that for just 1%? 4% is huge. 10% is considered mainstream use.
Well found on the numbers! I presume they've gone up since then of course...
So. . . You don't do anything if you aren't being paid, (or unless you are paying some company for the pleasure of spending your time with their product or service)?
I hope you are mis-reporting yourself.
I use Firefox and I am very glad to have it. I am not a programmer, so I give my time in other ways to the world in the desire to make things better for the people around me. My community is a good and happy one, and it remains a good and happy one because a lot of people here enjoy donating their time and energy to others. It reciprocates nicely in all manner of ways which money cannot (and should not) measure.
Living in a community filled only with people who refuse to lift a finger unless they are being paid sounds utterly and completely miserable.
I'm not saying we don't all have bills at the end of the month. But I am saying that it's vital, if you want a healthy and happy community, that people learn to share and help each other. --Work-for-money fuels the basic structure. Work-for-free fills the structure with color and life.
-FL
It makes one wonder how much the BBC is paying for the default RSS livebookmark ?
It makes me happy to know that someone in the open source community gets paid for their efforts. Firefox is great software.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Does this mean that Google also pays Apple for searches made from Safari, Opera for searches from that browser, etc? It would make sense, I would think, as TFA mentions treats this as similar to other 'partner' programs Google has, but I never knew that to be the case. Do you think they would pay a browser's producer if Google is not the default search engine, but an option, and the user selects that option?
Greg
---
http://www.gregwestin.com
but if somebody donated 50$ for Firefox , and then it turns out that Mozilla is making lots of $$$ I would be pretty pissed.
-- TRUST ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!
How much money does slashdot make from all the advertising?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
If they become economically viable they might actually attract healthy, fertile females who will want to mate with them. *gasp* *horror* They'll start reproducing!!!!
There's no end to this chaos!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Look at the biggest names in Open Source, they all have some income generating stream somewhere. If this is how Mozilla drums up money for FF than more power to them as it's the least intrusive money making scheme i've seen in software yet. (Compare to banner ads for instance)
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Firefox isn't distributed under the GPL, it's source is distributed under the MPL (mozilla public license). It also has its own EULA that doesn't deal with development stuff.
Firefox and Thunderbird are developed and distributed by Mozilla Corporation. Its a subsidiary of Mozilla Org and its a taxable for-profit entity.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
No, actually transparency is crucial to unethical behavior. What I mean is that if everybody behaved ethically, there would be no need for transparency. People could, uh... mind their own business if we all were totally ethical.
If the world were as you describe it, nobody could ever be trusted about anything, for any reason. In your world the only way people could be expected to be civil to one another is if some overbearing force watching over them would come down on them if they didn't remain civil.
That isn't how the world works. It isn't how the world has ever worked. There are degrees of transparency and opaqueness and it isn't a bad thing.
I think what this person means is that if you are writing free software as a student who is living on student loans, you are actually not just "doing it for free," but are rather *paying* to write free software, the bills for which will arrive later.
The further implication is that once the student loans run out, you will discover that you need an income (and always in fact have) in order to support the writing of free software; sadly you can't make a profession of simply "generously helping others" with no income to speak of, at least not in the neoliberal marketplace.
The OP could have said it better, true, but it's a good point.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Good.. They deserve it. They have to get paid like anyone else. It's just great that they can get paid doing something that all of us benefit from, and not have to do this solely in their free time. I feel better about Firefox's future now than ever before.
Finally, something insightful.
Exactly. Opera is cleaning up in the mobile and embedded market.
The best part is, it's because their browser does have a small footprint, so they're being paid to keep it that way.
.... Every time I set up a Windows system for someone (and I know they will use IE no matter what I tell them) I can just have the IE home page set to the REF=Firefox link and Firefox gets paid! Nice! From now on that's what I'll do.
Firefox isn't released under the GPL.
O rly?
Google are paying me money (by cheque) this month for ad clicks from my site, because I have a 120x600 skyscraper and a search box which I signed up for an account to get
Then you are a "publisher" under Google's terminology.
