Mozilla is eliminating its advocacy division, which fought for a free and open web
Mozilla is eliminating its advocacy division, which fought for a free and open web
This is Mozilla’s second round of layoffs this year.
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This is probably my usual naivete about how these things work, but why can't Mozilla just ask for donations in the way that Wikipedia does (I think I brought this up in another comment a while back and someone explained that Mozilla is not allowed to take donations the way they're currently set up, but maybe they could change this?)? Also now that K9 Mail has become Thunderbird mail, why don't they set up a thunderbird.net email domain and charge for it like Tuta or Proton Mail does in exchange for not being spied on?
mozilla takes donations, but they don't fund Firefox development with that money. that's usually what people have against it.
The way you word it suggests that donations to Mozilla are expressly forbidden from being spent on Firefox. Which I doubt is true.
But yes, many would prefer to donate specifically for Firefox development than into a general pool for Mozilla to allocate as they choose.
Mozilla is set up as a non-profit with a for profit company as a subsidiary. The corporate Mozilla handles working on Firefox, mostly using money from Google for setting it as the default search engine. Because of that separation I don't think they can easily mix those two piles of money together.
There's this section from their FAQ:
Don’t Mozilla products, like Firefox, earn income?
Firefox is maintained by the Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. While Firefox does produce revenue — chiefly through search partnerships — this earned income is largely reinvested back into the Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation’s education and advocacy efforts, which span several continents and reach millions of people, are supported by philanthropic donations.
IIRC they recently lost that google money in august since Google was found guilty of monopolistic practices. that is why they’ve been reducing budget everywhere (except AI….)
Google is still appealing it, so at best that will happen next year. But yeah, they're probably adjusting their budget in anticipation.
as i understand it, the money goes to the foundation, and it's the corporation that develops the browser. so it's probably not strictly forbidden, but it does imply that the money is not for browser development.
They do accept donations: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/