Nothing much changed in terms of % here YoY: still almost 50% of salaries going to management, ~25% of total company expenditure. I wonder if Mitchell has given herself another enormous raise on top of last year's 5 million.
A few folk commenting on Mozilla's dependence on Google for revenue; it would certainly be easier to reason about reducing that dependence if their expenditure was a little more transparent: killing various projects as cost cutting measures seems odd in the context of their published management salary figures.
I don't think just reading page 5* in the auditors report and picking out "Management and general" as the total comp to management is going to give an accurate view of what the chair is getting.
Something more complicated is going on, for instance if you look at the tax filings, page 10, you find that total functional expenses is 30 million, with leadership making up 6.5 of those. On page 7 you can Mitchell that is getting about 7 million total (but not from Mozilla itself apparently) while the rest of the board is only getting around 350 k each.
Also note that on page 2 they put their fellowship and awards programs under the headline "Leadership development", an expense to the tune of 19 million.
*All page numbers refer to the number written on the pages in the pdf.
How did you get almost 50% for management when the category including management was 39%? They spent $283,739,000 on salaries and benefits. $110,767,000 was in the management and general category.
You're right - my at a glance ballpark math put it closer to 50% than 33% but looks like it's on the other end of that spectrum. Can't edit now but... still high.
It links to one important thing, the 2022 financial statement, https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202.... According to a summary I read elsewhere it's actually good news: Almost the same total income while lowering the percentage that comes from google (a bit) and raising the percentage and total amount that comes from their own projects. Lots of money in the bank.
Still paying way too much to management, but I didn't expect any improvement there anyway - is there even one success story out there about moving a project like this back to a real not-for-profit/reasonable governance, without bloated CEO etc salaries?
> is there even one success story out there about moving a project like this back to a real not-for-profit/reasonable governance
Wasn't Thunderbird under Mozilla manglement initially? And, after a few rough years post-spinoff, they're doing pretty well it seems [0]. To the point I'm looking forward to their '23 financial report - I'm happy to continue to donate, and seeing the rise as others join in is pretty nice :)
Arguably I shouldn't have thought of it at all - I hadn't realized it was still under a subsidiary. Perhaps it's worse than not being a proper example too - seems Firefox's best hope is to be completely ignored and told to fend for themselves (like Thunderbird), instead of having the Mozilla Foundation pay any attention to it whatsoever.
That might be the point. Disguise that they are mainly lining their own pockets and wasting money on pointless projects while completely neglecting their actual core product that has been losing market share for years.
Also, purge technical CEO for political reasons then replace him with MBA trophy politically correct CEO that takes home four times the pay while laying off engineers.
The Mozilla board appointed Eich CEO. He resigned after proving unable to manage predictable grass roots opposition. And he refused Mozilla's offer to remain in another role.
Chris Beard didn't make 4x what Eich did. Mitchell Baker didn't replace Eich and doesn't have an MBA. What would make either of them a trophy CEO?
As far as I know, you weren't privy to confidential legal docs to which only I among the two of us could possibly have been a party, so you can stop making stuff up and cease the mindless parroting of incomplete and one-sided statements from 2014 Mozilla foundation crisis PR staff who never worked for me.
The record of Mozilla mis-management and CEO over-compensation after I left, about which I'm free to comment, is plain for all to see.
You know perfectly well the circumstances of your departure were reported in the press. I added only the opinion the opposition was predictable.
Your vague complaints about Mozilla's statements stopped short of claiming they were false. And a legal agreement allowing 1 party to publish substantial falsehoods without recourse would be extraordinary. The most reasonable inference is Mozilla's statements were substantially true. Even if statements by both parties are assumed incomplete and 1 sided.
It's good that Mozilla is still there to provide an alternative to the proprietary browsers and is fighting for open Internet standards. But the management direction and the aggressive political stance it took in the last years is not really good for the project.
Also big kudos for Rust, been playing around with it and it really is a great improvement over archaic languages like C or C++.
