Re: [ox-en] mozilla use of money
- From: Markus <markus vodes.net>
- Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:55:44 +0200
Hej Nadav,
May I be blunt and ask if you gave any money or invested any work in
Mozilla?
If you didn't, you don't really have a "case" - you are not part of the
community that has the "right" to decide how the money is spent.
nope, but i generally believe in freedom of speech and that one is allowed
to critise.
im not claiming any rights for myself as i have not contributed; but i
think people should have
this right. and thats what im saying here.
But if you did contribute to Mozilla, then perhaps you made an error in
judgement: it appears that you think that OpenBSD, or OpenSSH, need more
support than Mozilla.
Mozilla has close to 72 million on their accounts and openbsd made a call
for financial help. my main argument (and i have asked this but have not
gotten a response
on this) is that it is the community who is to a large extent responsible
for thise financial success (e.g. by saving the mozilla corporation lots
of money for example with thousands of beta testers who dont get paid) yet
they dont get anything back.
the mozilla corporation is marketing the open source projects and
addresses the "goodwill" in many people causing a lot of people to use
their product. wanna do something against microsoft? like open source?....
on the backend, there is little difference between mozilla and microsoft.
the former is just taking advantage from open source without giving any
money back, while the latter is honest and fights it.
Can you please educate the ignorants (like myself) who have no idea how
does Mozilla actually make money?
the biggest part comes from google.
http://www.calacanis.com/2006/03/06/firefox-mozilla-corporation-mozilla-foundation-made-72m-last/
actually to my surprise mozilla is a for-profit company:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation that would explain where
the money goes.
Ok, then, the solution is simple: don't help them. Don't work on their
code,
and work on (say) Konqueror instead, or on something else. Don't go to
their
site, or do anything that makes them money - and instead help others whom
you do trust, to make money.
we will exactly do that. unfortunately at this point our menans to support
an open source project are constrained and we
dont have the resources. however, things look very good and promising and
be assured that we will be supportive of any true open source browser
project there is.
This is *exactly* my point. Mozilla has narrow interests, and so it is
likely
that it will only survive a relatively short time (say, a decade or two)
and not forever. But so what? Parts of the Mozilla code could survive
longer
(in forms of forks, for example), and new implementations of the same
idea
can replace it in the future. This is not a problem, but rather a benefit
of the free-software ecosystem's flexibility.
i know this is purely hypothetical, but while mozilla with its narrow
interest will likely cease to exist,
open source does not. as i said, the browser is a potential blockbuster
and could be of tremendous help to make
open source a success.
as for the crucial issue of focussing interest, this is also why an
independent rational institution is of such great importance.
Making a single project live forever is not in the
community's interests.
agree for the typical open source application. but i dont agree with an
application that could be of such great help (because it generates lots of
money) in making open source a success in the marketplace.
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