It would have to initiate random Google Searches, then autoclick ads on the Google page.
That's called click fraud, and users of Google services are prohibited by contract from engaging in click fraud.
I don't see what the problem is. As long as it's free to me, ya know?
Besides, Mozilla isn't profiting off the downloads of Firefox. It's profitting from Google for having its search features integrated into the software (but easily removed and unused)
I don't see why this is so special.
hey, i can count upto ten.
This partnership hurts no one and helps fund the development of a better browser.
Good for them.
-ted
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.cache.memory.cap acity
I have 1.5 GB of RAM; I have my cache set to 64 MB (4096).
body massage!
transparency is crucial to ethical behavior
Just a question, do you think that all private companies should be required to publicly disclose their financials, like publicly traded companies are, in the interests of "ethical behaviour"?
If you owned a private business would you think it's best to keep your finances public? (One problem with this line of thinking is that the smaller the business, the more blurry the line between the individual and the company --- at some point one would inevitably have to also then argue that the financials of an individual should be public information, and then hence, every individual's. It isn't really my business what my neighbour is spending his money on so long as his actions aren't harming me or others - and if they are, it's usually possible to tell regardless of transparency due to the consequences.)
I'm not convinced that transparency is vital to maintain ethical behaviour within an organisation. If it was, private companies would be havens of illegal behaviour, yet we already have enough checks and safeguards against actual illegal activities that transparency isn't really necessary to keep the system working ... there are millions of private companies that are run quite ethically. For example I own a private business and of course do not release my financials ... but there is little opportunity for me to behave unethically or illegally (even if I wanted to, which I don't), because my financials are still audited and because it wouldn't be possible for me to charge others without delivering the product - I'd get sued.
I don't see mention of Mozilla's "business model" anywhere on their site, and that disappoints me
I start to agree with you somewhat here: The Mozilla Foundation tends to "parade itself" almost as a kind of charity / non-profit organisation. But clearly there is a "business model" of sorts. This seems deceptive. Without transparency, the executives could be (for example) paying themselves millions. This isn't necessarily illegal but would be unethical. This is the real issue here and what "nags", not the mere fact that they make money or that they market.
The controls of the other browsers are not that arbitrary, at least they aren't anymore. They actually fit in good with the systems they use, in that the same combinations work in the rest of the applications on that same system. This is at least mostly true for IE on Windows, Epiphany on Gnome, Konqueror in KDE, Firefox on many platforms, and probably more. This extends to themes, look and feel, naming of menus (example: Firefox moves the Preferences entry between platforms to conform). All of this makes it easy for a user to find things and be effective, and the user will feel at home with the application.
Opera doesn't feel at home anywhere, as it does everything its own way. That's a bad thing no matter how useful the actual functions are.
And to those saying that users can remap their keys easily, well that is true but I user shouldn't have to - great defaults will make a user look twice. Almost all other browsers have good defaults.
Spine World
So does that mean if I work twice as fast and efficient as other people in the same position, I can work part time but be considered "full time equivalent," with all the pay and perks and half the hours? That would frickin' rock.
America, what a country!
Mozilla. And of course AOL which put a lot of money into the project initially. Opera has not been able to rely on donations from other companies
Sure. But why do you think all of those companies were willing to donate time and money to Mozilla, but not to Opera?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Jesus, you wouldnt do your job for free, why should they?
In Opera, this is in one of the config files, along with methods to add or change the search engines and options. Perhaps it is time to switch.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
And to think that I was being morally righteous by donating $20 to the Foundation because I felt guilty of using their bandwidth and talent for free! So in fact I had already paid for my bandwidth through Google searches and that I was suckered out of $20, because I mistook Google to be the begger in rags.
On OS X Tiger whatever you write to searchbox is:
- tr&q=testing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
http://www.google.com/search?CLIENT=SAFARI&rls=tr
(upper case by me and tr is my language)
Agree or not, to use latest Safari on an Apple system, you gotta buy the latest OS. There is no "donation" or "foundation" around.