I think the commenter is referring to the generic "rainbow coalition" language about helping disabled marginalized pregnant women in Africa. I don't think anyone would consider those things as bad, but I can see someone considering them a needless deviation from what (they perceive) Mozilla should be: a FOSS company. It strikes me personally as exceptionally cooperate, which is fine as long as it's not distracting from the core tenants of FOSS. Not everyone can be the FSF.
Were I a donor to Mozilla, that would tell me they already have more money then they can use toward furthering their goal and in future years I would look to donate directly to organizations helping the impoverished, oppressed.
There is no expertise at managing humanitarian efforts at Mozilla. There is no overlap with their primary purpose and external charitable contributions outside of those supporting open web standards. It’s a waste of everyone’s resources.
It's not just the 'rainbow' initiatives, but the vague way those initiatives are described. Take this for example: "These projects range from creating virtual support networks for LGBTQI+ individuals"
What did they actually do here? Host a mastadon instance for gay people? How many of those people wouldn't have a chatroom with like-minded people if not for Mozilla's efforts? There are countless such spaces on the net already, for instance on traditional social media, on other fediverse instances, on discord or reddit, etc... so how much money did Mozilla spend creating yet another chatroom for LGBTQI+ people and how much real world impact did their effort actually have?
(Aside, saying 'individuals' instead of 'people' exemplifies the sort of swarmy weasel language used by cops, corporate PR, and other snakes putting on airs. Why do they do this, don't they know this kind of language betrays them for what they are? I guess they use this language to impress each other and don't really care that normal people perceive it as inauthentic.)
except in the sense that technology/products are political.
Mozilla advocates a free and open internet. Providing a free and open browser is quite essential to that, and in fact any other effort is pretty much wasted if they can't deliver that.
While they were always political, somewhere along the way Mozilla's politics changed. They stopped being an organization dedicated to furthering the cause of free software, and instead dedicated themselves to promoting radical left wing political causes. For example here's the mission statement for riseup.net, which Mozilla gives money to: https://riseup.net/en/about-us
> Riseup’s Purpose
> We value, support, and engage in struggles for human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability.
> We organize on the basis of autonomy, mutual aid, resource sharing, participatory knowledge, social advocacy, anti-oppression work
> We empower organizations and individuals to use technology in struggles for liberation
> Meet the Collective
> Cedar Waxwing is a revolutionary hacker and critic of late capitalism. Although deeply skeptical of technology, Waxwing has spent much of his life in a quixotic attempt to use technology for liberation.
> Colibrí Jacobina doesn’t hesitate to use her abilities and radical spirit to fight rich people, men, meat eaters, fascists, monogamy, and the police.
...And so on.
When you look at what this group actually does it's basically a glorified mail host for Queer, Feminist, Anarchist, Socialist, Labor, Unions etc. mailing lists: https://lists.riseup.net/www/
Now I mean I'm not necessarily against all of these causes but WTF is Mozilla doing bankrolling the "fight against monogamy and meat eaters" or "Anarchist and Socialist" groups? They have lost the plot.
This shift of focus has occurred during the reign of a CEO who is a lawyer and has boosted her own comp to $7.5M annually of course, what a true revolutionary socialist she is!
Riseup and Tor have a long history. They run a directory authority and other services used by the Tor project and community. And people with very different politics can and do use their security guides.
> They stopped being an organization dedicated to furthering the cause of free software, and instead dedicated themselves to promoting radical left wing political causes.
Mozilla's resources are directed at Firefox much more than anything else. Grants and donations were 1% of 2022 expenses. Your claim would be far from true still even if all grants and donations went to communist rebels.
Do you mean the default crates.io registry Cargo uses? Cargo is the package manager, it supports alternative registry definitions and local packages all set in the dependency file. You can run your own private or public registry, or use someone else's, and publish anything you want.
Ironic that this website feels pretty janky on Firefox for Android. The Read link under "Internet by the people for the people" leads to a page that has lots of rendering artifacts as your scroll through it, like colors blinking in, and also it fills your browsing history with every swipe.
