From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1E3Gya-0006HY-Cx for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:36:20 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id j7BHXuSh012220; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:33:56 GMT Received: from zproxy.gmail.com (zproxy.gmail.com [64.233.162.194]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j7BHTvTt003962 for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:29:58 GMT Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id v1so307359nzb for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:30:49 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:x-accept-language:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=JnjMaux1UIu/XBq0TWk+J7bwZXjf7yfYRcchutMUNIh7zBNL+vSw8qwr0eLhbfsKXQ8BwwyBHd6CNqK2pXbT5M3t7b2oBNTZ175vWX2YjF7BKNl0vCKY0WTBq0J8Z+50Ot78JoomFGO+olGxQB/3pPlGofgLl5ptDdtGT2xsSkg= Received: by 10.36.115.10 with SMTP id n10mr1919400nzc; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:30:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.1.10? ([80.119.94.162]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id 18sm4509518nzo.2005.08.11.10.30.48; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:30:49 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <42FBA766.7080402@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 21:30:46 +0200 From: Antoine User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050410) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Mozilla & Google behind the scenes payola References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: fbdd40bc-2015-4961-ae2b-716e5c6d48ac X-Archives-Hash: 6520d937ea0f4d3e0fd6e3961e641809 Michael Kintzios wrote: > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: Holly Bostick [mailto:motub@planet.nl] >>Sent: 11 August 2005 01:32 >>To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org >>Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Mozilla & Google behind the >>scenes payola >> >> > > [snip] > >>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. > > > An accountant could probably advise better, but I would think that there > are appropriate vehicles (e.g. NfP trusts) which would allow financial > profits that cannot be expensed in activities supporting the Moz > Organisation objectives within the financial year, to be stored and in > turn invested thereafter both in for profit and not schemes so that they > may grow and prosper. Making an economic profit is not a problem in > itself. Compromising Moz.Org./OSS objectives in seeking to derive this > profit creates a conflict of interest and therefore it becomes a > problem. Of course this may not be the case with the FF/Google > syndication, I don't really know. Is this right? AFAIK, non-profits don't actually make "profits" at all, they have surpluses. The surpluses can't be redistributed as such (though of course a non-profit could give money away, though would probably need justification) but they are surpluses that in theory "should be" reinvested/spent. I really don't see any reason whatsoever for spinning off a company for these reasons. In any case, if the company remains wholly owned by the mozilla foundation then the problem won't go away - if the foundation decides to withdraw capital it will still be "surplus". I guess the company could then be sold but I can't see how it would differ from any other company that is paid to be the guider of an OSS project... I may be wrong about my assumptions but would be interested to know if that is wrong... Cheers Antoine -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list