[zobzu]

Thunderbird doesn't make money. Pocket makes money.

That Mozilla is a Corp owned by a not-for-profit isn't the real thing anymore (ie not what people may believe, not that they have any obligation beside following the rule of law) - it just frees the Corp from having to report to random share holders - instead, the Corp and the Org self-select a Board of directors that they report to.

At the end of the day, it's otherwise now similar to many corporations.

[rhelmer]

Mozilla needs products that are relevant in the marketplace, to exist. Revenue is part but not all of this.

I don't think Mozilla can make meaningful impact in a world where it doesn't make products that internet users want to use. It would be a largely toothless advocacy organization at that point.

[ForHackernews]

Millions of people want to use Thunderbird! I would even pay some amount for an "officially supported edition" of Thunderbird.

[mcherm]

Would you be willing to pay that amount for an open source project without the official backing of Mozilla? Because I was under the impression that the source code to Thunderbird was, in fact, available under an open source license.

[ForHackernews]

Yeah, I might be, actually. It would depend on who was involved and how much I trusted those devs, but at least conceptually, sure.

[johnchristopher]

Why not postbox ?

[zzzeek]

never heard of it, looked at "Download", saw a big apple and a big window, no penguin. fail. also closed source AFAICT. thunderbird would be an incredible email app if only it had better maintenance.

[dualogy]

Well it does the job already, working just fine for the 31-years-old IMAP protocol, the 33-years-old POP protocol, the 18-years-old RSS protocol, etc.. I might like an "incredible" email app but all I really need is a "sufficiently solid" one.. =)

[omouse]

You can see that just by looking at their job postings. The experimental ads team was hiring and then stopped and then the team was absorbed into other teams. Now they have more postings for project managers. They're basically introducing more hierarchy and traditional corp. stuff from the sounds of it.

[maxxxxx]

Having more project managers is how things get done. I see it everyday at my company...

[jventura]

I had a coworker that used to say that when you have more managers than toilets, something is clearly wrong. It was a rule of thumb in his experience..

[dripton]

That is beautiful, but I need more data.

1. Do project managers, product managers, etc. count, or only real managers with teams reporting to them?

2. Do urinals count, or only real sit-down toilets?

[duckmuck]

Urinals MUST count. Assuming that women's bathrooms have more sit-down toilets than men's, we are biased. It is unfair and sexist to allow female dominated companies more than their fair share of project managers!

/s

[baddox]

Do women's bathrooms have more sit down toilets than men's?

[flukus]

I don't think I've ever been somewhere with more toilets than managers, that probably supports the assertion though.

[shock]

I can't tell if you're for real or just being sarcastic.

[maxxxxx]

More meetings help too :)

[fao_]

http://wiki.c2.com/?HaHaOnlySerious

[charlesdm]

Clearly sarcasm.

[zobzu]

you might have not had more than one manager then :)

[rhelmer]

Product managers and hierarchical reporting structures are nothing new to Mozilla, quite the contrary.

[ffjffsfr]

how does pocket make money? they do have pocket premium: https://getpocket.com/premium?ep=2 but I never saw them advertising it and never thought about using it and I'm using pocket heavily past several months. Is "pocket premium" their main source of income? Is it bringing real dollars?

[sbennettmcleish]

They slot 'sponsered content' blocks into your stream of saved items, it's done very well IMO. These have to make some decent $$$ surely.

However, I just checked my queue and couldn't see any.

[beachy]

> Pocket makes money.

Just pocket money though.

[ksec]

Just a question on top of my head, could Mozilla make a SaaS, like a email services ( example only ), and have those money go into continuing develop Firefox.

And as a non-profit entity, could they retain some profit they have as investment or cash somewhere. In case some day they run into negatives they could use those as reserves?

But at the end of the day, Mozilla need some very serious management restructuring, starting from the very top end. Having been a Netscape user from over two decade ago, I finally left Firefox. And if you follow their decision, mailing list etc, you can feel how bureaucratic they are. Slow response to market changes, completely lack of ( actionable )vision, often having completely unrealistic target. Extreme inefficiency in development of its product. And these aren't my thoughts or comment only, their are many ex mozillian employees who felt the same. We all thought Mozilla should have been a great company achieving far then then they are today.

[jrwiegand]

If the NFL can call themselves a nonprofit then anyone else should be able to do the same.

[baddox]

The NFL is a nonprofit by any reasonable definition, even without the explicit exception in 501(c)(6). Or rather, it was, until it voluntarily gave up its tax-exempt status in 2015 supposedly over public opinion about their status.

I think people simply aren't aware that all the major revenue associated with the NFL goes through specific teams, which are normal taxable corporations. Humorously, people also aren't aware that they gave up their tax exempt status, so I'm not sure that decision was worth it.

