Mozilla makes a brave hybrid move, and hopes to keep the corporation in its place. by risa
Today the Mozilla Foundation, previously all non-profit all the time, has announced a major spin-off called the Mozilla Corporation. Though many watchers with high hopes for open source will view this with trepidation, the actual changes being made will, I think, channel bigger bucks into a little software company with big ideas and a strong dedication to making open source a (more influential) reality. Mozilla Firefox is an open source browser that’s aimed itself at a ten percent market share and it’s well on it’s way. Open Journal Montreal editors are happy Firefox users, safely cruising the Internet behind our popup blockers, and gathering our pages in a layered and tidy way with browser tabs.
But though we have faith in the good intentions of this gang of open coders it’s a funny thing, dipping your toes into the corporate water. It’s hard to hold on to the pragmatic vision of a public good when your daily dealings are with other corporations. It’s hard not to get sucked in. We have discussed here on Open Journal, (in our recent article on Alberta’s plan for Canadian Health Care, for example), and I am exploring in my MA thesis, how open hybrid systems might work, and how, in the history of communication, networks tend to evolve toward distortion and monopoly under monied pressure.
Reading up on what this new Foundation-spawning-Corporation would look like when it all went down, I came across the best explanation of why open source feels so damn good (and why we’ll get all fluttered up trying to protect it).
Karim L. Lakhani is a researcher who will be sitting on the advisory board for this happy new hybrid, and in a recent blog post he explains how Mozilla’s development will be driven by the Foundation’s goal of public goodness and openness rather then the bright red bottom line, and then goes on to explore the difference between social protest and collaborative social construction:
I think this move has significant implications for social movements that care about changing the world at large. Most social movements are based on protest and boycotts. The means of fighting back against corporate and governmental institutions have always been to apply popular pressure on them. Open source communities have shown, that instead of protest, a focus on building alternative viable solutions can have much lasting and permanent impact. Building solutions that direclty compete in the marketplace puts pressure on firms in a way that boycotts and demonstration never can.
The Mozilla Statement says:
The broad adoption of Mozilla Firefox has created significant economic value both in Firefox itself and in a commercial ecosystem that is developing around Firefox,”
“This economic value is an unintended but real by-product of the Mozilla project’s overriding goal of providing a Web browser with enough market share to drive open standards on the Web. Carefully managed, this value and the resulting ability to generate revenue can be used to make the Mozilla project self-sustaining and help keep the Internet open and diverse,”(from the article in EWeek)
According to the article in the Red Herring, the labour of the two branches of Mozilla will be divided this way:
The foundation will focus on managing the open-source projects, distributing the source code, setting policies, and organizing relationships between participants in the projects. Meanwhile the new for-profit corporation will develop and deliver end-user products, and handle marketing, sponsorships, and distribution activities. The revenue-generating activities will help provide funds for the development and testing of various Mozilla products.
The Mozilla Corporation won’t be a traditional commercial entity, but will be wholly owned by the foundation itself. There will be no investors, employee dividends, or stock options.
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(T)here is the need to support Firefox as it grows to nearly a 10 percent share of the browser market after 75 million downloads, and makes increasing inroads against Microsoft Internet Explorer, even in the corporate market.
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Chris Blizzard of Red Hat will leave the board of the foundation to join the board of Mozilla Corporation. Mr. Blizzard, Ms. Baker, and Reid Hoffman, chief executive of LinkedIn, will also join the Mozilla Corporation board.
Mr. Blizzard insisted the new corporation is dedicated to the same mission as its nonprofit parent. He does not expect the corporation to begin charging users for its services, but it will be able to charge corporations that ask for customized browser modifications.
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He rejected the notion that the move was a return of the browser to private hands. “We don’t see any value in taking it private,” said Mr. Blizzard. “That would be a huge detriment to its success. Our motive is not return on shareholder value, but to promote innovation.
Will valiant Mozilla keep the greedy possible distortions of a well-loved public ressource at bay? Stay on top of these Mozilla movers, coders and shakers to have your say: Mitchell Baker: President of the Mozilla Corp. And Frank Hecker: Head of Policy for the Foundation.
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