Firefox should definitely be used, but donating to Mozilla is a mistake. They waste a lot of it, their executive compensation rates are way too high (especially given that MoCo just laid off employees), and Mozilla still hasn't kept up with promises they gave years ago (that Pocket is still proprietary being a notable and depressing example).

Donate to smaller developers of software you use, it'll go a lot further, and they'll probably put it to better use!

Donations go to Mozilla "the non-profit organization" rather than Mozilla "the corporation".

Mozilla (the corporation) has the typical/bad corporate structures and ridiculous executive compensations. Mozilla (the corporation) had the layoffs. Mozilla (the corporation) bought Pocket with money that comes from deals with search engines.

That being said, though...

> Donate to smaller developers of software you use, it'll go a lot further, and they'll probably put it to better use!

... is still a great point.

(Updated this because "Mozilla, Org" and "Mozilla, Inc" were inaccurate)

I think the Mozilla Foundation is starting to look a lot like a sinecure employer for friends of friends in the non-profit biz.

Here are a few seemingly similar titles listed on their leadership page[0]:

  VP, Advocacy
  Director, Digital Engagement
  Director, Communications

  VP, Global Programs
  Director, Partnerships

  Director, Events and Training
  Interim Director, Leadership Programs

[0]https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/about/leadership/

The Mozilla Foundation controls and owns the Mozilla Corporation, and the executive structure looks more or less the same. Baker's compensation has been inversely tied with performance, and she runs both.

Owns, yes. That is radically different from "funds", though.

Not going to dispute anything about executive structure or Baker's compensation and (mis)management, but a lot of people here are acting like donations either go directly to the corporation or funnel to it through the actual recipient of the donations, but there isn't really any evidence being presented.

> Baker's compensation has been inversely tied with performance

You've mentioned this twice in the thread now. "Inversely tied" is quite a strong and unusual claim for compensation. Care to prove it?

Happily!

2.5 million, 2018:

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-fo...

2.3 million, 2017:

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-fo...

1 million, 2016:

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Fo...

<1 million, 2015:

https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/2015_Mozilla_Found...

Firefox market share has been in decline (30% to <5%) for over a decade now:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/StatCoun...

That's not "tied", which would imply a contractual relationship...

'Tied' in relational contexts is generally used to describe a correlation, relation, connection, or a consistency between events in the English language. It can—but does not have to—describe a contractual relationship, and it does not generally describe one except in very specific and obvious cases, e.g. what one would expect to be true: "bonuses are tied to performance milestones."

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tied?s=ts

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/correlated?s=t

But in this context:

> Baker's compensation has been inversely tied with performance

No reasonable person would assume that a person's comp structure from Company would be contractually bound to increase as Company's performance decreases. At which point, the interpretation of "tied" would swing towards generally accepted usage, i.e. "there's a potential relationship between these two things."

ameister14 suggested "associated with" would've worked better, and that's true. But "tied" isn't technically wrong.

That's malarkey. Tied is not exclusively used to imply a "contractual relationship," and that's (if anything) a minority-usage of the idiom of tied to/with.

I think you probably should have used 'associated with' instead of 'tied to' as when discussing remuneration contractual ties is not a minority usage of the idiom.

I'm not Kick, but while you're correct that "associated with" would've been better for clarity, no reasonable person would assume that "inversely tied" describes a contractually mandated drop in performance for an increase in pay (my other comment here links to dictionary.com and thesaurus.com, both good references for this discussion). Couple that with the generally accepted usage of 'tied' and the usage by Kick was correct, if perhaps ambiguous to a narrow population.

Kick's usage is correct except within the business world and especially financial and executive populations, which, while admittedly narrow, are what we were discussing. When you say that an executive's pay is tied to the company's performance, within these communities it's generally understood that this is a contractual relationship.

ex. "John's salary is tied to performance - if the company is valued at over 100 billion, he'll get another 5% stock" etc.

or "bonuses are tied to performance milestones"

If you are simply observing that an executives pay rises while performance falls, associated is a clearer term.

inverse correlation between executive pay and browser market share, if semantics are necessary.

Their salary has gone up, and firefox market share has gone down, its neither is a controversial statement

That still doesn't answer why should I donate to Mozilla the non-profit? What do they do with my donations? According to another post they don't use them to fund Firefox or presumably any project run by the corporation side.

As I see it if I wanted my donations to go to political or other activism there's more direct and better organizations to donate to with less middle management involved.

