First focusing on AI and now this, already cancelled my donations, do we have a good fork to move to?

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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    9 months ago

    The problem is Mozilla started thinking about itself as a company, with its massive revenue from Google.

    It isn’t. Firefox was most alive and most growing when it was still a grassroots initiative to build a better web browser.

    When they go back to that - or someone forks and creates a charity with one sole focus (a great browser) I’ll start supporting them. I just don’t think Mozilla needs this size of org to build a better browser and and now they’re trying to do a bunch a crap I’m not interested in to justify their org size. They’ve got it back to front.

    And I say this as a lifelong Firefox user.

    • Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 months ago

      The Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit company founded in 2005 by the Mozilla Foundation. I think part of the problem is more people don’t realize this. It’s the same reason you can’t donate to Firefox development, donations to “Mozilla” go to the Mozilla Foundation, not the company that builds Firefox.

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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        9 months ago

        Yes, but the profits of Mozilla Corporation are all owned by the Mozilla Foundation, which has to adhere to all the usual 501.c3 rules about spending (i.e. it must be in furtherance of the stated mission of the org).

        • Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org
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          9 months ago

          The profits are owned by the Corporation, which is why the Corporation does all the crazy spending and paying millions to executives, because as long as there is enough separation what they do internally does not affect the tax situation of the Foundation. After the for-profit pays taxes, the non-profit can get dividends and other payments from them, but it is not just a way to wash away tax from all the money.

          The Corporation acts like a company because it is one. This is different than Konqueror, Epiphany, or most of the Firefox forks.