I think it’s fascinating how languages shape our society. In this case, the ambiguity between free as in “at no cost” and free as in “freedom” is probably hurting the FOSS landscape. In French, there are two very distinct terms for this: “gratuit” vs “libre”. And it doesn’t sound as an oxymoron to pay for a “logiciel libre”.
I think people on tech forums overestimate the significance of this in today’s world.
Back in the early days of FOSS, when almost everyone who used software was also a programmer, it made a difference.
Today, nearly all people who would care about libre software licenses, are aware of their existence. The vast majority of computer users today are just attempting to do some other task and do not give a shit about the device or the legal consequences of using it, even if you warn them. They simply don’t care about software.
I realize it's far from a perfect solution to finance the creators of the only browser I consider usable today - but I subscribed to Mozilla's VPN service some two years ago, even though I virtually never use it, and mostly to help them make a bit of a buck through me. (And still, it is nice to have the option of geoblocking circumvention at the ready, although I'd wish for them to just support "ordinary" wireguard/wq-quick as a client option).
FOSS leads to enshittification, advertising, and bad practices.
Paid software ensures quality assurance.
I believe counter-examples exist for both models. Many FOSS projects have avoided becoming tools for user exploitation, while numerous paid software products have deteriorated due to corporate greed.
Who's going to tell him about Mozilla's situation?
> Charging for open-source software may sound hypocritical, but even the Free Software Foundation believes software fees and software freedom are completely compatible.
Paid support always has been allowed in free software. The issue here is two-fold:
1. When most people hear 'free software' they immediately think it is 'free' as in gratis (for nothing) and expect free support.
2. Especially for funding browsers it has always been an issue around who is going to pay for the long-term support without ads, tracking or VCs.
We need more paid stuff. Making everything advertising funded has given advertisers too much power over society. We don't see real human opinion anymore, we see advertising friendly opinions.
Hard agree. I pay for monthly hosting like FreshRSS, Wallabag, etc and support the devs who make those projects. Privacy and developer support. And it's not that much.
Definitely interested in making Firefox, Thunderbird, etc sustainable too.
Welcome to the world of MacOS X, where there is a very healthy ecosystem of pay-once apps made by everything from giant corporations, to boutique software shops to individual developers.
I have found that whatever software I need or want, I can always find the best-in-class option to buy for a very reasonable price.
The best part: If you experience a bug or a problem, it's usually fixed within a few days at most after you report it.
I paid for Mozillla Pocket Premium and they canceled their product within a few months, did not properly open-source the server, did not export my "permanent library" and refunded 6$.
As the websites in the "permanent library" are partially offline, that data is now lost.
No thanks, not buying again.
Someone should fork Firefox, strip all copyrighted stuff, and severe all ties to Mozilla. Worked great for Rust, Servo, Thunderbird and several other projects dumped by Mozilla.
But honestly Firefox has way too much technical debt. Starting new browser (Ladybird, webkit) seems like much better way to go! There are several independent browsers!
I would happily pay monthly for Firefox - but not to Mozilla Corporation. Will Pay to developers, development support and operations - not to pad the CEO salary.
I used to want to donate to Mozilla Foundation, but I've long lost any hope that the corporation would spend that money in a way that makes sense to me. The pessimist on me would expect donated money to be spent on more built-in "campaigns", "studies" or ads. Or maybe a bonus for their executives.
I just want Firefox to be faster. I'm donating to Floorp (a Firefox fork), at least they seem focused on making the browser better.
I agree with your opinion of that corp which as of today exists solely to employ the highly paid CEO for doing less than nothing. Or something on those lines.
But Firefox (+ forks) is a lost cause. One simple non-statistical reason, I mean it seems so, is that whenever I see that “I donate to Firefox fork” mentioned somewhere, it’s almost always a different fork. So maybe now Firefox will die a 100 deaths.
I went there to find out how they're tracking upstream releases, because that's my major heartburn about any fork of one of the biggest attack targets on a personal computer. Since 12.0.14 doesn't tell me anything about what version of Firefox it's built against, I guess https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp/blob/v12.0.14/brow... is the best one can do and since it says 128.anything and the current production release is 140.0.4 I got my answer
Yeah, always thought this was incredibly short-sighted.
You have an orders-of-magnitude smaller non-profit-ish thing going toe to toe with THREE of the hugest and most powerful companies to ever exist -- and generally holding their own for freedom.