> According to another post

Respectfully, HN comments aren't a great primary source. Here are some places to start your research:

https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/faq/

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/about/public-records/

https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/

According to https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ the donations go to:

* supporting a diverse group of fellows working on key internet issues [looking at them they all focus on advocacy and social issues rather than working on things like Firefox]

* connecting open Internet leaders at events like MozFest

* publishing critical research in the Internet Health Report

* rallying citizens around advocacy issues that connect the wellbeing of the Internet directly to everyday life.

Or in other words, exactly as the HN comment said, none of it goes to corporation projects but rather privacy and social advocacy.

edit: I'm guessing the Foundation actually takes money from the Corporation to fund itself since the financial statement seems to cover both, anyone know if that's the case?

> their executive compensation rates are way too high

Just because they're a non-profit doesn't mean execs should be paid far below market rates.

Mozilla engineers typically accept a salary that is below market rates.

Recently they have been increasing salaries to be more competitive.

I agree, I never understood that argument. We have a fairly large and wonderful kids hospital that looks for donations and some of my friends said they wouldn't donate because their CEO makes 500k and he should donate his money instead.

I had to explain you want to recruit great talent, and that 500k is less than he could make some place else.

Right. What people actually want is some form of income equality, which would bring executive level salaries in line with their actual worth. You're not going to achieve that by starving non-profits of executive talent in the meantime.

I respect you a lot, but how is what Mozilla's doing in regards to that at all respectable? It's not "starving them of talent" to not increase Baker's pay as Mozilla is laying off employees? She's been there since (almost) the beginning, and the performance of Mozilla has gotten worse over the last decade.

I'm responding to the general complaint that executives at large non-profits are paid too much, and therefore the non-profit is not using money wisely, and so should not be donated to. There's a certain pool of people who are qualified to run companies of these sizes, and in order to attract that talent, you need to pay a competitive wage. The non-profit-ness of the company can be a factor, but like it or not, money is a major motivator, and will affect what kind of talent you can recruit. The problem isn't that a given non-profit executive is overpaid, the problem is that all executives are overpaid.

This isn't a Mozilla problem, it's an income equality problem. Punishing Mozilla by restricting the size of the pool from which they can recruit won't solve the problem.

I can't speak to the current Mozilla executives' performance. I'm not qualified to judge that. I will say that browser market share seems a poor metric, especially given the reach and pocketbook of Mozilla's primary competitor.

In general I definitely agree with you, certainly.

I bet a non-profit like that could find many qualified executives for much less money. There's an amazing amount of talent in the middle of most org structures that never make much past $100k/yr. I'm certain that a handful of these people would excel if given a chance and promoted to the top.

This doesn't happen because most boards are a good ol' boys club where networking matters, not because of a lack of available talent at a price point.

The Mozilla Corporation laid off like 70 employees the other day, and Baker's compensation has been inversely tied to the performance of Mozilla.

I doubt it has been tied, as in a contractual goal.

The word you're looking for is "correlated".

You're assuming the $500k guy is great talent.

Our local YMCA pays the Executive Director $400k/year. The child care workers make $11.50/hr + free membership. (ie. minimum wage) The Y is great, but I'm not donating anything to them.

Do you care how Apple pays its executives when you shell out 3-4k on their laptops or 1-2k on their phones? The OP just said that Firefox is a great piece of software available for free, and they deserve to be compensated (in form of donation). Now, I'm totally on board with you that they waste money, that's not even debatable.

Also, Mozilla made donations to political entities in the past

Which ones? Eich donated like $1000 to a political group that (I would hope) most of us disagree with, but Eich != Mozilla, and he was removed because of the backlash

I'm a Firefox user but I'm doubtful about donating to the Mozilla Foundation.

They at least endorse some really far-out organizations on the Mozilla Foundation homepage[0], such as Riseup Networks.

[0] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/?utm_source=www.mozilla.or...

Riseup is absolutely with Mozilla's mission statement, though, and all things considered pretty good:

"Riseup provides online communication tools for people and groups working on liberatory social change. We are a project to create democratic alternatives and practice self-determination by controlling our own secure means of communications."

They have an actual anarcho-communist star in their logo and their website features revolutionary imagery and policy statements like "all labor is valued equally" and "the means of production should be placed in the hands of the people".[0]

I'm sure it's a fine organization if you subscribe to their views. I do not, and I'd rather not fund them, directly or indirectly.

[0] https://riseup.net/en/about-us/politics

I don't share their views, but I'm thrilled that their project exists and very happy with Mozilla donating to help improve their email client security, since it's a major player in the pro-privacy ecosystem. If I had to agree with the philosophical beliefs of everyone I gave money to, I'd starve.

If I donate to a FOSS project, I want the money to go into the development of their software and not turn into some proxy funding of other projects and organizations - especially not ones I disagree with. In fact, I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation.

