[xethos]

> 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 :)

[0] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...

[onli]

Oh, that's a close example I didn't think about at all. Maybe! Though I'm not sure what makes this subsidiary an inherently better structure?

[xethos]

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.