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Donate mozilla

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Re: Donate mozilla

#51

Post by dingaling »

parent5446 wrote: post #37

I wish more people considered donating to Mozilla, Wikipedia, and other similar movements. I feel like many non-technical oriented people don't really understand that the software and websites they use are often times built completely with donated money, and cannot survive without it.

Wikipedia is big, stable, midly incremental and dominant[0]. Does it need more money that its current baseload income?

If we applied the same traits to the browser market we'd be crying-out for an alternative.

I don't know what that alternative is, so it's difficult to donate towards it. But I don't believe that encouraging more donations to Wikipedia is going to move collective human knowledge forward.

In contrast, Mozilla is constantly having to chase new technological targets and compete against well-funded corporate alternatives. I can understand why they need to keep expanding their income.

[0] deliberately setting-aside all the other subjective complaints about its internal processes.

Re: Donate mozilla

#52

Post by magicalist »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #2

Their FAQ ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_... ) contains pretty important information. In particular, it answers why one should donate when Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo search commissions). The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly…

> The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly owns Mozilla Corp -- is not funded by Mozilla Corp, but relies entirely on donations. Mozilla Foundations is responsible for philantropic education and awareness campaigns.

Like...what? This answer and the one below from the Foundation employee don't actually give any specifics. That's actually slightly alarming, as it's a guarantee that donations won't be directly supporting the browser (or Rust, or...) but will instead be going to some vaguely described campaigns.

I'm all for marketing Firefox and defeating the TPP, but let's confirm that's exactly what we're talking about here (and get some examples of recent work). Mozilla in the name isn't enough when the only Mozilla I know is what this money isn't going to.

Re: Donate mozilla

#53

Post by simula67 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #2

Their FAQ ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_... ) contains pretty important information. In particular, it answers why one should donate when Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo search commissions). The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly…

> Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals

>The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly owns Mozilla Corp -- is not funded by Mozilla Corp

Why not ?

Re: Donate mozilla

#54

Post by snerbles »

mason240 wrote: post #41
vdaniuk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but politics isn't limited to governmental affairs, it is everywhere: communities, technical committees and standard groups. Also some projects contribute more change to the structure of the society than most governments. I would say that linux and *bsds had a much more pronounced impact on global affairs than most countries governments.

Ah, but now you've made the term "politics" meaningless, as what I had for breakfast falls under your new definition that encompasses everything.

How is your breakfast meaningless? Did it contain meat, or genetically modified organisms? Was it grown with water in a drought-stricken area, or from a subsidized or non-unionized farm? Have you considered its carbon footprint?

Someone, somewhere, has opinions on that breakfast of yours...and some of those folks have the power to enact those opinions. If it somehow involves policy, power and status - no matter how petty - there are politics attached. See in particular definitions 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5: https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_en...

Re: Donate mozilla

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

simula67 wrote: post #53
FooBarWidget wrote: post #2

Their FAQ ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_... ) contains pretty important information. In particular, it answers why one should donate when Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo search commissions). The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly…

> Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals >The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly owns Mozilla Corp -- is not funded by Mozilla Corp Why not ?

Because Mozilla Foundation, which is the sole owner of Mozilla Corp, has decided not to extract money from Mozilla Corp.

Re: Donate mozilla

#57

Post by vdaniuk »

mason240 wrote: post #41
vdaniuk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but politics isn't limited to governmental affairs, it is everywhere: communities, technical committees and standard groups. Also some projects contribute more change to the structure of the society than most governments. I would say that linux and *bsds had a much more pronounced impact on global affairs than most countries governments.

Ah, but now you've made the term "politics" meaningless, as what I had for breakfast falls under your new definition that encompasses everything.

If members of your breakfast group have various preferences and you are negotiating contents, place and price of breakfast then yes, sure it's politics :)

Re: Donate mozilla

#58

Post by gkoberger »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #49
tosseraccount wrote: post #11

Mozilla has become too politicized for me. When the board intervenes to fire the CEO for basic civic engagement which we should generally encourage in citizens, then they don't need my money any more.

I stopped donating as well, and I used their contact link in the donation page to explain my reasons: I disagreed with hounding Eich out of his job, and if they want any more donations from me, they first must hire him back.

Most Mozilla employees vocally supported him, and he wasn't fired (he left on his own). He now has his own startup.

Re: Donate mozilla

#59

Post by kentrado »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #2

Their FAQ ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_... ) contains pretty important information. In particular, it answers why one should donate when Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo search commissions). The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly…

Please don't donate to the Mozilla Foundation or any other software foundation for that matter. Most of the time they are over politicized and the money is used to pay the salaries of open source politicians or to fund campaigns that they will put in their resume so that they can get a big execs job once they get tired of their open source stepping stone.

It is not about technology, as they say, it about "people". What you might not know is that the people they are mainly concerned about is themselves. It is very hard to corrupt, defraud, steal and cheat on a project that is just about technology. So they have to make it about something else, something that transcends technology so that they don't have to accountable by any metric.

All of this, am sure, may sound a bit harsh for people who are unaware of the inner workings of foundations behind their political, marketing façade. However, it should come to no surprise to anyone who has had any experience with the government in the real world. We would like to think that open source is above all of that corruption and in some ways it is, but I have to repeat my previous point that Foundations aren't about OS, they are about "people".

The corruption within Foundations is subtle, but it is present and I would like to argue that it is unavoidable. The reason being is that if tomorrow I get the job of chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, I will do my best to use the funds to promote campaigns that will look good on my resume to that I can use it as leverage when I apply for a big execs job at Intel. I wouldn't give less of a shit, if those campaigns are ineffectual, wasteful or over politicized.

Re: Donate mozilla

#60

Post by Frondo »

newscracker wrote: post #50

There's a lot of stuff that Mozilla does, but I wish there were a way to donate and say "try your best to allocate my money for project X" within Mozilla (Corporation, which I now understand is not the one supported by donations). While Mozilla Corporation seems to primarily focus on Firefox and Firefox OS, I would like to see more attention and effort devoted on the following: 1. Mozilla Thunderbird to get a lot mor…

You know what I bet'd really pique their interest around reviving Persona? Not a donation, but start talking about it and evangelizing it, and get together with other interested devs to get them to do the same.

Mozilla's going to respond a lot better to widespread public developer interest than to a $100 donation.

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