It's good to be critical and influence, they do make bad decisions sometimes.
But COME ON, given what they're up against, most of the time I want y'all to just shut up and keep giving them money.
I just want to see a pie chart with how they spend any donations. I also don't mind their forays into stuff like free speech and internet privacy, but beyond that they should stay out of politics. That said I have donated a few times since I use firefox as my primary browser. Their activities are far superior to anything that Brave and Google are up to
No worries, if you donate to "Mozilla", i.e. the Mozilla Foundation, you're unlikely to fund built-in "campaigns", "studies" or ads. You're more likely to fund sociology-style campaigns and studies that have absolutely nothing to do with Firefox (https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/what-we-fund/), because the development is done by the corporation.
Yet when you search for "donate to firefox" you will first find one of two Mozilla Foundation donation page... Just making it possible to actually donate "to Firefox" would probably help a lot...
I would rather pay for Kagi/Orion if they ever went cross platform. I like the idea of paying for my search and browser package with LLMs bundled in. I don't want to get locked into the Apple ecosystem even more than I am so I going to need Linux/Android support at least in Beta
There should be a donation box solely for Firefox. If that exists, that is no different than paying for Firefox. We will see how many people would actually "pay" for Firefox.
The risk with paid Forefox will be privacy loss, because the app will need to verify somehow the paid status. So there will be some unique, personal licence on the device and Mozilla can identify users using payment info.
The licence will be likely checked via remote API on app start.
It's become a meme, but consider WinRAR. Odds are, it's installed on your machine and you haven't paid for it. It just works. It brings up a polite nag box but it doesn't sell your data. It doesn't invade your privacy. It just works and makes enough money to keep getting updated.
It sounds hokey but, perhaps, Firefox should be trialware. Don't cut off the people who can't pay. Make a browser that just works and see how many people will pay for it even if they can use it without paying.
The WinRAR model is actually a brilliant (and weirdly wholesome) example. It trusts users to do the right thing, doesn't punish them for not paying, and somehow it still survives
If Mozilla made a popup for payment that came up on every application start people would lose their fucking minds. I mean riot in the streets, assassinate Mozilla CEO levels of insanity.
The sheer entitlement of Firefox users knows no bounds. They made a tiny little pocket button, which you can turn off, btw, and people shat on it for months on end and said Mozilla is dead and switched to Chrome. Because we all know Chrome, fucking Google Chrome, respects their users.
After a certain point we have to call a spade a spade. I mean, Mozilla could write every user a check for 100 dollars and assholes would still complain. The greatest adversary to Mozilla isn't Google, it's their own users.
See, the problem is that Chrome markets to the average Goo Goo Ga Ga internet idiot. To them, Computer is magic box, and a browser is an operating system. They don't give a flying fuck that Google records their location 24/7, or that Google builds profiles on them, or that Google killed Manifest V2, or whatever. Google could shit in their mouths and call it ice cream and they'd believe it.
Meanwhile, Firefox users care about privacy and the internet at least a little bit. That means Firefox is held to a standard 1000x greater than Chrome ever could be. For every 1,000 mis-steps Chrome and Google can make, Mozilla is allowed one.
I’m going to bump this figure once again here: Mozilla has made $37.5M from investment income in 2023. [1] That might not be enough to sustain browser development alone, but it is surely a lot of money and charging for Firefox would likely be a drop in the bucket (considering many people would just stop using it instead).
Cut the bullshit initiatives, fire the C-suite and put that money to work.
There are so many privacy improving Firefox forks out there. These people should unite and start a non profit to handle further development that's in line with the least common denominators of what they all try to achieve and abandon Mozilla for good. Giving more money to this compromised entity won't help anyone. Mozilla should just die.
Since 85% of Mozilla's current revenue comes from Google paying to have their search engine set as the default on Mozilla, and given that this is at risk due to last year's antitrust ruling against Google, they will need to diversify regardless.
121 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 87.5 ms ] threadFor example Thunderbird is fully funded by donations.[1]
Of course Thunderbird's budget is in a different magnitude than Firefox but I'd guess the amount of users is also in a different magnitude.
[1] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
Back in the early days of FOSS, when almost everyone who used software was also a programmer, it made a difference.
