Mozilla Corporation
Encyclopedia
The Mozilla Corporation (abbreviated MoCo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation
that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet
-related application
s such as the Mozilla Firefox
and SeaMonkey Navigator
web browser
s and the Mozilla Thunderbird
email client by a growing global community of open-source developers, some of whom are employed by the corporation itself. The corporation also distributes and promotes these products. Unlike the non-profit
Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla
open source project, founded by the now defunct Netscape Corporation, the Mozilla Corporation is a tax
able entity. The Mozilla Corporation reinvests some or all of its profits back into the Mozilla projects. The Mozilla Corporation's stated aim is to work towards the Mozilla Foundation's public benefit
to "promote choice and innovation on the Internet."
As explained in a MozillaZine
article:
"The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in."
-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue. The Mozilla Corporation, as a taxable organization (essentially, a commercial operation), does not have to comply with such strict rules. Upon its creation, the Mozilla Corporation took over several areas from the Mozilla Foundation, including coordination and integration of the development of Firefox and Thunderbird (by the global free software community
) and the management of relationships with business
es.
With the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, the rest of the Mozilla Foundation narrowed its focus to concentrate on the Mozilla project's governance and policy issues. In November 2005, with the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5, the Mozilla Corporation's website at mozilla.com was unveiled as the new home of the Firefox and Thunderbird products online.
In 2006 the Mozilla Corporation generated 66.8 million dollars in revenue and 19.8 million in expenses, with 85% of that revenue coming from Google for "assigning [Google] as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages."
founder Jason Calacanis
reported a rumor on his blog that Mozilla Corporation gained $72M during the previous year, mainly thanks to the Google
search box in the Firefox browser. The rumor was later addressed by Christopher Blizzard
, a member of the Mozilla board, who wrote on his blog that "it’s not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude". "In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum - in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011."
In August 2006, Microsoft
posted a letter on Mozilla newsgroups and offered to open up a new open-source facility at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to Mozilla software engineers. Mozilla responded by accepting the offer.
On September 6, 2006 the Mozilla Corporation hired Window Snyder
, former security
strategist at Microsoft
. Snyder left Mozilla and began work for Apple Inc in March 2010.
is appointed by and responsible to the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors:
The Mozilla Corporation management team includes:
Other notable employees include (in alphabetical order):
Notable Mozilla Alumni include:
At the time of the Mozilla Corporation's creation, most of the Mozilla Foundation employees were transferred to the new organization.
Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property...
that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
-related application
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
s such as the Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
and SeaMonkey Navigator
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a free and open source cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code...
web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s and the Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
email client by a growing global community of open-source developers, some of whom are employed by the corporation itself. The corporation also distributes and promotes these products. Unlike the non-profit
Nonprofit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
open source project, founded by the now defunct Netscape Corporation, the Mozilla Corporation is a tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
able entity. The Mozilla Corporation reinvests some or all of its profits back into the Mozilla projects. The Mozilla Corporation's stated aim is to work towards the Mozilla Foundation's public benefit
Public benefit corporation
A public-benefit corporation is a public corporation chartered by a state designed to perform some public benefit.A public authority is a type of public-benefit corporation that takes on a more bureaucratic role, such as the maintenance of public infrastructure, that often has broad powers to...
to "promote choice and innovation on the Internet."
As explained in a MozillaZine
MozillaZine
MozillaZine is an unofficial website about the Mozilla project and provides information and support about products like the Firefox browser or the Thunderbird email client....
article:
"The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in."
Establishment
The Mozilla Corporation was established on August 3, 2005 to handle the revenueRevenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue. The Mozilla Corporation, as a taxable organization (essentially, a commercial operation), does not have to comply with such strict rules. Upon its creation, the Mozilla Corporation took over several areas from the Mozilla Foundation, including coordination and integration of the development of Firefox and Thunderbird (by the global free software community
Free software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
) and the management of relationships with business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
es.
With the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, the rest of the Mozilla Foundation narrowed its focus to concentrate on the Mozilla project's governance and policy issues. In November 2005, with the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5, the Mozilla Corporation's website at mozilla.com was unveiled as the new home of the Firefox and Thunderbird products online.
In 2006 the Mozilla Corporation generated 66.8 million dollars in revenue and 19.8 million in expenses, with 85% of that revenue coming from Google for "assigning [Google] as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages."
Notable events
In March 2006, Weblogs, Inc.Weblogs, Inc.
Weblogs, Inc. is a blog network of about 90 blogs, covering a variety of subjects, from computers and gaming . Roughly half of these blogs are regularly updated and maintained. Weblogs, Inc. was founded in September 2003.-History:...
founder Jason Calacanis
Jason Calacanis
Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture, Weblogs, Inc., capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL....
reported a rumor on his blog that Mozilla Corporation gained $72M during the previous year, mainly thanks to the Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
search box in the Firefox browser. The rumor was later addressed by Christopher Blizzard
Christopher Blizzard
Christopher Blizzard is an Open Source Evangelist working for the Mozilla Corporation and a long-time contributor to Open Source projects, notably with Mozilla, Red Hat, and One Laptop Per Child....