Firefox, Opera getting paid to use Google as default search engine: OK for me. Opera now can be really used for free, without piracy or buying, Mozilla foundation gotta make money to live.
What about $140 Apple Mac OS X default web browser? (please, no ebay links, no haxies, no hacks, no plist editing, plain safari!)
That is the real issue. Such things really bothers me. I use Yahoo search with Yahoo services since they started and I don't plan to use Google anytime. Every single browser has "Google" as default, whether get paid or not. If it sounds OK to you, please don't type anything against IE or other "by default"' monopolies.
While Mozilla Foundation is the happy place where users can donate money to a non-profit, its wholly-owned subsidiary Mozilla Corporation is the money maker in question. While Foundation has to do certain things publicly in order to support the 501c3 status, corporation doesn't, and guess who owns the browser? Yep, by visiting http://www.mozilla.com/ we can find out it's the Corporation, not the Foundation.
nice!
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
The Mozilla Foundation's charter, like many non-profits, is to maximize good done. Normal companies maximize shareholder profits. They're both still businesses, but with different goals in mind. In a private business, there are shareholders that deserve some amount of information pertaining to how their interest is being served. The SEC in fact maintains a set of minimum disclosure standards to publicly traded companies. More importantly, as an organization dedicated to developing and promoting "good software", Mozilla should, not must, make their affairs public as a sign of trust to the community. If they don't then it can be interpreted as a sign that they aren't playing by the rules established for non-profits, when reality is that they simply haven't invested the time in this.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Mozilla's finances are publicly available. I checked their information reported to the IRS for 2004.
Was around 5 million.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
They can't suck on mommas teet forever.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Doesn't this concern anyone?
It suprises me on the lack of posts that don't hit at one of the cores of the topics. Sure there is the GPL thing, the non-profit thing etc...
But we have been trusting and using this product and derivitive products now for a long time to find out they are just as greedy and could care less about open source or other important issues we thought we were supporting by using and assisting in the development of their products?
Where is my kick back for time I spent contributing to their 'cause'?
From this it is obvious they have no concern for consumer privacy, as they are willing to hand anything over to Google for the mighty dollar.
And we have had this Google issue on the table here way too many times, they are not a lycos or a Altavista nor even MSN which is scary to say.
They are NOT a search engine company, they are a marketing company working under the guise of a search engine company, and not only reverse associating search data to other online actions, but even data mining email in and out of their system and reverse associating this information based on email and IP back to the searchs and other activities they are tracking.
Google is the 'corporate' version of the NSA on the Internet.
So where is our consumer protections and privacy and how well are people 'overseeing' the mozilla code, how much 'isn't' open. Not to sound like I am wearing a tinfoil hat, but how do we know for sure the mozilla engine isn't reporting more than just what we know and searches to Google? A little something something slipped into the final builds for Google.
With all that money being thrown their way, it would be a hard temptation if Google has or would one day say, tell us all the form data mozilla collects, or we stop funding.
Sadly I know feel we are better off sticking with other projects and letting mozilla go the way of the original netscape. Things like Opera, Safari and even now here we are back to seeing IE as another 'safer' alternative, if MS keeps up with the security (as the last reports show, even in unconfirmed exploits, they were darn close to any other browers out there, and in disclosed ones, ahead of the curve.)
How sad of a day is this, IE is now a 'safer' choice if you don't want your information being tracked by Google or whatever our imagination could imagine this horrible alignmnet might entail.
Ya, MS could put code in IE that would 'invade' privacy, just like opera or Apple could as well, but we do not have any reason to believe any of these companies are doing that, as they would have nothing to gain from it.
And with IE, they are too closely watched, not only by the US govt, if you don't trust the US, but by the EU and other foreign governments to ensure IE isn't data mining or doing things we now find out mozilla is a part of for sure. (As these bodies are working almost too hard to nit pick Winows and IE, and they have full access to MS's code.)
