Mozilla Foundation makes commercial move

Firefox developer is creating a for-profit subsidiary to pursue wider potential for the software.

The story "Mozilla Foundation makes commercial move" published August 3, 2005 at 3:56 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

[Scott W]

stay the good guys :p

as long as they don't lose sight of their aims, keep promoting open source software and keep the fox free then i am all for their new corporation.

[Jan Modaal]

And so it begins...

Ride the open-source hype train to get free publicity and establish a userbase, milk the community for zero-cost feedback and testing and then jump on the commercial train and milk your product for all it's worth.

If they think attaching a pricetag to FireFox is going to help adoption they're in serious need of an wakeup call.

And to cut the "but it's only for support!" responses: if your continued existance depends on people >NOT< being able to use your product so they'll have to purchase support then you have more incentive to make it harder to use rather than easier to use.

[Scott W]

SuSE

i use SuSE Linux and can get it for free. if i want support i have to purchase the full distro for £60. however, there is nothing wrong with it out of the box. there will be no forcing of people to pay for support as people can always find places to get it for free.

[PCCRomeo]

Well....It was only a matter of time..

But, even if they do do away with their free support forum (MozillaZine.org) I don't care because all the supporters on there are rude and could possibly end up driving away Firefox users.

Bill Gates if Right!

bill gates is right about the logic that "OSS is not you do as a dayjob, but only weekends and latenights". bye firefox, u will lose agaig, and this time plese don't come back. if u work for free sooner or later you will be out of cash, :)

[bobby_brady]

Reminds me of Netscape. RIP Firefox

Just when the going was getting good!

[hion2000]

Check again

This move was done to increase Mozilla's flexibility, avoid some tax issues, and be more presentable to other businesses. This'll help Mozilla gain funds from deals with other businesses so that they can hire more programmers, marketers, etc.

Mo$illa?

So do we get to call it Mo$illa now? LMAO!

[System Tyrant]

Looks like to me...

that the browser will still be free to all. I only see that they plan to charge for more than basic support. I have no problem with that. Nobody ever said open source meant free.

If the day comes that I would have to pay for Firefox then I will look to see if it offer me value.

[rmccabe916]

Hmm..

sounds like hypocrisy to me. I have heard so many people over on the Firefox side saying that Opera is only in it for the money. Guess who needs to rethink about that now.