Mozilla Foundation
Encyclopedia
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization
that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source
Mozilla
project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property
. It owns two tax
able for-profit subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation
, which employs several Mozilla developers and coordinates releases of the Mozilla Firefox
web browser
, and Mozilla Messaging, Inc.
, which primarily develops the Mozilla Thunderbird
email client. The Mozilla Foundation was founded by the Netscape-affiliated Mozilla Organization, and was officially launched on July 15, 2003. The organization is currently based in the Silicon Valley
city of Mountain View, California
, USA
.
The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.". The Mozilla Foundation is guided by the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto which is declared in several languages. Mozilla Europe
, Mozilla Japan
, and Mozilla China
are non-profit organizations whose mission is to help promote and deploy Mozilla products and projects. They are independent of, but affiliated with, the Mozilla Foundation.
. It consisted mostly of Netscape employees but operated independently of Netscape. The Mozilla Organization claimed to be developing the Mozilla browser for testing purposes only, and not for use by end users. This led to the creation of Beonex Communicator
, which released end-user versions during the period that the Mozilla Organization oversaw the project (although most end-users simply downloaded the "official" Mozilla builds).
When AOL
(Netscape's parent) drastically scaled back its involvement with Mozilla Organization, the Mozilla Foundation was launched on July 15, 2003 to ensure Mozilla could survive without Netscape. AOL assisted in the initial creation of the Mozilla Foundation, transferring hardware and intellectual property to the organization and employing a three-person team for the first three months of its existence to help with the transition and donated $2 million to the foundation over two years.
Mozilla Corp.
On August 3, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation launched a wholly owned subsidiary
called the Mozilla Corp. to continue the development and delivery of Mozilla Firefox
and Mozilla Thunderbird
. The Mozilla Corp. takes responsibility for release planning, marketing
and a range of distribution-related activities. It also handles relationships with businesses, many of which generate income. Unlike the Mozilla Foundation, the Mozilla Corp. is a taxable entity, which gives it much greater freedom in the revenue
and business activities it can pursue. The majority of the revenues comes from Google Inc.
, which is the default search engine on Mozilla Firefox.
Mozilla Messaging Inc.
On February 19, 2008, Mozilla Messaging Inc. was announced, which like the Mozilla Corp. is a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. Its focus was developing software to tackle the problems in Internet communication, including the Thunderbird email client.
On April 4, 2011, it was announced that Mozilla Messaging Inc. would be merged into the Mozilla Labs group of the Mozilla Corporation.
headquartered in Beijing
.
s, the foundation made deals with commercial companies to sell CDs containing Mozilla software and provide telephone support. In both cases, the group chose the same suppliers as Netscape for these services. The Mozilla Foundation also became more assertive over its intellectual property, with policies put in place for the use of Mozilla trademarks and logo
s. New projects such as marketing were also started.
With the formation of the Mozilla Corporation, the Mozilla Foundation delegated all their development and business-related activities to the new subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation now focuses solely on governance and policy issues, though it also continues to oversee the projects that have not been "productized", such as Camino
and SeaMonkey
. The Mozilla Foundation owns the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property, which it licenses to the Mozilla Corporation. It also controls the Mozilla source code repository and decides who is allowed to check code in.
gave $300,000 to the organization at its launch. The group has tax-exempt status under IRC 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code, though the Mozilla Corporation subsidiary is taxable.
In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation received $66.8 million in revenues, of which $61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties".
The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google
to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states, "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006, however Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and has now renewed the contract through 2011. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract." This amounts to approximately US$56.8 million.
has five members:
Originally, Christopher Blizzard
had a seat on the board, but he moved to the Mozilla Corporation Board of Directors when it was established; Joichi Ito joined the Mozilla Foundation board at that time. Bob Lisbonne and Carl Malamud
were elected to the board in October 2006.
The Mozilla Corporation also has a number of employees, many of whom worked for the foundation before the establishment of the corporation.
The Mozilla project has traditionally been overseen by a committee known as mozilla.org staff; the individuals on that committee later became foundation or corporation board members or staff members.
and Thunderbird
, park names are chosen as the code names for each product release.
of OpenBSD
for funding from corporate entities which make a profit through the use of OpenSSH
in their packaged distributions, the Mozilla Foundation donated US$10,000 to de Raadt and OpenBSD for OpenSSH development. The funds donated came from money earned through the income provided by Google. While the target of this request were corporations such as Cisco
, IBM
, HP
, and Red Hat
(which all sell operating systems containing OpenSSH but have not donated to its continued development before), the Mozilla Foundation found that without OpenSSH, much of the work done by developers would be through insecure and unsafe methods and thus gave the funds as a thank you.
