Looking Into Mozilla's Financial Success

NewsCloud writes "'Thanks to the Google agreement, the Mozilla Foundation went from revenue of nearly $6 million in 2004 to more than $52 million the next year [similar revenue is expected in 2006]...In 2005, the foundation created a subsidiary, the for-profit Mozilla Corporation,...mainly to deal with the tax and other issues related to the Google contract...By creating a corporation to run the Firefox project, Mozilla was committing to be less transparent. In part, that is because Google insists on the secrecy of "its arrangement and agreements," said board member Mitch Kapor.' The NYT article compares this approach to Wikipedia's ongoing fundraisers and raises the issue of transparency in open source projects. i.e. should Firefox's 1,000 to 2,000 developers and 80,000 evangelists have full knowledge of how revenue is spent as well as the extent to which Google is able to influence strategy vs. other stakeholders."

Comments

amusing

[Red Flayer]

FTA:

Finally, there is the problem of what Mozilla should do with the money, at least the portion that isn't being reinvested in the Firefox.

Yes, well, bring that up on the Slashdot if you want some suggestions on where to spend the money. Maybe even ask the Google about it, since that's where the money came from.

I don't know why use of "the" here amuses me so much, but it makes the author seem very unfamiliar with the companies and products they are writing about.

I'd like to see more transparancy

[Timesprout]

Apparently its ok for Google to chuck cash at Mozilla to default to them, but they dont want the terms of the deal disclosed? Dodgy. Imagine the screaming hissy fits about conspiracy if Microsoft brokered a similar deal with Opera to default to whatever MS call their seach engine these days (yes I know Google got there first as well).

Re:I'd like to see more transparancy

[Xybre]

It's hard to see that which is transparent.

In any case, as much of a paranoid individual I am, I think that Google *has* to be secretive. Google has been targeted by Microsoft, Yahoo, and other huge companies which have a long history of play really really dirty. Google has been around a while now and has no real history of being dirty. Their NDA for interviews which slashdotters freaked about, if they had RTFA and then read the NDA, most of them would have seen the articles took clauses out of context, which you simply can't do, and in context it made sense.

If I were a rather new, but large, rich company with a lot to lose, I'd be keeping as many secrets as I could from the companies and people who would love to see me fail.

Know your enemy, and make sure it doesn't know you.

Re:I'd like to see more transparancy

[poadshaw]

I disagree,
I didn't pay for Firefox. It's a rockin' product, but how does the fact that I use it give me any rights to see what deals the owner's / developers of this F/OSS project have? I think the problem is on the other side. Google is a publicly traded company, so they should have their stock holders asking them the tough questions, not bothering a F/OSS project.

Re:I'd like to see more transparancy

[asa]

"Apparently its ok for Google to chuck cash at Mozilla to default to them,"

Actually, we've been defaulting to Google as the default search engine for about 8 years, long before there was a financial relationship.

Re:I'd like to see more transparancy

[Alphager]

It would be good if you had a signature stating that you are Asa Dotzler, Marketing-Guy for Mozilla Inc.

Re:I'd like to see more transparancy

[asa]

I'm Asa Dotzler, but I'm not really "Marketing Guy", I'm more like "community development guy" who happens to have worked on marketing community (along with qa and testing community, project management community, l10n community, etc. etc.)

Interesting double standard of governance

[crush]

When you compare the reason that the free SSL certificate providers like CAcert have been kept out of Mozilla's root certificate list (because CAcert can't pay up $250,000 for a bullshit audit from some US accountancy organisation which proves that CAcert won't mismanage funds), and now we have Mozilla doing secret deals with Google (and who knows, they could do them with Microsoft in the future). Mozilla is moving rapidly into the EvilNonOpenCompany territory... but at least the code is all GPLed.

Re:Interesting double standard of governance

[kebes]

but at least the code is all GPLed

(Actually Mozilla products are not released under the GPL but rather their own open-source license.) The fact that it is open-source is the crucial bit, since that's what, ultimately, gives the users the power in this whole situation. And that's why I'm not worried.

Thus far, Mozilla has done nothing but good things (in my opinion). They have created a nice browser and email client, distributed them as open-source, and have been aggressively promoting their products and FLOSS in general. In short, I trust them... because they have earned that trust with their actions.

So, with regard to this Google deal, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they are making decisions that benefit the community. So far, we have no evidence of anything shady about the deal. (They have disclosed that the money is in exchange for Google being the default, but not the only, engine in the search bar... which is fine in my book.)

However, I'm not a fool (or at least I like to think so). And if Mozilla is found guilty of shady deals, or "betraying" the community of people who are currently evangelizing and supporting Mozilla, then I will change my stance quickly--as will most others in the community I think. The important point is that because the source-code is available to the community, everyone is empowered to fork the project and ignore Mozilla if that becomes necessary. It would be a shame to loose the Firefox brand, but at least the work that went into the codebase would not be lost.

It is this "power to the community" that makes me not worry so much... both because it means that if Mozilla becomes "evil" we have an immediate counter-reaction... and also because the existence of this possible counter-reaction makes it rather unlikely for Mozilla to ever turn their back on the community.

Re:Interesting double standard of governance

[d3matt]

Actualy, Firefox is tri-licensed. So take your pick. If you want to redistribute the code under the GPL, feel free to do so.

Google deal a slippery slope

[traindirector]

Any time a project gets big and starts bringing in money, it gives up a certain amount of control that each person who works on it previously had. When I heard they were making a for-profit corporation to make secretive deals with massive corporations like Google, I initially thought things were worse than they are. But there's no question that there's a slippery slope in this deal where an open-source project that was previously fueled by the interest of developers could become entrenched and weighed down by the monetary and business aspects in the politics of a company.