Below the financial statement and form 990 links there's just tons of blank space separated into different color segments. I have no clue if those are supposed to have content?
Update: Desktop browser mode shows that I am missing content. Also I was surprised at the amount that Privacy Badger and Ublock Origin were blocking. Disabling them didn't help the mobile rendering though.
Three of the four new board members mention AI when asked why they joined Mozilla. I can't think of anything AI related that Mozilla has done, and nothing indicates that they will be relevant in the field in the future either. It's a stated goal by Mozilla to "include more expertise about AI", but I don't see the point.
It'd be good to get an informed view on the financial statement. In particular, the oft-spoken view that Mozilla is so critically dependent on Google funding that it is, in practice, prevented from doing anything that would displease big G.
You don't need an accountant for that - you can read the financial statement (this one is pretty simple).
From about $593mil revenue in their income statement (page 4), $510mil is derived from _Royalties_.
Later, on page 13, they explain what _Royalties_ consists of, and I quote:
> Royalties - Mozilla provides the Firefox web browser, which is a free and open-source web browser initially developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Corporation. Mozilla incorporates search engines of its customers as a default status or an optional status available in the Firefox web browser. Mozilla generally receives royalties at a certain percentage of revenues earned by its customers through their search engines incorporated in the Firefox web browser.
Now, I leave it to your judgement if you think that a company that derives 86% of its revenue from the above is dependent on Google ;-)
I'm not sure if putting this content into a list would have helped, the main impression is that leadership wrote a brochure to entice investors but then published it under the title "State of Mozilla".
This looks like its only fluffy aspirational stuff rather than the clear presentation of its current status the title implies.
This is pretty sad. I get that for _reasons_ they can't just come right out and say "it doesn't look good," but what they have put together is worse. It's just corpo-speak designed to avoid addressing the harsh reality: that mozilla and firefox are in real trouble. In doing so, it's obvious that things are bad and people that used to care have moved on (or have been forced out).
A "state of the platform" without any kinds of metrics/numbers presented front and center means that they are trying to hide things.
Until they are willing to candidly admit that, it's never going to improve. People that donate to Mozilla need to demand better.
Would love to see a proper Firefox fork without the drama of Pale Moon. Something supported by a small focused org. There should be donations enough out there, if it could keep out of opinionated technical and social decisions.
And no SJW bullshit or "code of conduct" in the whole SerenityOS project either. So it's free of this bullshit politics. And such politics tends to attract parasites which take over the organization to promote their personal agendas - which is precisely what has happened to Mozilla.
By the way, I have left the community and found something else to do after the introduction of these codes of conduct in open source. Over and done with it.
As usual, you see a lot of hate against Mozilla's management team on HN. It makes me wonder, the people who hold these views, do they begrudingly use firefox? Do they use a different browser?
I am on record saying that I think Mozilla's management does not care about Firefox and are milking it to position Mozilla as some kind of big "Internet freedom" player.
I also use Firefox, and I plan to keep using it while waiting for the current managers to get replaced by someone who actually understands that you need a strong browser to even have a place at the table.
I'm curious, what would caring about Firefox look like to you? They've released around 12 new versions of Firefox during 2023.
The side projects that some complains about I to some respect think is a good thing as it can help to diversify revenue sources. The only way Firefox is ever going to be a cashcow is how it is a cashcow today which at the end of the day puts Mozilla in a somewhat precarious situation.
First and foremost, allow me to donate to Firefox. Not to the foundation, to Firefox. Second, and related, increase Firefox' budget. Remember how extensions were essentially dead on Android since 2020 until recently? Or how they fired a chunk of the Rust team due to budget cuts? That should not have happened.
Third, put Firefox front and center. The article linked here has exactly one mention of Firefox, and that's in the standard footer at the very bottom. The fact that "State of Mozilla" doesn't talk about Firefox as point one (or at all) worries me.
