Milestone: The Mozilla Corporation is created

Gervase Markham wrote on July 5, 2013 at 3:59 pm:

Here’s the email which went to contributors a few days before the announcement:

Dear Mozilla Contributor,

The Mozilla Foundation is going to be making a significant
organizational announcement Wednesday morning (PST). As a valued member
of the Mozilla community, we would like to let you know about this
change before we make the announcement. If you are comfortable with not
talking to anyone about this information until we formally make the
announcement, please let me know and I will send you a follow up
e-mail.

Thanks,
-Scott

Here’s the text of the follow up e-mail which explains the change. I
copied a few items straight from the public FAQ.

On Wednesday, the Mozilla Foundation will be announcing the creation of
a wholly owned subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation to do product
development and distribution of Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird
and related Mozilla branded products based on the Mozilla open source
code base.

This decision is a direct result of the success of the Mozilla project
and the Mozilla Foundation in driving widespread adoption of Firefox
and other Mozilla-based products. Establishing a separate subsidiary,
the Mozilla Corporation, to handle
this productization of Mozilla technologies enables the Mozilla
Foundation to devote its full attention to the task of supporting the
Mozilla project and community; having the Mozilla Corporation handle
revenue-generating activities associated with these products also
allows the Mozilla Foundation to achieve its goals while still itself
remaining a tax-exempt organization.

There will be plenty of documentation and information (***make this
text a link to the announcement page***) available on
Wednesday, after the announcement,  that will go into much more detail
about this change than I am.  However, here are a few high level points:

* The two entities share the same goal; to promote choice and
innovation on the Internet. The Mozilla
Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation,
with a board of directors appointed by and held accountable to the
Mozilla Foundation board.
The two entities will work in an ongoing, collaborative process.

* Again, the subsidiary is a wholly owned entity of the Mozilla
Foundation, there is no stock or employee stake in the corporation.

* This change should not have any impact for Mozilla hackers. The
mechanisms driving the development of the
Mozilla
code base have not changed. Module owners, drivers, reviewers, and
super-reviewers all maintain their authority, and existing processes
and policies remain in place.
* Most of the existing Mozilla Foundation employees will move to
the Mozilla Corporation.

* The Mozilla Corporation will handle the product releases of
Firefox and Thunderbird. We (Foundation and Corporation) won’t have
separate versions of the products. Of course, others may still
distribute versions of Firefox and Thunderbird in
accordance with the Mozilla trademark policy.
* The products will still be free. The development will still be
open source.

* This decision was made by the Mozilla Foundation board of
directors with the help of an advisory committee that consisted of
several community members,

As a valued member of our community, we wanted to let you know about
this change before the announcement.  We appreciate your co-operation
in not discussing this with anyone until the announcement is made on
Wednesday August 3rd. Going forward, we’ll be relying on your input and
feedback  as we try to figure out answers to the various issues that
will come up as a result of this announcement.

Thanks,
-Scott

Scott is Scott MacGregor.

Gerv

1. Gervase Markham wrote on July 5, 2013 at 4:06 pm:

   To be more clear: that’s what Scott sent to the staff for approval. So contributors got the top section asking for discretion and then, if they replied, the bottom section. The text in italics is Scott’s explanation to staff; it wasn’t part of either email.

   Gerv