i admire your optimism. i wish i could share it. i do not believe that firefox can be be saved by a group of unpaid volunteers. it is to big and to complex for that. volunteers can keep it on lifesupport, but in order to save it it will take some substantial funding.

Why do you think unpaid volunteers are the only possibility. There are plenty of organizations that have a vested interest in an open internet and new ones can be formed by interested individuals. That Mozilla is unwilling to try other funding methods besides getting paid by what should be their main adversary doesn't mean that no one else can.

there are plenty of organizations that could lend support, but not one that could do so single-handedly. the consequence is that these organizations will have to pool their resources and also take away resources from other projects in order to do this.

accomplishing this is going to be a major feat. again. i admire your optimism. my pessimism tells me that there are a lot of ways this can go wrong.

the big risk is that mozilla won't go out with a bang. they will stick around and even without funding try to hold the reigns. that will make it hard for other organizations to step in. while many have a vested interest in keeping firefox alive they may want to get a seat at the table.

(i am just making this up as i go, so don't take it to serious, but i just had a thought of what ideally might happen:)

when mozilla loses its funding from google they realize that in order to continue there needs to be an organization that is comprised of all the above organizations that want to support an open internet. they get together to form some kind of super organization like a consortium where they all are a member of and all contribute to the continued funding of firefox.