The best way to keep things open and developers interested is to release all the information except that which Google requires be kept secret. It's already pretty clear the type of revenue that is coming from the Google. When things get this large, it's easy for those interested in developing to fall out of touch with something that resembles Microsoft a lot more than a community undertaking.

Re:Google deal a slippery slope

[monk.e.boy]

Tricky isn't it? We all want Firefox (and open standards) to beat Flash, Sliverlight etc. to beat coporate lock in.

But is that open standards browser now a corporate lock in?

But, but... "do no evil"... we can trust google?

I say take their money, buy some good developers, then run ;-)

monk.e.boy

Re:Here We Go....

[speardane]

sorry what is the difference from Sun or IBM or any other big corporation sponsoring developers?

I expect to get paid, I am not surprised when others do too...

I don't buy this quasi-religious non-corporate ethos as the best justification for open source - it's better engineering because it gets quality unrestricted peer review

I want a quality, well engineered genuinely innovative OS - what better justification?

as long as Google etc... etc... don't suddenly expect to own the code it's great

I'm glad

[joe 155]

I'm happy Mozilla is making a nice amount of money, that's really the point we are trying to make with the GPL isn't it? you can still be commercially viable and open source - don't fear it...

I would also say that there is no danger for the community, it'd be really easy to fork it if things really got that bad... hell, we already have Ice Weasel...

Opera is not an open source project.

[traindirector]

Imagine the screaming hissy fits about conspiracy if Microsoft brokered a similar deal with Opera to default to whatever MS call their seach [sic] engine

I can't imagine the screaming hissy fits if Microsoft made this type of deal with Opera. I doubt there would be any. Opera has no more responsibility to its developers than any other for-profit corporation. And they're free to follow money wherever it may lead.

Mozilla deals are different because the Mozilla non-profit organization is a representation of the community that develops Gecko and the projects they base on it. When a for-profit company is founded with an ambiguous relationship with the original organization, the role of the development community comes into question. Sure, they're still be contributing to GPL code, but will the spirit of the project still inspire such developer devotion, with so much non-paid contribution? Could they?

Re:Opera is not an open source project.

[asa]

"When a for-profit company is founded with an ambiguous relationship with the original organization, the role of the development community comes into question."

What exactly is ambiguous about this relationship. Mozilla has been building search into the browser for about 8 years now. Google has been the default for almost as long. Google, along with other search companies, recently (a couple of years ago) started paying Mozilla for this feature. Mozilla discloses its full financials each year. Mozilla has said, repeatedly, that the bulk of revenue comes from search partners and that the majority of search revenue comes from (obviously) the default search service. Where's the ambiguity?

Re:Here We Go....

[xappax]

I expect to get paid, I am not surprised when others do too...

The thousands of volunteers who do much of the actual work on Firefox don't expect to get paid in dollars, but they do expect to be "rewarded" with some kind of involvement and input in their own project.

This isn't so much about Google giving money to Mozilla as it is about Mozilla obfuscating its processes from its own volunteers. Google is giving giant amounts of money to Mozilla because of the hard work of the Firefox volunteers. I don't think the volunteers expect a dime of that money, or even a vote on how it's spent, but they'd probably at least like to be able to offer suggestions on how to spend it. As it stands, they aren't even allowed to know what's happening to the money, or what kind of agreements were attached to it.

The obvious response to this complaint is "Well, it's open source; If you don't like it, go fork your own browser!", and I suspect exactly that may happen if Mozilla continues to show this kind of disrespect to the people who are, to a large degree, responsible for the foundation's success.

Re:Whom should be considered the forker?

[R2.0]

Did anyone else read that as
"a path of secret agreements, proprietary code, and G-strings attached sponsorship"?

Anyone?

(Man, I need to get laid more often)

One source of income they don't talk about...

[bigbigbison]

From the search box in firefox do a search on Amazon. Look at the url. See that, "mozilla-20" in the url? That's mozilla's Amazon Associate link. So if you, like me, tend to buy stuff from Amazon after searchinf for it with the firefox search box, then Mozilla is getting a percentage of whatever you buy. I don't mind that, but I've just never seen it mentioned anywhere. It would be nice if they were a bit more upfront about that kind of income as well

Re:One source of income they don't talk about...

[Chandon Seldon]

In my opinion that's exactly the wrong way to look at it, at least when we're talking about Amazon affiliate links. Instead, I look at it this way: Whenever you buy a n item at Amazon.com without using an affiliate code, you're throwing money away - you could be using an affiliate link and donating that money to someone you wanted to support. The fact that Mozilla sets that affiliate ID to a reasonable default (support the browser you're using) when you explicitly use the built in Amazon search box is a feature, not a bug.

Re:Here We Go....

[asa]

"This isn't so much about Google giving money to Mozilla as it is about Mozilla obfuscating its processes from its own volunteers."

What exactly is Mozilla doing to obfuscate its processes? Is providing a dial-in number to the weekly Mozilla planning meetings some kind of obfuscation? How about dial-in numbers for the Firefox meetings and the Gecko meetings and the Support meetings and the Marketing meetings? Is that also obfuscation? How about the public Mozilla wiki that documents all of the product and project proposals, roadmaps, PRDs, buglists, etc.? More obfuscation? And the newsgroups where all of the planning discussions happen, where all of the tricky technical issues are openly evaluated? And an open bug tracking tool where all of our implementation bugs and patches are publicly discussed, reviewed, and explained? Is that just more obfuscation? How about the annual financial disclosures where the community can see exactly how much revenue Mozilla generated? And the announcements of all of our new hires (many, including project and product leads hired from volunteers in the community) All obfuscated?