Mozilla Foundation Forms New Organization to Further the Creation of Free, Open Source Internet Software, Including the Award-Winning Mozilla Firefox Browser

Widespread popularity of Mozilla Firefox enables new wholly owned subsidiary to pursue wide range of new opportunities to benefit the public

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., August 3, 2005 — The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit public benefit software development organization, today announced it has formed a wholly owned subsidiary to be known as the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Corporation is a taxable subsidiary that serves the non-profit, public benefit goals of its parent, the Mozilla Foundation, and the vast Mozilla community. It will continue to leverage resources from diverse sources to create and distribute great open and free-of-charge end-user products — such as the popular Mozilla Firefox Web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird email client — that promote choice and innovation on the Web.

The creation of the Mozilla Corporation reflects the continuing evolution and success of the Mozilla project. The Mozilla Foundation was launched two years ago in recognition of the importance of maintaining the vitality of the Mozilla project and its technology. Since then the Mozilla Foundation has seen unprecedented success, with its flagship product Mozilla Firefox approaching a 10 percent share of worldwide Internet usage and surpassing 75 million downloads. Mozilla Firefox has struck a chord with consumers worldwide, advancing their experience on the Web and reinforcing the importance of maintaining an open Internet.

"The formation of the Mozilla Corporation gives the Mozilla Foundation new capabilities for becoming even more successful in delivering innovative open source end-user products," said Mitchell Baker, president of Mozilla Corporation. "The Mozilla Corporation is not a typical commercial entity. Rather, it is dedicated to the public benefit goal at the heart of the Mozilla project, which is to keep the Internet open and available to everyone."

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 marketshare 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.

"The Mozilla Foundation's spirit and philosophy will be very much alive in the new organizational model. We needed to find the right vehicle for advancing a sustainable worldwide effort to promote innovation and choice on the Internet, but with the same goals, values and collaborative dynamics that made the Mozilla Foundation a successful member of the open source software community," said Mitch Kapor, chairman of the board of the Mozilla Foundation.

The Mozilla Foundation remains the nucleus for the Mozilla project. It maintains the primary responsibility for managing the open source project, stewarding and distributing the source code, setting policies, and organizing the relationships between all participants in the project. As the Mozilla Foundation focuses on the project's governance, infrastructure and source code, the Mozilla Corporation will focus on developing and delivering end-user products, including marketing, sponsorships and a range of distribution-related activities. These activities are also expected to generate revenue, but the Mozilla Corporation only intends to pursue those that fit with the Mozilla project's focus on end-user experience and are consistent with the public benefit goals of the parent Mozilla Foundation.

The new corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary to ensure that the Mozilla Foundation's principles will be the guiding force behind the Mozilla Corporation. Many of the Mozilla Foundation employees who have been working on development and marketing will now become employees of Mozilla Corporation. Both organizations will focus on developing and guiding the extensive community of participants which defines the Mozilla project and products.

The operations of the Mozilla project remain unchanged. Participants in the Mozilla project — both individual volunteers and commercial entities contributing the work product of their employees — will not experience any difference in the way the Mozilla code is developed, verified and incorporated into releases. The development methodology for Mozilla products, which is the result of many years of experience, did not change with the creation of the Mozilla Foundation two years ago, and will not change with the creation of the Mozilla Corporation.

Mozilla Foundation's Board of Directors will now include Mitch Kapor, Brian Behlendorf, Mitchell Baker, Brendan Eich, and Joichi Ito; Chris Blizzard of Red Hat leaves the Foundation Board to join the board of Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Corporation's Board of Directors will also include Blizzard, Baker and Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn.

Frank Hecker, a long-time Mozilla participant with a focus on project organization and policy, will join the Mozilla Foundation as its director of policy, as Mitchell Baker becomes the president of Mozilla Corporation. Brendan Eich, a co-founder and long-time technical leader of the Mozilla project, will become the chief technical officer of the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation has solicited the advice of a broad advisory committee to help shape the tenets and relationship of the two entities.

