August 5th, 2005
Mozilla to Get Paid
By John Tintle
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
On August 3rd, 2005 the Mozilla Foundation created a for-profit subsidiary known as the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Corporation will be led by Mitchell Baker. Mitchell Baker has been “Chief Lizard Wrangler” of the Mozilla project for many years, and for the past two years has been president of the Mozilla Foundation.
They are claiming that Firefox and Thunderbird will remain free, so no worries there. The way they are planning on making money is to work with third parties to produce applications based on the the Mozilla products. Over at Mitchell’s Blog he explains it in more detail. The Mozilla.org website published a FAQ for people hoping to learn more about the reorganization.
My Take:Well I think this reorganization of the Mozilla Foundation is a good thing. The for-profit corporation will help make Mozilla a self-sustaining program, rather than hope for grants or donations from AOL or other large corporations. I also think that corporations will jump at a chance to have a branded browser based on Firefox for their internal use. Well as long as they keep Firefox free and continue their current form there should be no problem.
Sources:
