Talk:Mozilla Foundation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Corporate Sponsors

Re

Funding for the foundation comes from donations from corporations and individuals.

Is there a list of corporate sponsors? I heard Google and Nokia are "involved". A-giau 15:53, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Filed this (implicit) request as mozilla.org bug report #329678 Zak Greant 22:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Funding

May also be worth mentioning the ten thousand the MF donated to OpenBSD for OpenSSH developement, which came from money earned through the Google search income. Janizary 23:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Historic and current relationships

One thing that has never been clear (to me) is Mozilla's relationship to Netscape/AOL/Time Warner. Can somebody answer explicitly and unambiguously the following questions and add the info to the article?

• What relationship does the current Mozilla Foundation have with Netscape (or any of its other former "parent" entities)?
• Who provides principal funding for MF?
• In what way were Netscape and Mozilla different entities prior to the founding of Mozilla as an NPO?
• When Netscape originally released the browser code as open source, who was assigned the copyright to that source?
• Is the relation of Netscape browsers to Mozilla/Firefox privileged in any fashion, or are Netscape's browsers simply a third-party modification to the Mozilla source?

Ham Pastrami 08:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Historic and current relationships problematic

• is is true programmers "gift" their code to AOL (=Netscape)??

[Page of Andcon http://www.courageunfettered.com/stuf/mozilla2/] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.6.31.73 (talk) 14:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• That article is from year 2003.
• Mozilla Public License is a free software license allowing that -- although unlike BSD, it's copyleft, though weak.
• You could say that they shouldn't gift their code to proprietary browsers, but then Time Warner would go back to using IE's rendering engine in their browser, thus giving an advantage to sites designed solely for Internet Explorer.
• You still can drop any license when creating a derivative of a Mozilla tri-licensed product. IIRC, Flock is doing that.

--AVRS 17:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Board size

The article says the board has 7 members, and then lists 6. Any word on who the secret illuminati representative is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.93.221 (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Secret illuminati? They only appear to have six members. They may have had seven at one time [1] and it appears their constitution allows up to seven [2] but one of the board members must have left and they never bothered to get another one (nor are they required to) so they only have six at the current time. Someone forgot to change the number when removing the name I guess Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

MoFo?

Come on... is it REALLY sometimes abbreviated MOFO?--XMBRIAN 02:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. With Google you can find examples of Mozilla employees using that abbreviation and an entry for MoFo in an acronym dictionary. -- Schapel 13:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'll put it back in then.--XMBRIAN 16:03, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The use of 'MoFo' is restricted to a few insiders. It is not a common abbreviation - the top 100 Google results for 'Mofo' show zero results (other than this page). I've taken it out from the introductory sentence. Perhaps it could be mentioned later in the piece. Earthlyreason (talk) 05:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Logo and Godzilla links?

There's no section about the name Mozilla being a play on words on Godzilla? And the dinosaur logo? Where did the name Mozilla come from? --24.249.108.133 18:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the Mozilla_(mascot) page. Earthlyreason (talk) 05:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Lucrative?

4 employees, and they're pulling in 66 million dollars per year? What happened to the notion of sharing the wealth...? They should set up offices in some beautiful picturesque tourist town, and add to the local economy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.201.218.65 (talk) 18:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

All the employees are paid through the Mozilla Corporation (100+ employees). Additionally the Mozilla Foundation provides funding for various open source projects. See Foundation grants and related expenditures for 2007 Kbrosnan (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

TimeWarner

Is the foundation owned by Time Warner? Because I think it's part of AOL. --172.206.85.126 (talk) 09:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It is not. AOL did provide the foundation 2 million USD donation, released the trademarks and some physical assets to the fledgling foundation. Kbrosnan (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Four employees?

The infobox on this page says that the Mozilla Foundation has 4 employees. The history indicates that it has been this way for quite some time. While I can't find any source indicating that it doesn't indeed have 4 employees, I just find it very unlikely that a company of this much importance would have only 4 employees. --Sauronjim (talk) 03:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC) The article itself lists six members of the Board of Directors, as well as at least four other employees, which I would take to mean that the Foundation must have a minimum of ten employees. --Sauronjim (talk) 03:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

More references?

This article only has one reference. seems like some more details could be sourced. any takers? -Tracer9999 (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

International Affiliates

Would anyone be opposed to combining Mozilla Japan, Mozilla China, and Mozilla Europe into one article such as User:EvilHom3r/International_Mozilla_Organizations (or perhaps "Mozilla Affiliates")? I have also merged Mozilla Online into this article since it seems pointless to link to a one-line article. Mozilla Messaging could potentially be merged into this article too given its short nature. EvilHom3r (talk) 04:45, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Mozilla Foundation branding

According to Mozilla, the current branding for the Mozilla Foundation is their wordmark, set in Meta Bold, which has replaced the classic Mozilla dino head logo. So, I'm swapping out dino head with the wordmark in this article. (See: "Mozilla branding". Mozilla Foundation. Archived from the original on 2014-09-10. Retrieved 2014-09-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help))  —Waldhorn (talk) 07:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Governance unclear

I cannot understand the Mozilla Foundation's corporate governance from this article.

The "open source bona fides" of Mozilla's Firefox had me assume that it was a non-profit organization, as this article states, so I was surprised to find from a link in the latest release notes to its free video chat service: Firefox Hello that Mozilla's parent company is the for-profit Telefónica.

In the History section, the article also notes that the Mozilla Organization (a term switched for the Mozilla Foundation later in the same para - no explanation given) was initially set up by Netscape (a for-profit), a subsidiary of AOL (a for-profit), with AOL's funding.

