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I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

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Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine »

gambler wrote: post #6

>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…

"degenerate activism" -- really? You could have just stopped with the other two.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#102

Post by MattGaiser »

Goronmon wrote: post #91
MattGaiser wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a matter of expertise, but a matter of setting priorities and valuing projects. I value MDN and Firefox. I am fine with every other aspect of Mozilla dying to save those two. How do I donate my dollar with that goal in mind? As my goals are not really aligned with Mozilla as a whole.

How do I donate my dollar with that goal in mind? As my goals are not really aligned with Mozilla as a whole. Seems like you want control over the project, not to just be donating? At that point it appears one of your main solution would be to start a project like MDN that you can have such control over.

I don't require that level of control.

I just want something similar to a restricted university donation fund. Another faculty at my alma mater had a mega donation a few years ago that was restricted to paying for new research chairs in business. They couldn't use it for anything in other faculties. They couldn't reallocate it to recruiting. I want something like that.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#103

Post by munk-a »

marcinzm wrote: post #100

>But will we be well served by that in the long run? Mozilla brought in $3.25 BILLION in revenue over the last 10 years. If they'd saved/invested a majority of it then they could go for decades without any further revenue. The business model was sound if they didn't decide to waste money.

Wasn't their business model mostly "We hope that Google keeps subsidizing us for no apparent reason?"

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#104

Post by addicted »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #35
gambler wrote: post #6

>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…

> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. Interestingly, this same sentiment is a huge part of why charitable giving runs into problems. A lot of people are willing to give, so long as they get to decide what is done with their funds. Of course, these same people have no i…

The main issue I have is why people think that switching from a profit requirement of 40% to maybe 10% suddenly means organizational theory and practices should disappear through the window.

Do they also insist they should be paying a 10th of what an Adidas costs for it because that’s basically the labor and material cost?

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#105

Post by coffeefirst »

MattGaiser wrote: post #65
CarelessExpert wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. Interestingly, this same sentiment is a huge part of why charitable giving runs into problems. A lot of people are willing to give, so long as they get to decide what is done with their funds. Of course, these same people have no i…

It is not a matter of expertise, but a matter of setting priorities and valuing projects. I value MDN and Firefox. I am fine with every other aspect of Mozilla dying to save those two. How do I donate my dollar with that goal in mind? As my goals are not really aligned with Mozilla as a whole.

It's easy enough for me to think of Mozilla as a professional association rather than a charity.

Would I pay? Yes, I can't imagine being in this field without MDN, and I don't necessarily care what they do with that fee specifically as long as the future of MDN and Firefox are secure.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#106

Post by yarrel »

"The co-signers unthinkingly assume they are entitled to free content."

Oh sweetie, no.

I feel entitled to Mozilla's management being competent and not killing the company.

Appealing to developers is a precondition for that.

MDN does that.

But there are free alternatives. So charging for it would be counter-productive.

If Mozilla had shown even trace amounts of competence at business development, rather than acting like a freshly-minted MBA parachuted into a university's administration, I might be more sympathetic.

As it is I've formed a partnership with a violin manufacturer. Mozilla won't see any money from it but we're going to play them a very profitable-sounding sad tune as soon as we recover our initial investment.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#107

Post by tehwebguy »

outime wrote: post #60
th0ma5 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a kind of far right virtue signalling as far as I can tell. In my opinion, it is wild projection, but it seems to try to label any progressive ideal as regression.

I'm not OP but I think you're reading between the lines. I feel OP though - I'd donate to a cause if my money doesn't go towards political alignments of any kind. I'm tired of NGOs or similar entities taking stances over stuff I didn't ask for. I just want them to do one thing, who gave you permission to use my donation to do a completely different thing, even if well intentioned?

the entire concept of Firefox is exactly a political stance...

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#108

Post by shirakawasuna »

nwsm wrote: post #76
gambler wrote: post #6

>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…

>degenerate activism What's this in reference to, specifically?

Bigoted dog whistle borrowed from literal Nazis.

Edit: interesting that there are so many downvotes. Consider yourself lucky that this seems absurd to you, because it's borrowed directly from Nazi "degenerate art" and "degenerate music" and used like this almost exclusively in modern alt-right contexts to mean those falling outside of their ideal (bigoted) worldview.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#109

Post by westoque »

gambler wrote: post #6

>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…

> >Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat?

Yes as well. I consider myself pretty conservative with my spending but with regards to free things that benefit me, I am thankful, so I donate. I believe people should do more.

Re: I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action

#110

Post by wsc981 »

jmull wrote: post #53
gambler wrote: post #6

>Are you willing to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year to keep MDN afloat? Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. >Create an independent entity like Fronteers, but then international, get members to pay 50-100 euros/dollars per year, and use that money to fund MDN or its s…

> Yes, as long as there is a guarantee that my money will go towards actually paying people who update the documentation rather than CEO salary, degenerate activism or doomed web startups. In other words, “No.” Not that it’s good that Mozilla spends money on that stuff. But for $50-$100/year you want not just a web reference, but significant control over the company that produces it. That’s just not going to happen,…

Not really a donation (more a purchase), but what I like with Humble Bundle [0] is that I can choose what percentage of money I want to give to which organisation. Usually there are 3 options:

- The developers of the software in the bundle

- Humble Bundle organisation

- Charities

Usually I send 90% of my "donation" to the developers of the software and 10% to the Humble Bundle organisation.

Perhaps charities should have a similar donation mechanism where one can choose what percentage of ones' donation should be spent on:

- Management

- Marketing

- Field workers

- Charity itself

- Other ...?

Given such options, I might choose to spend 5% on Management, 10% on field workers and remaining 85% on the charity itself.

---

[0]: https://www.humblebundle.com

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