[wapz]

I surely wasn't aware that they gave up their tax exempt status. Huge props to them.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Do you have a source? Revenue and profit are completely different things, and I am curious if Pocket was making any profit. Otherwise it's losing money.

[zobzu]

I suspect it's about the longer term profits, like any other corporation purchase. Generally, you can't buy/afford it when it's already super successful, but you can when it's on the verge of being that (but needs your funding/image/resources).

[cocktailpeanuts]

Normally companies raise venture capital in the cases you describe.

Acquisitions happen when the stakeholders (founders, employees, and investors) don't think they will get the level of return on investment they will be satisfied with.

Even if they DO decide to sell, the case you describe (on the verge of being successful but requires money to get to that point) sell at a disclosed amount. Undisclosed amount mostly means the investors and founders are not proud of the result so they would rather just keep it private.

[RyanZAG]

> Thunderbird doesn't make money. Pocket makes money.

That's not the case anymore with this merger though, right? Pocket will now cease to make actual money.

[moron4hire]

From the announcement: "Pocket will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Corporation"

Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit, taxable entity. Here are their articles of incorporation: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/documents/articles-.... It is itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation, which is the non-profit thing that people call "Mozilla". The Foundation is really just a holding company. The thing that people call "Mozilla" that does all of the work is The Corporation.

[kibwen]

The foundation exists as a separate entity because laws prohibit charitable donations from being used for all but a small number of categories, and software development generally does not fall under such a category. The funds received by the foundation pretty much have to go towards education (or things that can be justified as education, e.g. sponsoring educational conferences or sponsoring attendees to such conferences). Charitable donations can't be used to fund Firefox development.

[yuhong]

I really wish there was an easier way to do this, ideally something like a corporation with no shareholders.

[Feld0]

That's exactly what a nonprofit is. Nonprofits are corporations like any other, with a few key differences:

- Instead of shareholders, nonprofits have members. Members don't own the corporation (no one does) but control it insofar that they hire-and-fire its directors.

- Memberships normally can't be sold, and nonprofits have no equivalent to dividends.

- There are stronger conflict-of-interest protections, preventing officers from signing cheques to themselves or otherwise using the corporation's resources for their personal benefit - at least without someone else's approval.

A typical setup for nonprofits is to tie memberships to being a director, so that current board members choose their own successors. This is known as a "self-perpetuating board".

[zobzu]

IIRC non-profits can't make and keep profits. Corps can, hence Mozilla Corp. They can keep profits around in order to.. like, purchase Pocket, or simply pay employees later when Mozilla makes less profit, or whatever else.

These things are hard or maybe impossible in a non-profit (IANAL/correct me if I'm wrong)

[dragonwriter]

> IIRC non-profits can't make and keep profits.

Non-profits can make surplus revenues over costs and retain them; they can't return profits to shareholders or other particular beneficiaries.

Certain classes of nonprofits are restricted from certain business activities, or limited to certain activities. E.g., charities (501c3 nonprofits) must be organized and operated exclusively for purposes on an list of charitable purposes.

[gault8121]

Yes, nonprofits can charge money and hold onto it. What they can't do is distribute it to shareholders. Many universities are nonprofits, and they hold on to millions or billions of dollars. Nonprofits can also acquire companies, etc.

[Feld0]

The terms "nonprofit" and "not-for-profit" are unfortunate misnomers. Like any other company, nonprofits can offer gainful employment and will eventually bankrupt if they never turn a profit.

[yuhong]

Yes, something like that but without the need to create a separate foundation and corporation.

[Feld0]

AFAIK, Mozilla has the structure they do because the IRS frowns upon charities (which is shorthand for "tax-exempt corporation") engaging in business-like activities but is fine with charities owning for-profit companies as a source of income (and like any shareholder can do, direct the for-profit company to benefit its owner).

Regional differences may be relevant here: in Canada, you can incorporate a nonprofit corporation and later apply for charity status (which restricts the company's possible activities in exchange for a 0% income tax rate) but it's completely optional.

In the US, on the other hand, to the best of my knowledge, one has to establish a for-profit entity first and then apply to the IRS to recognize it as a charity (which is a lengthy process). The words "charity" and "nonprofit" are interchangeable in the US for that reason.

If the concept of a non-charitable nonprofit exists in your jurisdiction, you can get the benefits of a nonprofit structure (ie. no owners) without restricting the company's activities, minus tax exemption and being able to issue tax receipts.

For context: I founded a non-charitable nonprofit in Canada; I'm not super familiar with the US side of things so I'm happy to be corrected.

[chimeracoder]

> in Canada, you can incorporate a nonprofit corporation and later apply for charity status

The US works similarly. You incorporate as a nonprofit, but you have to separately apply for tax-exempt status afterwards. If you don't, you're a nonprofit without the benefits of being tax-exempt.

[hkmurakami]

A corporation is a legal entity, so to do this I imagine you must alter the country's legal code first?