Fourth, go to the offensive. Stop chasing whatever Chrome is doing and, more important, stop implementing their every dumb idea. I am glad they said no to Manifest V3 but, at the same time, I can't remember when was the last time they stood their ground before that (and even then, they are following Chrome's lead too).
I'm fine with exploring other sources of revenue, but I worry that those sources are benefiting Mozilla more than they are benefiting Firefox. The fact that Firefox' usage has plummeted and yet the CEO has not lost their job over it is, to me, a worrisome indicator of where Mozilla's priorities are.
> First and foremost, allow me to donate to Firefox. Not to the foundation, to Firefox.
I’d like to see this too. They already have a donation option for Thunderbird, which is officially under MZLA Technologies Corporation. There could be something similar for Firefox.
Not complete sure on this, but right now the only way to give money to Mozilla Corporation (the one owning and developing Firefox) is by subscribing to Mozilla VPN (offered by Mullvad). I don’t think any subscriptions to Pocket or MDN Plus go towards Firefox development and support. All these paid subscriptions are available only in certain countries though.
They do have a fixed release window, don't they?
So the amount of versions per year is not really meaningful.
Laying off the Servo team is one example I remember, that didn't look like Mozilla cares about Firefox.
Personally I keep on using Firefox and can't really complain about the browser itself, even though it's noticeable that incompatibilities increased over the years as the market share decreased.
I also agree, that it's the correct approach for Mozilla to search for different revenue streams. They just haven't been succesful with that for years, which together with the fact, that market share is declining drastically, paints a bleak future for Mozilla.
A lot of people care about Mozilla's declared goal of an "open internet" (for which a browser monoculture is the greatest risk). That's why you hear so many complains.
There are two complaints I see in this thread: they are being distracted by social justice stuff, and they are overpaid and wasting money they desperately need for technical matters.
IMO the former is not really all that consequential to most people. If you are just a user, you don’t have to abide by any of their contributor guidelines.
The money thing seems troubling, though.
It would be preferable if the web wasn’t so over complicated that it required a multi-billion dollar company to make a browser.
At this point there’s really no other browser. There’s Chromium, and there’s Firefox. With manifest V3 being removed from Chromium, the non-Firefox alternatives might as well all be identical.
Yes, I gave up on Firefox many years ago and use Chromium now. This is because of the identity politics and feminist "code of conduct" speech code being pushed by the organization. I know Google is no better, but I still did it to make a statement to Mozilla. Enough people doing that might get them to stop this nonsense.
Mozilla considered harmful. A bizarre money redistribution (and storage?) operation. The only thing people at large really want from it, Firefox, is an underfunded afterthought.
I really wish Mozilla would stay out of politics, especially identity politics. And I've seen some pro-censorship advocacy from them in the name of Internet "safety."
I closed my eyes on the ceo story and the politics and continued using it as "the only alternative" to Chrome until I got a pop up on my phone basically suggesting who I should vote for in some American election. I've never even been in that country.
They should stay out of politics completely. This incident is a matter for law enforcement to deal with, not Mozilla. Mozilla is a tech firm, it's purpose is to develop a Web browser, period. It should not be involved in social policies.
I personally abhor Donald Trump, by the way. But I still think deplatforming and censorship are wrong.
Does it say they are shutting up shop with immediate effect? I'm not sure because somebody stuck a "display: none" attribute on the <body>. Now if that doesn't accurately reflect mozilla these I don't know what does. "nothing to see here"
It would help if their mobile browser were actually good. But ever since their rebuild a few years back, one still can only use a very limited number of addons, and there are still some bizarre GUI behaviours that should be easy to fix. Perhaps giving people a reason to install FF Mobile by offering the superior product should be their focus instead of their myriad of doomed side projects.
A few months ago they released a version of Nightly that would crash for most users on startup every time. It was up on the Play store for several days.
That would normally be a buyer-beware situation as with any dev build, but Mozilla had purposely locked several important features - such as about:config configuration and loading any extension - behind the Nightly version, forcing users into that kind of experience.
Most of the problems I have are that when opening a new tab, FF does not show the content. I need to copy paste the url to another tab, and then it works.
Not much has changed since their realization 3 years ago that they need to diversify their revenue. It was then presented as an urgent life/death matter and justification for multiple rounds of layoffs, but very little progress was made as far as I can tell.
In the "mission" statement they're doubling down on a total lack of self-reflection. They actually think they're in the position to "shape" markets and the internet in general.
How so? Just look at AI. How is a 10M Mozilla proof of concept going to move the needle against Google and OpenAI/Microsoft throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it? Where exactly is Mozilla's relevance in influencing anything at all?
And yes, the political brand is annoying and distracting. The "do-good" internet traditionally aligns to liberal, moderate progressive politics. Mozilla's current "woke" brand is not the same thing. It reeks of DEI, identity politics, intersectional feminism, anti-whiteness.
I don't care if you subscribe to these politics, I'm saying it's not moderate nor neutral. It's sub brand of highly polarized US politics that is widely unpopular outside of it. If you claim to stand for the worldwide internet, this is not "inclusive".
Luckily though, it turns out to be a case of woke capitalism. The budget for software development is 221M, the budget for "leadership" 109M.
They do a lot of leading at Mozilla. Nobody knows what exactly is led as zero promises or roadmaps are tangible or deliver anything. When you check board members, fellows and grants...it just leaves you puzzled at what these people do, how it helps, and how it moves the needle.
They can't help themselves. They are used to getting free money by literally doing nothing: keeping the search box aimed at Google. Next they piss it all away on useless initiatives where failure has no consequences.
If they really were trying they'd make material improvements to the browser to entice new inexperienced Firefox users, for instance by shipping an adblocker, turned on by default, like Brave has. Of course experienced users can install an adblocker themselves, but there is no growth potential in maintaining the status quo. Buying ads is pointless if they can't clearly communicate unambiguous objective practical upsides to switching.
For bonus points, this would also silence their critics who say Mozilla is Google's lapdog. But of course they cannot do this because the critics are correct.
So it's my fault when Firefox lost share to Chrome, and a mysterious coincidence, or at best nothing to my credit, that Brave grew from 0 to ~60M from 2015 when I cofounded it -- makes sense!
Your obsession with me, evident in the need to well-ackshually almost every HN post that might be considered positive about my work, is frankly creepy. I've already been erased from Mozilla's site, a la Stalin-era pre-photoshop photo touchups. No worries -- let it go, the past is in the past.
Such wild extrapolations from a simply stated fact. They suggested you kept Firefox on the rails. Pointing out it was off the rails didn't imply you derailed it.
> Your obsession with me, evident in the need to well-ackshually almost every HN post that might be considered positive about my work, is frankly creepy.
This is nonsense. My comments about Brave have been infrequent and neutral or slightly positive mostly. Recently I did list common criticisms to correct a claim about why people disliked Brave. My criticisms of Mozilla and Firefox have been non technical decisions made after you left mostly if not only. And even pointing out when Firefox's decline began wasn't all about you. Any future for Firefox depends on understanding its decline.
> I've already been erased from Mozilla's site, a la Stalin-era pre-photoshop photo touchups.
Were you removed from any photos in this way? Or was it histrionic exaggeration?
Mozilla's site hosts posts by you, posts by others mentioning you, historical documents by you, and credits for your work.
> No worries -- let it go, the past is in the past.
You still wear a mask? You're on the wrong side of that psyop, at least. But I'm not mandating that you unmask: if your face diaper makes you feel safe, by all means wear one.
In the hopes of someone at Mozilla reading this, I don't like you or anything of what you do, you're simply just more tolerable than google but you are not fun, not great, not good, your browser is ok but as a company you are just annoying and i wish you'd shut up more.
A few folk commenting on Mozilla's dependence on Google for revenue; it would certainly be easier to reason about reducing that dependence if their expenditure was a little more transparent: killing various projects as cost cutting measures seems odd in the context of their published management salary figures.