Ok, tinfoil hat off, and truly think about this, there are a lot of bad things already pointed out about this alliance, but the security and privacy is the one that is the kick in the kneecap.
So if someone forks the code and produces a version that does this, Mozilla would be thrown out of the 'Google services' operation and lose the funding??
I'm just asking because if it hasn't already happened, it will.
...fix the #*%&ing! bugs already?
9 2
Take for example, the printing bug that has been around, unchanged, since at least 2001:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548
NOTE: you'll have to copy-and-paste this URL in to your browser.
As another commenter noted in a fairly high-profile forum: Absolutely positioned frames (lost data on printing, critical). This bug and its earlier Duplicate (# 75213) are an unspeakable embarrassment for many Moz/FF supporters...
At this time there is no hint that it will ever be fixed. It is rated "critical" but no one appears willing to fix it. It has been around for at least five years! This bug is iconic of the geriatric bugs that have creeped through the Mozilla code.
So how about if Mozilla uses some of this money to pay someone to figure out how to bloody well fix this stuff?
Next time, try undefining (or changing) the browser.search.param.Google.1.default key.
Took me about 2 minutes to figure it out (just look at the existing config keys with "google" in their name and play around with them, for crying out loud...)
Well, it sure ain't quality or features...
Ooo, Firefox just broke 100MB used with this tab! And it'll only go up from here!
Why is nobody concerned that a corporation is making millions of dollars off of the hard work and dedication of thousands of individuals who spent years volunteering their efforts? Now all of the sudden it's ok for a few individuals to hijack that work and make an undisclosed profit from it and then tell all those people who helped to fuck off when they ask WTF?? Hell no.
Why is this a problem. I use Firefox, I use Google. Neither forces me to use the other. It's a choice I came to by myself. If Mozilla benefits, so what. So do I from my point of view. I can set Firefox to use another search engine. Firefox makes that easy. In IE at work, I had to bookmark Google to use it. ( I know there is a way to change that, but our IT dept. won't allow that.) For what I do, MSN search sucks rocks big time.
All this noise is just not worth anything. Give it a rest, editors. It's not news.
Just a question, do you think that all private companies should be required to publicly disclose their financials, like publicly traded companies are, in the interests of "ethical behaviour"?
/. But perhaps I'm naive, and I'm asking for too much...
Okay, maybe I'm making too big an assumption--I hold Mozilla in much higher esteem than some given group of private companies that I don't care whether or not they operate transparently. Thus, I wish that Mozilla operated MORE transparently than said private companies.
I'm disappointed that Mozilla doesn't make their 'business model' transparent, and that I have to learn about it on
I'm not convinced that transparency is vital to maintain ethical behaviour within an organisation.
Okay, maybe I was generalizing, but given this particular example, I think transparency does serve as a check and balance. I think it's possible that Mozilla might act differently in certain situations depending on whether the knowledge of their relationship with Google is secret or public knowledge.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Who the fuck modded this troll? This is probably the most intelligent comment that has ever been posted to this OSS shithole of a website. Not everyone wants to give anyway all their hard earned work so a bunch of 13 year old faggots can fork it on sourceforge. Open source is a fucking cancer that needs to die post haste
You want to pay or what? I for one *like* it free.
Heck, when you attend college, you are *paying* to write free term papers, the bills for which will arrive later.
I don't think that's particularly smart, but that's just my view.
Indeed, I think that writing free code during your college years is a lot smarter than writing free term papers; The best way to get good at something is not to wait around for somebody to pay you to do it, or to attend lectures with your brain on 'snooze', but rather to follow your passion, jump in and start plying your craft. --Doing nothing has its advantages; it allows one to recoup energy and rest for a big take-off, but during one's school years it seems better to be very active, learning and doing as much as possible. --I hardly see the disadvantage to working on fun community projects during a period of time when you can afford to focus entirely on them. Yes, the bills will come, but they're going to come regardless when one is going to college.
