They should do it like Signal: accept donations. Signal is doing just fine. But Mozilla cannot legally do that as they are a for-profit company. And Mozilla Foundation won’t do that either because they are funded by Mozilla and under their command.
Those are restrictions for charitable organizations, not for-profit organizations. AFAIK, for-profit companies can accept donations, they’re just not tax-deductible and the corp would need to pay taxes on it since it’s income.
The problem is the business models revolve around the software. You cannot directly compare them without also comparing the complexity and manpower required to achieve it. Just take a look at W3C spec and you’ll see just how many cases there are to handle when making a browser. Not to mention making it secure and performant. Also, if you want to support web push technology on your browser you also need to have infrastructure to maintain. A donation may work but you’ll have to be content with slow development since the resources can be uncertain.
They should do it like Signal: accept donations. Signal is doing just fine. But Mozilla cannot legally do that as they are a for-profit company. And Mozilla Foundation won’t do that either because they are funded by Mozilla and under their command.
Signal is a teeny tiny little pet project compared to an entire browser and rendering engine.
You can accept donations if you’re a for-profit company, there’s no rule against that.
You can do crowdfunding. But general donations is illegal in the US if I understand that correctly. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-solicitation-state-requirements
Those are restrictions for charitable organizations, not for-profit organizations. AFAIK, for-profit companies can accept donations, they’re just not tax-deductible and the corp would need to pay taxes on it since it’s income.
Google pays them 400 million. You really think they’re going to get anywhere close to that from donations?
You underestimate the complexity of a web browser if you compare it to instant messaging app
They’re comparing the business models, not the software itself.
The problem is the business models revolve around the software. You cannot directly compare them without also comparing the complexity and manpower required to achieve it. Just take a look at W3C spec and you’ll see just how many cases there are to handle when making a browser. Not to mention making it secure and performant. Also, if you want to support web push technology on your browser you also need to have infrastructure to maintain. A donation may work but you’ll have to be content with slow development since the resources can be uncertain.