Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Mozilla & Google behind the scenes payola

[Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl>]

Iain Buchanan schreef:
> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 13:51 +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> 
>>It also assumes that Mozilla are making a profit from this. Being
>>non-profit doesn't preclude any sort of income to cover costs. Gentoo is
>>non-profit but sells CDs, mugs and t-shirts, as well as accepting
>>donations.
> 
> 
> The website http://www.scroogle.org/gscrape.html#ffox was saying that
> sure, their (mozilla's) 2003 revenue of 2.3 million seems reasonable,
> but their reported (from insider information) 2004 revenue of $30
> million was not acceptable.
> 

"Not acceptable"? The only basis on which making 27 million dollars
could possibly be considered unacceptable (especially in the US) is
because it would mean that they *did* in fact make a profit, and their
not-for-profit status was at risk. But that doesn't mean it was
"intentional", as it were.... Maybe a gazillion people bought the CD.
Maybe a gazillion *companies* bought the CD. What were they supposed to
do, say "oh, no, I couldn't possibly accept this payment, that would be
*profit* <shudder>"?
> 
> If the mozilla foundation really is "restructuring by spinning off the
> Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary" then time will tell.  They
> can't delay "Form 990" for ever.

And if my theory holds water in any way, then the Mozilla Foundation
really would have had no choice but to spin off a for-profit
subsidiary... after all, if the money is rolling in (via perfectly
legitimate and socially acceptable means), it has to go somewhere, and
it can't go to the N-F-P foundation beyond a certain level.

I find it unbelievable that, after all the effort Netscape and then
Mozilla have expended to keep this browser alive, not to mention make it
viable, much less successful, the fact that they have managed to
overcome all these odds and trounce their opponents to the extent that
they are able to turn a profit (when they had never expected/intended
to), somehow manages to give the last stalwart detractors an audible
voice. I would have thought that the cheers of celebration would have
drowned them out some time ago.

Holly
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