We often forget what Mozilla has made for us. Internet wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t for that group of developers that took Netscape web browser and transformed it into an Open Source project called Mozilla at first and then Firefox.
That project was one milestone of a road that was always synonym of freedom and openness (would I dare to say… ‘unshutness‘?). Since that moment, Mozilla has stayed independent and has fought against much bigger companies with much deeper pockets.
It has suffered the consequences, of course. Firefox lost part of its market share due to the popularity (and good features) of Chrome, and other projects suffered from the Open Source curse: it doesn’t matter if it’s better, they’re probably “only suited for geeks”.
The Firefox web browser is just the best example of what defines Mozilla: a defense of open standards for an open web. There are lots of other additional efforts to defend that idea. Lots of them.
So when you find arguments like the ones Psy-Q’s Braindump has showed on his excellent post, you can’t help thinking about what Mozilla has made for us. BTW, this discussion on Hacker News explains it well: the donations are for The Mozilla Foundation (manifesto) which “relies entirely on donations”. Mozilla Corp -the one behind Firefox development- “makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo! search commissions)”.
And that is worth any donation. I’ve just donated $10 dollar.
Image | keerochee
