Comments on: Mozilla's nonprofit status key to its growth

Mozilla is giving Microsoft fits because its motivations are so different, which allows it to attract community development and focus on doing what's right for the Web, not itself.

[Mr. Dee]

But you miss the point Matt, if it wasn't for Googles money, Mozilla wouldn't have the resources to further its own agenda. Take Google out of the Search box in Firefox equation and you got a lost cause. The model is also seen through other projects such as Redhat/Fedora, Novell Desktop/OpenSUSE, SUN/OpenSolaris, Star Office and Lotus Symphony/OpenOffice.

Have these projects benefited from the same business model? No, they are still trying to eek out whatever itty bitty market share that exist. So whatever works for Mozilla does not necessarily work for everywhere in Open Source. I suspect as Chrome begins to claim market share against both IE and Mozilla, you are gonna see some Fireworks! Don't be surprised if you see Bing as default search engine in Firefox 2 years from now.

[Matt Asay]

I didn't suggest that Firefox's model is the Great Panacea for all open source. If it were, you'd see my company, Alfresco, following that model. I simply said that its nonprofit nature is critical to its ability to scale community.

[TotallyMadeUpName]

You need to double check your numbers in the 1st paragraph. According to the Digital Daily article you referenced, IE, not Firefox, has a 48% market share in Europe (as of April). Firefox's share is still a respectable 31%.

[Matt Asay]

You're 100% correct. Sloppiness on my part. Thanks for catching it.

[vikinzer]

To both previous commentors, I think you miss the point.

To Mr. Dee. Matt is not saying the foundation model is good for ALL open source. He is saying that it has benefits for Mozilla, and is probably a good model to look at for many open source development systems. It of course won't work for everything. In terms of the Google search thing, let's not kid ourselves. Google was big when Firefox made that agreement, but they were made larger by the agreement. Google wouldn't have nearly the success they have now if Firefox weren't using them as the default search engine, and if that weren't true they wouldn't have agreed to pay Mozilla all that money. Chrome is about creating a platform that furthers their other projects. The fact that is inherently is in competition with Mozilla is a problem, but browser market isn't Google's goal. It might be a necessary step to their goal, and that will cause sparks, but Google will think twice before giving up that default search status. I have worked in not-for profits, and you need a way to make revenue to continue operating, the search deal is just that, and can be changed if necessary. Mozilla's large bank account and savings patters are probably in place because they know things can change at a moments notice. They are more ready for it than people give them credit for.

to TotallyMadeUpName. Static market share numbers like you show here are a moment in time. Without knowing the trends they are moving in they are somewhat meaningless. When you look at those numbers in relation to how many months in a row IE has lost ground and Firefox has gained ground the 48 to 31 isn't nearly as impressive.

Finally to Matt. While I obviously disagree with the above arguments I do also have to point out certain flaws in the foundation model. While being pushed by vaguely related business needs can cause less than ideal ends for the final user, being motivated to make sales does push forward development. Firefox had become a completely unacceptable memory hog, far beyond the realms of reasonable inefficiencies. The only way they got away with it was having IE as the other only option. Better than IE doesn't take much, and Opera while nice had some issues. Then Chrome came along and poof Firefox got into the efficient code game again. Having a little of all columns makes for better products overall, and while your comment about people not being able to afford to deploy across platforms has more than a kernel of truth, the fact that people can't afford browser mono culture and the problems it breeds rings awfully true as well. The fact that even in the Firefox/IE duopoly the kinds of flaws that Firefox 2.0 harbored still reared their ugly head and could only be vanquished by a third competitor says a lot.

[TotallyMadeUpName]

To Vikinzer. All I'm saying is that Matt is is quoting some numbers and referencing a web news story as their source, yet the numbers he quotes and the numbers in the story don't match.

[Matt Asay]

Very good points (and not just when you agree with me :-). I absolutely think that sales can help motivate companies to do lots of good things, in addition to lots of bad things. Consider Google: it was the search for a business model that led to its impressive advertising model, which enables it to "give away" so much value while making it up in advertising. For something like an industry standard browser (in the broadest sense), I do think a nonprofit foundation makes sense, but I don't feel the same for content management systems, obviously.

[BrucePerens]

Most successful Open Source projects are either formal non-profits, or effectively operated as non-profits even though they have a broad corporate participation.

Rather than being a good way to operate Open Source projects, this may be the only way. Red Hat is sitting atop a pyramid of non-profit projects, with Fedora at the top and all of the various projects for the components of Fedora below that. And they are the only Open Source company that has shown long-term viability so far.

I continue to believe that the Profit-Center Open Source model as practiced by Alfresco et al tends to diverge from Open Source far enough to lose the key advantages of Open Source over the long term. This is shown today in the difficulty that Profit-Center Open Source projects have in getting customers to be software contributors, and their general lack of engagement with large non-customer software contributor communities, who favor projects like Druipal which are less bound to whatever Profit-Center Open Source companies exist around them. Eventually the Profit-Center Open Source companies will end up operating as proprietary software companies, or folding their tents.

I think the real key to business success is engaging both non-customer contributors and customers - which are two very different communities. MySQL was very successful at this before Sun.

[Matt Asay]

I think I mostly agree with you, Bruce, except that I think it's difficult for *any* project to get significant outside community involvement, as all the research I've seen (and blogged before) suggests. As for Drupal, take a look at its contributor community: it's a body of profit-driven SIs, in large part, which to me suggests that the commercial open source model should find ways to appeal to these parties, not to the mythical developer sitting alone in her garage, just itching to contribute to Project X.

[BrucePerens]

Well, I think that most of the folks in the software contributor communities are employed in a cost-center capacity (IT department, etc.) and are not garage hobbyists. They are the folks who have decided to choose a project with an active developer community composed of other cost-center employees. Drupal certainly qualifies as one. I don't see so far that Alfresco wishes to be one. It's not clear how you would build a bridge to that community under your present model.

As I am launching a project-based company (for a presently unannounced project) this is on my mind. MySQL got the relationship with the contributor community right, and I'd like to emulate that.