Today, nearly all people who would care about libre software licenses, are aware of their existence. The vast majority of computer users today are just attempting to do some other task and do not give a shit about the device or the legal consequences of using it, even if you warn them. They simply don’t care about software.
It would remove the awkward ad-hoc parentheses at every instance.
Besides: The Americans will LOVE it!
By the way, how do you prove that a paid for version has no tracking?
Telegram is a good example of a public app that was free, and bleeding, they introduced paid features and are profitable.
Never they forced you to pay for existing stuff, nor sold your soul on the way to profitability.
I don't want Mozilla to sink so I see why they've done this kind of thing in the past, but I really don't like it.
> Charging for open-source software may sound hypocritical, but even the Free Software Foundation believes software fees and software freedom are completely compatible.
Paid support always has been allowed in free software. The issue here is two-fold:
1. When most people hear 'free software' they immediately think it is 'free' as in gratis (for nothing) and expect free support.
2. Especially for funding browsers it has always been an issue around who is going to pay for the long-term support without ads, tracking or VCs.
Definitely interested in making Firefox, Thunderbird, etc sustainable too.
I have found that whatever software I need or want, I can always find the best-in-class option to buy for a very reasonable price.
The best part: If you experience a bug or a problem, it's usually fixed within a few days at most after you report it.
But honestly Firefox has way too much technical debt. Starting new browser (Ladybird, webkit) seems like much better way to go! There are several independent browsers!
Probably would take that money and immediately spent it more on https://mozilla.vc/
I'll happily pay when what happened to Netscape, happens to Mozilla.
I just want Firefox to be faster. I'm donating to Floorp (a Firefox fork), at least they seem focused on making the browser better.
But Firefox (+ forks) is a lost cause. One simple non-statistical reason, I mean it seems so, is that whenever I see that “I donate to Firefox fork” mentioned somewhere, it’s almost always a different fork. So maybe now Firefox will die a 100 deaths.
I went there to find out how they're tracking upstream releases, because that's my major heartburn about any fork of one of the biggest attack targets on a personal computer. Since 12.0.14 doesn't tell me anything about what version of Firefox it's built against, I guess https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp/blob/v12.0.14/brow... is the best one can do and since it says 128.anything and the current production release is 140.0.4 I got my answer
You have an orders-of-magnitude smaller non-profit-ish thing going toe to toe with THREE of the hugest and most powerful companies to ever exist -- and generally holding their own for freedom.
It's good to be critical and influence, they do make bad decisions sometimes.
But COME ON, given what they're up against, most of the time I want y'all to just shut up and keep giving them money.
Yet when you search for "donate to firefox" you will first find one of two Mozilla Foundation donation page... Just making it possible to actually donate "to Firefox" would probably help a lot...
The licence will be likely checked via remote API on app start.
It sounds hokey but, perhaps, Firefox should be trialware. Don't cut off the people who can't pay. Make a browser that just works and see how many people will pay for it even if they can use it without paying.
The sheer entitlement of Firefox users knows no bounds. They made a tiny little pocket button, which you can turn off, btw, and people shat on it for months on end and said Mozilla is dead and switched to Chrome. Because we all know Chrome, fucking Google Chrome, respects their users.
After a certain point we have to call a spade a spade. I mean, Mozilla could write every user a check for 100 dollars and assholes would still complain. The greatest adversary to Mozilla isn't Google, it's their own users.
See, the problem is that Chrome markets to the average Goo Goo Ga Ga internet idiot. To them, Computer is magic box, and a browser is an operating system. They don't give a flying fuck that Google records their location 24/7, or that Google builds profiles on them, or that Google killed Manifest V2, or whatever. Google could shit in their mouths and call it ice cream and they'd believe it.
Meanwhile, Firefox users care about privacy and the internet at least a little bit. That means Firefox is held to a standard 1000x greater than Chrome ever could be. For every 1,000 mis-steps Chrome and Google can make, Mozilla is allowed one.
As an independent alternative, the Ladybird browser (https://ladybird.org/) is being developed and could possibly benefit from more financial support.
I mind that it's written in c++ less, than that their forum for feedback seems to be twitter, and they are trying to adopt swift as their language...
Hard pass.
But practically, this will likely just kill Firefox (and Mozilla).
Cut the bullshit initiatives, fire the C-suite and put that money to work.
https://mozillapetition.com/
[1]: https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/File:501c3_2023_990_Mozi...