At the end of 2010, the Mozilla Foundation partnered with Knoxville Zoo
in an effort to raise awareness about endangered red pandas. Two red pandas (a.k.a. firefox
) cubs born at the Knoxville Zoo
have officially become a part of the Mozilla community. The cubs are named Spark and Ember by online voters and Mozilla broadcasted a 24 hour live video stream of the cubs for several months.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
. It owns two tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
able for-profit subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation
Mozilla Corporation
The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey Navigator web browsers and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by a growing global community of...
, which employs several Mozilla developers and coordinates releases of the Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, and Mozilla Messaging, Inc.
Mozilla Messaging
Mozilla Messaging was a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It was broadly tasked with aspects of the Mozilla Project that focused on interpersonal communications, such as instant messaging and e-mail...
, which primarily develops the Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
email client. The Mozilla Foundation was founded by the Netscape-affiliated Mozilla Organization, and was officially launched on July 15, 2003. The organization is currently based in the Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
city of Mountain View, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.". The Mozilla Foundation is guided by the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto which is declared in several languages. Mozilla Europe
Mozilla Europe
Mozilla Europe is a non-profit organisation that promotes and deploys Mozilla products, like Firefox and Thunderbird, in Europe. It was founded on 17 February 2004 by contributors to Mozilla and other free software projects, and is an independent affiliate of the Mozilla Foundation with...
, Mozilla Japan
Mozilla Japan
Mozilla Japan is a limited liability organization to help promote and deploy Mozilla products in Japan.Mozilla Japan was founded on August 18, 2004...
, and Mozilla China
Mozilla China
Mozilla China is a non-profit organization to help promote and deploy Mozilla products in China.Mozilla China was founded on March 4, 2005. It is independent of the Mozilla Foundation, but is affiliated with them....
are non-profit organizations whose mission is to help promote and deploy Mozilla products and projects. They are independent of, but affiliated with, the Mozilla Foundation.
History
On February 23, 1998, Netscape created the Mozilla Organization to co-ordinate the development of the Mozilla Application SuiteMozilla Application Suite
The Mozilla Application Suite is a cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator...
. It consisted mostly of Netscape employees but operated independently of Netscape. The Mozilla Organization claimed to be developing the Mozilla browser for testing purposes only, and not for use by end users. This led to the creation of Beonex Communicator
Beonex Communicator
Beonex Communicator was an open source internet suite based on the Mozilla Application Suite by Ben Bucksch, a German Mozilla developer, which have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products....
, which released end-user versions during the period that the Mozilla Organization oversaw the project (although most end-users simply downloaded the "official" Mozilla builds).
When AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
(Netscape's parent) drastically scaled back its involvement with Mozilla Organization, the Mozilla Foundation was launched on July 15, 2003 to ensure Mozilla could survive without Netscape. AOL assisted in the initial creation of the Mozilla Foundation, transferring hardware and intellectual property to the organization and employing a three-person team for the first three months of its existence to help with the transition and donated $2 million to the foundation over two years.
Mozilla Corp.Mozilla CorporationThe Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey Navigator web browsers and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by a growing global community of...
On August 3, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation launched a wholly owned subsidiarySubsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
called the Mozilla Corp. to continue the development and delivery of Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
and Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
. The Mozilla Corp. takes responsibility for release planning, marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
and a range of distribution-related activities. It also handles relationships with businesses, many of which generate income. Unlike the Mozilla Foundation, the Mozilla Corp. is a taxable entity, which gives it much greater freedom in the revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
and business activities it can pursue. The majority of the revenues comes from Google Inc.
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, which is the default search engine on Mozilla Firefox.
Mozilla Messaging Inc.Mozilla MessagingMozilla Messaging was a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It was broadly tasked with aspects of the Mozilla Project that focused on interpersonal communications, such as instant messaging and e-mail...
On February 19, 2008, Mozilla Messaging Inc. was announced, which like the Mozilla Corp. is a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. Its focus was developing software to tackle the problems in Internet communication, including the Thunderbird email client.On April 4, 2011, it was announced that Mozilla Messaging Inc. would be merged into the Mozilla Labs group of the Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla Online Ltd
Mozilla Online Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Corp.Mozilla Corporation
The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey Navigator web browsers and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client by a growing global community of...
headquartered in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
.
Operations
Initially, the remit of the Mozilla Foundation grew to become much wider than that of mozilla.org, with the organization taking on many tasks that were traditionally left to Netscape and other vendors of Mozilla technology. As part of a wider move to target end-userEnd-user
Economics and commerce define an end user as the person who uses a product. The end user or consumer may differ from the person who purchases the product...
s, the foundation made deals with commercial companies to sell CDs containing Mozilla software and provide telephone support. In both cases, the group chose the same suppliers as Netscape for these services. The Mozilla Foundation also became more assertive over its intellectual property, with policies put in place for the use of Mozilla trademarks and logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
s. New projects such as marketing were also started.
With the formation of the Mozilla Corporation, the Mozilla Foundation delegated all their development and business-related activities to the new subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation now focuses solely on governance and policy issues, though it also continues to oversee the projects that have not been "productized", such as Camino
Camino
Camino is a free, open source, GUI-based Web browser based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and specifically designed for the Mac OS X operating system...
and SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a free and open source cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code...