And who do you think has the better chance of employment after school ends? The students who wrote term papers or the students who honed their skills doing free apprenticship study and filling portfolios with volunteer works?
If a kid came to me looking for a job, (and if I were hiring programmers), you can bet your boots my interest would perk when he said, "And I spent two hundred hours working on the latest Firefox currently deployed on your desktop."
-FL
yes, that's actually a big point in favour of open source. if the moz corp decides to distribute compiled copies of firefox & related products and have a useful way of making money off of that, great. the point is that *you can too* -- the source is still free.
having said that, I would bet the vast majority of mozilla's codebase was written by a small number of individuals, not a cast of thousands.
I was pondering that very assertion. I don't search Google any way but through my address bar. I don't even have to take my hands off of the keyboard after I press ctrl-n for a new tab. I'm glad that my laziness and Opera's UI make it easy for me to support Opera through my normal browsing behaviors. Since I can search eBay and Amazon the same way, I hope they get kickbacks for those, too.
I, for one, welcome my new address-bar-searching overlords.
(-1 cliché)
The post I just read was long as hell! I think that it's fine mozilla makes some cash on the side. That is why they came up with the mozilla corporation now so they could do just that. Does that make them greedy? Well I think the original thought was good, and it exploded and has been much more popular then they ever realized, is that making them a little more shady? I dont think so, I just think they need to continue to develop the browser and not sit on the money they are making if that is the case. I know there are alot of people who donate money to them and yeah that would make me upset too.
I want spam! cranbers@gmail.com
I bought and paid for Opera 4.x back in the day. It was indeed the hottest thing going, as Mozilla/Firefox was still not all that great at the time. However, it had some annoying bugs, one which I still remember was it "skipping" sites when navigating backwards using mouse gestures. I'd reported it in detail once or twice, only to get it brushed off and ignored. Well, it being commercial software, there's only one thing to do when the vendor won't fix a problem - stop using the software.
Thankfully, by Opera 5.x, Firefox/Phoenix 0.6 was really starting to shine.
I added ask.com to my search bar a while ago, then upgraded to firefox 1.5 , and now ask.com is gone, and firefox won't allow me to add it back. That's where the money is going.
Although I like and use Firefox as my main browser and even think it's OK they are using google ad revenue, I must dispute one part of your post, MARKETING IS EVIL.
Why? Because almost by definition marketing is the feeding of biased information to people in order to persuade them to in a sheep like fasion buy or use your product. It's because of marketing that U.S. society is so fundamentally screwed up featuring things like low efficiency 4wd SUVS for highway commutes, mini mansions bigger than anyone needs that waste land and energy, and spread out strip malls and suburbs that also waste land and energy. I would almost go as far as to say that marketing and our corporate MSM is what makes us an aggressor nation that "preemptively" attacks oil rich countries to support our shallow selfish lifestyle.
A shallow selfish lifestyle that further will leave little of lasting value to history. Will anyone remember American Idol 50 years from now? The only thing we will be remembered for is the internet and maybe medical advances and that's why I bother with slashdot at all.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Actually let me clarify a bit marketing in general is not great, but magazine and tee vee marketing that appeals mainly to the senses and not the mind is the worst and truly evil. To sell things based purely on visual sex appeal or fear of unpopularity which is common in tee vee and magazine ads leads to fundamentally bad purchasing decisions. Google ads being text based at least appeal more on the cerebral level and they are also easier to ignore so I think they are better than most ads if not perfect.
That's why I can say it's probably Ok for Mozilla to take money from google but that marketing in general is evil. I would be worried if Mozilla started running tee vee ads featuring models and not talking about technical features or the philosophy of open source development. I haven't seen the New York Times full page ad so I have nothing to say about that.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
You never get something for nothing.
The quid pro quo is already established - they get money for user clicks. They're not getting money for some to-be-determined favor.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
the crappy "Free Dictionary" became the highlighted extension instead of Dictionary.com.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.