I did not know about riseup (or Mozilla funding them) and parent provided insightful information about them. Given the funding structure of Mozilla, I could see this being a red flag for donations for some organizations/individuals.

RiseUp, from their about-us page: https://riseup.net/pl/about-us Riseup’s Purpose.

The Riseup Collective is an autonomous body based in Seattle with collective members world wide. Our purpose is to aid in the creation of a free society, a world with freedom from want and freedom of expression, a world without oppression or hierarchy, where power is shared equally. We do this by providing communication and computer resources to allies engaged in struggles against capitalism and other forms of oppression

>> We do this by providing communication and computer resources to allies engaged in struggles against capitalism and other forms of oppression

That's... interesting.

Does being a "trending project in-network" mean they received money from Mozilla?

100k to improve security in an email client https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/10/03/mozilla-awards-half...

As long as they keep Firefox available they can waste my money as much as they want. Why should they owe me anything? I am taking their browser.

Better yet, donate to Brave who doesn't share the same conflict of interest as Mozilla does with Google, as Google is Mozilla's #1 source of income. Best of all you get a browser just as fast, if not faster than Chrome because it's Chrome without all the junk.

But I don't want to participate in dodgy cryptocurrency scams.

While Brave not taking the "Search deal with Google" route is commendable, you shouldn't donate to it, either.

Venture-funded for-profit startups don't need donations, and again, donations will be more heavily felt by the people maintaining the software you use every day that isn't created by behemoths.

> Firefox should definitely be used, but donating to Mozilla is a mistake.

These seem at odds with each other. If you want Firefox to be used, how do you suggest its development be paid for?

They're already getting more than enough to fund development with the Google deal, which they've shown no willingness to let up on, despite it seriously compromising user privacy. Donating to Mozilla at this point is just encouraging organizational bloat.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree (which is fine!). I'd rather continue donating to them to show there are funding sources outside of advertising, which is a business model I despise.

I thought like you.

There seems to be a huge problem though: for some reason it seems they aren't allowed to use donated funds for what I thought was the main reason for Mozillas existence: development of the Firefox web browser.

Instead donated funds seems to go to outreach etc.

I have nothing against outreach but if this is the case I'd rather donate to such organizations directly (or rather increase my monthly donation to Amnesty International).

Sure. I guess to me that feels like an implementation detail. I like Mozilla and I want them to exist so I give them money. If they stopped making Firefox, I would probably stop giving them money. But whether my money goes to Firefox development is up to them, they know their financial arrangements better than I do. I understand if you don't agree with that policy.

Donations are not used for Firefox development -- they go to the Foundation, not the Corporation.

So I pay for Pocket Premium as it is wholly owned by Mozilla as a way of diversifying their income away from search and donations. I like and use pocket and get something in exchange for my money (which makes me more likely to keep a rolling payment going on). II know it’s not open source, but tbh that doesn’t hugely bother me given that Firefox itself is.

Does anyone object to this indirect way of funding Firefox? Does it cause indirect harm by making them prioritise pocket over Firefox?

I've spent a lot of time considering Pocket Premium but the price point is just too high. Maybe if they roll in features from feedly and have a really nice RSS reader.

I also hate spending money on news that isn't going to journalists.

Well that’s why I factor it in as a donation to Firefox instead of paying for the features (which I agree with you the price point is way too high for what you get).

I don't object. Personally I'd be happy to pay for Firefox Send, or better still for tech support in self-hosting Firefox Sync and Send.

I agree with the endorsement as a FF/TB user. However, I would stop at charity shaming, as there is always a different side to the story.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057737

Mozilla Corporation which makes the browser doesn't accept donations.

I assume they do get quite a bit of money from Mozilla Foundation, which does.

I asked the Mozilla Foundation if anything from the donations goes to the browser, they said no, not a single penny.

The Foundation does not provide money to the Corporation. Look at the annual financial statements.

Do you know why that is?

Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit company. Depending on the legislation it is sometimes forbidden to take donation, or at least very difficult/limited for company.

Mozilla Foundation is the non-profit organization (and they do take donation).

They probably can take donations just fine but there is no tax deduction for the donor.

I'm going to start donating to Mozilla every month.

because otherwise users would have a saying in the direction web browsers evolve and Google would be sad

Half kidding there

So they’re accepting donations after all?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22236328.

Sorry, I can't bring myself to trust them after pocket, mr. robot, and of course the time they fired that guy for having a fetish. I might use their browser product if it ever seems like it'll be better for my needs but I'm certainly not giving them money.