What is going to change for Mozilla?
As of today, almost 2000 volunteers have contributed to the coding, about 10 000 were part of the testing process, and more than 80 000 have promoted the browser through word-of-mouth. The not-for-profit company relies on 90 permanent employees, and made a revenue of about $100 million in the past few years. Mozilla has an estimated 15% of the web browser market sha... Wait a minute, $100 million? How?
Again! Two years ago, Google cut a deal with Mozilla to be the default home page. This deal has generated more than $100 million for Mozilla. For this reason, Mozilla had to create the for-profit Mozilla Corp.to deal with tax and other issues related to the Google contract.
At Mozilla, transparency is one of the principles of the organization's manifesto. At Google however, we don't like to share the numbers that follow the dollar sign. Transparency is at stake at Mozilla, but Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of the foundation, is ready to keep going in this direction: Apparently, begging for money to stay independent is too difficult for her. Getting a fat yearly check from Google isn't.
As usual, idealism makes great project possible, but selling-outism makes great profitability.
I just want to say: Farewell ideal-driven Mozilla!
Success elicits change for maker of Firefox