The Mozilla Organization was initially either a wholly owned subsidiary, of AOL or of both AOL and Netscape, or it was set up as a non-profit. If it was set up as a non-profit then it could not later have been purchased by a for-profit - Telefonica - as Mozilla states is the case. There can only be one parent company, the applicable term for more is simply: shareholder, but in any case a non-profit organization cannot have shareholders or owners (see e.g: Nonprofit organization. I therefore find it hard from the literature to see how a non-profit can be bought or owned by a for-profit, yet apparently we are to understand that Mozilla (non-profit) has been or is.

To make matters worse, the article's introduction states that: "The subsidiary (the Mozilla Corporation) is 100% owned by the parent, and therefore follows the same non-profit principles", however if a subsidiary of a parent that is non-profit is non-profit then as Mozila is non-profit AOL is also non-profit, a clearly absurd conclusion. Also the same principle would presumably hold in the case of for-profit companies. This would mean that as AOL and Netscape are for-profit, then Mozilla and its offspring are also for profit.

Can an expert in company law help to clarify this muddle?

LookingGlass (talk) 13:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• • Here's your error. That press release is on tokbox.com - the parent company of _Tokbox_ is Telefonica, not Mozilla. The Mozilla Foundation was set up as a non-profit (US 501(c) 3) and still is. 86.142.123.251 (talk) 19:06, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, good catch! I didn't notice that I was being transferred to tokbox when I clicked the link on the Mozilla page. The Firefox logo on the article dominated the bland black banner and I assumed I was on Mozilla still! D'oh! LookingGlass (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• • I'd quibble with "set up by"; Netscape sacked all the people but consented to transfer the servers and trademarks. And AOL did provide some initial funding. But it's perfectly possible for for-profit organisations to set up or make donations to non-profit organizations. What rule says that can't happen? Mozilla is a 501(c)3. See https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/organizations/ , https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/details/ , and you can find all of the legal documents and official non-profit tax filings here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/documents/. Hopefully that should be enough to convince you that this is all actually very clear :-) Gerv 18:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerv (talk • contribs)

Doesn't seem like a "quibble". I'm not an expert but I suggest the key point is that while a for-profit can "set-up" a non-profit organisation, once it has done so there cannot then be any contractual link between the two. I am guessing that Netscape didn't simply change its name to Mozilla but that: Netscape was dissolved/liquidated (as you say all Netscape contracts were terminated), that a new organization, Mozilla, was set up, and that various of Netscape's assets were donated to Mozilla (I assume a number of Netscape employees were re-hired by the new organization.

LookingGlass (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• • Well, you can read the sources I linked to if you want to read what happened. But Netscape was not dissolved/liquidated to form Mozilla - it continued then, and still exists today. The people who were employed by Mozilla were previously laid off by Netscape. A very small number of assets (a few servers, a trademark or two) were donated, plus $2M over 2 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerv (talk • contribs) 17:20, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Could and maybe even should ... but my wish was for the article to stand without a need for going somewhere else. So, Netscape didn't dissolve. Ok, that makes no difference to the substance of my guess which now seems to be correct. I would now try and tidy up the article to make the story clear from the off, but you're the one doing the explaining not vice versa. The intro for instance, even in light of what I now understand remains confusing:

It (the Foundation) owns a taxable subsidiary: the Mozilla Corporation, .... 
The subsidiary  is 100% owned by the parent, and therefore follows the same 
non-profit  principles. 

I am guessing that taxable = for-profit, and that a non-profit can own a for-profit, even if I can't get my head around this, but what seems clear is that there is no need for a for-profit to follow "the same principles" as its non-profit owner. Their relationship is just an accounting issue. The rest is up to the parent to decide, ansd they can change their mind anytime. So although thanks to you I now get the rough idea, the article could be made a great deal clearer without the need for any DIY research, at least in terms of the "family-tree" and history. LookingGlass (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• • "The rest is up to the parent to decide" -- and the parent is constrained to operating in line with its founding principles as a non-profit. So the subsidiary is constrained exactly as far as the parent is. Speaking frankly, given the history of discussion above, you might want to refrain from using the phrase "it seems clear" for a while, as things which seem clear to you often turn out not to be the case :-) Mozilla's structure is not all that common in the USA, but there are other examples, it's pretty common in the UK, and it works exactly as the article says it does. I surmise that the reason the article doesn't go into great detail about the "family tree" is that, contrary to your initial assertion, the greater detail is simply not relevant to the organization's operating principles today.

• • "a non-profit can own a for-profit, even if I can't get my head around this" -- there are many organizations structured this way; the usual reason is that they are charities which have sources of income which do not fit within charitable rules, and so must be taxed. Oxfam in the UK, which runs a network of shops, is another example. Gerv 07:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerv (talk • contribs)

Hmm, interesting reply. So, I should refrain from certain phrasiology whereas you .... ? Our exchange has descended into the mud. Owning a shop (Oxfam) doesn't relate to the issue at hand. The phrase "getting my head around" - referred to the "principles" involved and we appear to be using different interpretations/definitions of this word. If you re-interpret what I have been writing with this in mind you may engage with it, and if you do you may also realize that I couldn't disagree more with your conclusion regarding the article. For the record, I am aware of the situation in the UK as, while I am not a lawyer or barrister (hence my request for expertise) I am nonetheless legally trained and qualified. I have worked both to set up charitable entities as well as consulted to them. So, drop the attitude? Smilies don't cut it. LookingGlass (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

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