[Foundation-l] Fundraising banner ad

[Anthony]

On 10/23/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> For comparison, see the Mozilla Foundation's update on their finances:
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mitchell/archives/2007/10/beyond_sustainability.html
>
> Their expenditures are much higher than ours, with a different balance
> (more people, less hosting), and their revenue is much, *much* bigger --
> and almost all from a single partnership with Google.
>
That's a combination of Mozilla Foundation *and* Mozilla Corporation,
which makes it incredibly misleading.

> It's cool that they're riding high on the Google wave, but it's also a
> precarious position; if Google pulled out, they'd lose almost all their
> revenue.

If Google pulled out, they'd find someone else to pay big bucks to be
the default search in Firefox.  And it's not like they'd lose revenue
while looking for someone new - surely they renegotiate these
contracts months before they expire.

You seem to be implying that this revenue from Google is a donation.
It's not.  It's Google paying Mozilla Corporation (not Mozilla
Foundation) to get tons of traffic by being the default search
provider.