. The Mozilla Foundation owns the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property, which it licenses to the Mozilla Corporation. It also controls the Mozilla source code repository and decides who is allowed to check code in.
Financing
The Mozilla Foundation accepts donations as a source of funding. Along with AOL's initial $2 million donation, Mitch KaporMitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
gave $300,000 to the organization at its launch. The group has tax-exempt status under IRC 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code, though the Mozilla Corporation subsidiary is taxable.
In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation received $66.8 million in revenues, of which $61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties".
The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states, "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006, however Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and has now renewed the contract through 2011. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract." This amounts to approximately US$56.8 million.
People
The Mozilla Foundation Board of DirectorsBoard of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
has five members:
- Mitchell BakerMitchell BakerWinifred Mitchell Baker, better known simply as Mitchell Baker is the Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and Chairperson and former Chief Executive Officer of the Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet...
(Chair) - Brian BehlendorfBrian BehlendorfBrian Behlendorf is a technologist, computer programmer, and an important figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache...
- Brendan EichBrendan EichBrendan Eich is a computer programmer and creator of the JavaScript scripting language. He is the chief technology officer at the Mozilla Corporation.-Education:...
- Joichi ItoJoi Itois a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Director of the MIT Media Lab.Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. He maintains...
- Bob Lisbonne
Originally, Christopher Blizzard
Christopher Blizzard
Christopher Blizzard is an Open Source Evangelist working for the Mozilla Corporation and a long-time contributor to Open Source projects, notably with Mozilla, Red Hat, and One Laptop Per Child....
had a seat on the board, but he moved to the Mozilla Corporation Board of Directors when it was established; Joichi Ito joined the Mozilla Foundation board at that time. Bob Lisbonne and Carl Malamud
Carl Malamud
Carl Malamud is a technologist, author, and public domain advocate, currently known for his foundation public.resource.org. He was the founder of the Internet Multicasting Service. During his time with this group, he was responsible for creating the first Internet radio station, for putting the...
were elected to the board in October 2006.
The Mozilla Corporation also has a number of employees, many of whom worked for the foundation before the establishment of the corporation.
The Mozilla project has traditionally been overseen by a committee known as mozilla.org staff; the individuals on that committee later became foundation or corporation board members or staff members.
Support for natural ecosystems
Mozilla is dedicated to preserving and promoting a healthy online space. As the community develops new versions of FirefoxMozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
and Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
, park names are chosen as the code names for each product release.
Donations
In 2006, after a request from Theo de RaadtTheo de Raadt
Theo de Raadt , born May 19, 1968 in Pretoria, South Africa, is a software engineer who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects, and was a founding member of the NetBSD project.- Childhood :...
of OpenBSD
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
for funding from corporate entities which make a profit through the use of OpenSSH
OpenSSH
OpenSSH is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol...
in their packaged distributions, the Mozilla Foundation donated US$10,000 to de Raadt and OpenBSD for OpenSSH development. The funds donated came from money earned through the income provided by Google. While the target of this request were corporations such as Cisco
Cisco
Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, HP
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, and Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
(which all sell operating systems containing OpenSSH but have not donated to its continued development before), the Mozilla Foundation found that without OpenSSH, much of the work done by developers would be through insecure and unsafe methods and thus gave the funds as a thank you.
At the end of 2010, the Mozilla Foundation partnered with Knoxville Zoo
Knoxville Zoo
Knoxville Zoo is a zoo located just east of downtown Knoxville, Tennessee near exit 392 of Interstate 40. The zoo is home to about 800 animals and welcomes over 400,000 human visitors each year....
in an effort to raise awareness about endangered red pandas. Two red pandas (a.k.a. firefox
Red Panda
The red panda , is a small arboreal mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It is the only species of the genus Ailurus. Slightly larger than a domestic cat, it has reddish-brown fur, a long, shaggy tail, and a waddling gait due to its shorter front legs...
) cubs born at the Knoxville Zoo
Knoxville Zoo
Knoxville Zoo is a zoo located just east of downtown Knoxville, Tennessee near exit 392 of Interstate 40. The zoo is home to about 800 animals and welcomes over 400,000 human visitors each year....
have officially become a part of the Mozilla community. The cubs are named Spark and Ember by online voters and Mozilla broadcasted a 24 hour live video stream of the cubs for several months.
See also
- List of Mozilla Foundation products
- Firefox – Mozilla's web browserMozilla FirefoxMozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
- Thunderbird – Mozilla's e-mail clientMozilla ThunderbirdMozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
- Sunbird – Mozilla's standalone calendar clientMozilla SunbirdMozilla Sunbird is a free and open source, cross-platform calendar application that was developed by the Mozilla Foundation, Sun Microsystems and many volunteers...