, a member of the Mozilla board, who wrote on his blog that "it’s not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude". "In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum - in 2006 the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company’s total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and will now run through 2011."
In August 2006, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
posted a letter on Mozilla newsgroups and offered to open up a new open-source facility at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., to Mozilla software engineers. Mozilla responded by accepting the offer.
On September 6, 2006 the Mozilla Corporation hired Window Snyder
Window Snyder
Mwende Window Snyder is a security and privacy product manager at Apple Inc. and the former Chief Security Something-Or-Other at Mozilla Corporation...
, former security
Computer security
Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to...
strategist at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. Snyder left Mozilla and began work for Apple Inc in March 2010.
People
The Mozilla Corporation Board of DirectorsBoard of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
is appointed by and responsible to the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors:
- Mitchell BakerMitchell BakerWinifred Mitchell Baker, better known simply as Mitchell Baker is the Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and Chairperson and former Chief Executive Officer of the Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet...
(Chairperson) - Reid HoffmanReid HoffmanReid G. Hoffman is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Hoffman is best known as the co-founder of LinkedIn, a social network used primarily for business connections and job searching.-Early education and career:...
, former CEOChief executive officerA chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,... - John Lilly
- Ellen SiminoffEllen SiminoffEllen Siminoff is an entrepreneur and investor. Siminoff was a founding executive and Senior Vice President of Yahoo, where she ran business development, corporate development, and the small business and entertainment business units between 1996 and 2002.Siminoff is currently Chief Executive...
, President and CEOChief executive officerA chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Shmoop University and Chairman of Efficient FrontierEfficient FrontierThe efficient frontier is a concept in Modern portfolio theory introduced by Harry Markowitz and others. A combination of assets, i.e. a portfolio, is referred to as "efficient" if it has the best possible expected level of return for its level of risk...
The Mozilla Corporation management team includes:
- Gary Kovacs, CEOChief executive officerA chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
- Brendan EichBrendan EichBrendan Eich is a computer programmer and creator of the JavaScript scripting language. He is the chief technology officer at the Mozilla Corporation.-Education:...
, CTO - Jim Cook, CFOChief financial officerThe chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...
- Chris Beard, Chief Marketing Officer
- Jay Sullivan, VPVice presidentA vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Products - Harvey Anderson, VPVice presidentA vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
, General Counsel
Other notable employees include (in alphabetical order):
- Christopher BlizzardChristopher BlizzardChristopher Blizzard is an Open Source Evangelist working for the Mozilla Corporation and a long-time contributor to Open Source projects, notably with Mozilla, Red Hat, and One Laptop Per Child....
, formerly of Red HatRed HatRed Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.... - Neil Deakin
- Asa DotzlerAsa DotzlerAsa Dotzler is an American software developer best known for his work as community coordinator for several Mozilla projects. He was founder of Mozilla's Quality Assurance and Testing Program, which grew under his leadership from just a few contributors when Dotzler joined the project to tens of...
, Director of Community Development - Dave MillerDave Miller (software developer)Dave Miller is an American software developer best known as the project leader and one of the main original developers of the Bugzilla bug tracking tool developed at Mozilla.Org. He assumed the role of Bugzilla's maintainer after the previous maintainer, Tara Hernandez, stepped down. His Bugzilla...
, lead developer of BugzillaBugzillaBugzilla is a Web-based general-purpose bugtracker and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project, and licensed under the Mozilla Public License.... - Johnny StenbäckJohnny StenbäckJohnny Stenbäck is a Finnish software developer mostly known for his work on the Mozilla browser. Johnny was one of the first developers outside of Netscape to get involved with the Mozilla source released by Netscape in March 1998. He started working on the source code soon after the release, then...
Notable Mozilla Alumni include:
- Mike ShaverMike ShaverMike Shaver is currently the Engineering Director at Facebook. He is known for his work on several other open source projects as well...
, VPVice presidentA vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Technical Strategy --> Facebook - Justin Fitzhugh, VPVice presidentA vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Engineering Operations --> Jive Software - John ResigJohn ResigJohn Resig is an application developer at Khan Academy. He was a JavaScript tool developer for the Mozilla Corporation. He is also the creator and lead developer of the jQuery JavaScript library. This library's goal is to simplify the process of writing cross-browser JavaScript code...
, Technical Evangelist (jQueryJQueryjQuery is a cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig...
Creator) --> Khan Academy - Mike SchroepferMike SchroepferMike Schroepfer is an entrepreneur, technical architect and manager who is the Vice President of Engineering at Facebook since his appointment in August 2008...
, VPVice presidentA vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Engineering --> Facebook
At the time of the Mozilla Corporation's creation, most of the Mozilla Foundation employees were transferred to the new organization.
See also
- Mozilla FoundationMozilla FoundationThe Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property...