Is The Fox selling out?

Written by Brett Thomas

August 4, 2005 | 23:09

Tags: #directors #firefox #foundation

Companies: #mozilla

Mozilla announced yesterday its move to being a corporate, for-profit entity according to Yahoo and IDG News.

The Mozilla Foundation, which distributes the open source web browser Firefox, has created a corporate subsidiary to support its money-making activities and help widen the use of its products, it announced on Wednesday.

While the goals of the subsidiary, called Mozilla Corporation, include generating revenue and profit, its primary interest is not in making money, the group said. Instead, its main objective is to sustain the development of Firefox and other products, and help the foundation promote its goal of driving open standards on the Web, it said.

You can read more at Yahoo.

Mozilla has always been well-supported by the standards of open source software, first by America Online and then by its relationships with search engines like Google and Yahoo (a pay-per-search from the handy search box next to the URL field).

However, this is the first time that Mozilla will be a profit-seeking corporation instead of a funded foundation, which must use almost all of its money for its stated purpose. The foundation's staff will remain (supposedly at the center) of the new company, but there will be many personnel changes, as people shuffle from the foundation's board of directors to the corporation's board or corporate officer positions.

Will the pressures of being a profitable company steer the Fox into a world of advertisements and corporate greed? Or will they be true to their word and simply use this as an organizational change to cope with evolving tax and legal issues? Drop in and discuss the future of the Fox in our forums.
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