"The Mozilla Foundation continues in its role as the vital center of the Mozilla project, working on behalf of all participants and constituents in the Mozilla community to ensure it remains a successful and vibrant open source project," said Frank Hecker, director of Policy for the Foundation. "With the establishment of the Mozilla Corporation, the Foundation is well-positioned to build on and extend the past successes of the Mozilla project."

For more information, visit www.mozilla.org where Frequently Asked Questions, a list of advisory council members and their background, and links to blogs about this announcement are posted.

About the Mozilla Foundation

Established in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote choice and innovation on the Internet. The Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open source software project. It coordinates a range of contributors, including the activities of its wholly owned subsidiary the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation is based in Mountain View, California. Learn more about the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org.

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About the Mozilla Advisory Committee

As part of the process leading up to the establishment of the Mozilla Corporation, the Board of Directors of the Mozilla Foundation established an advisory committee to provide feedback on the board's proposed plan. The membership of the committee was selected to include views from Mozilla project community members and other people familiar with open source community and business issues, and an entrepreneurial perspective.

The charter of the committee was to review and discuss the proposed reorganization plan and advise the Board on how best to strike the appropriate balance of roles and responsibilities between the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation to ensure that the reorganization would be successful and would advance the goals of the overall Mozilla project.

The committee also assisted with creating the FAQ and other material published as part of the announcement of the reorganization, and helped in other ways with announcement-related activities.

The committee members were as follows:

Frank Hecker (Chair). Frank is a long-time Mozilla contributor (particularly in crypto, export and policy matters) and mozilla.org staff member. As part of the reorganization Frank joined the Mozilla Foundation as Director of Policy.

Danese Cooper. Danese was a long-time open source evangelist for Sun, and is now in a similar position at Intel; she is also a board member of Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Karim Lakhani. Karim is a PhD candidate at MIT and actively involved in academic research on open source; among other things, he co-edited the book "Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software". Karim is also a lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, and is affiliated with the Boston Consulting Group.

John Lilly. John is a board member of the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF), a founder of Reactivity, and recently an extremely helpful volunteer for the Mozilla Foundation. As part of the reorganization John joined the Mozilla Corporation.

Bob Lisbonne. Bob is the former head of the Netscape Client group and a long-time friend of the Mozilla project.

Scott MacGregor. Scott is the Thunderbird project lead and one of the original Mozilla Foundation employees. As part of the reorganization he will now be working at the Mozilla Corporation.

Gervase Markham. Gerv is a long-time Mozilla contributor and mozilla.org staff member, and recently joined the Mozilla Foundation as a part-time employee.

Tristan Nitot. Tristan is a long-time Mozilla contributor, and is co-founder and President of Mozilla Europe.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

General Questions

What is the Mozilla Foundation announcing today?

The Mozilla Foundation is creating a new wholly owned taxable subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, to do product development and distribution for Firefox, Thunderbird, and related branded products based on the Mozilla open source code base.

What is the role of the Mozilla Corporation?

The Mozilla Corporation is responsible for productizing and distributing Firefox, Thunderbird, and related branded products built on the Mozilla open source code base. The Mozilla Corporation's mission, shared by that of the Mozilla Foundation, is to promote choice and innovation on the Internet.

Why has the Mozilla Foundation decided to make this change?

The Mozilla Corporation was established to support the Mozilla Foundation's mission to ensure choice and innovation on the Internet by leveraging the economic value of Firefox which has resulted from its growing marketshare. By forming a commercial subsidiary, the revenue-generating activities of the new entity can provide funds to support development, testing, and productization of the various Mozilla open source technologies. This benefits both end-users of Firefox and Thunderbird, and developers and others who want to use the Mozilla open source code in various ways. 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.

However, the Mozilla Corporation is not a typical commercial entity and will only pursue revenue-generating activities that are consistent with offering end-users with the best experience possible.

How many employees will the Mozilla Corporation have and will they gain financially from the new entity going forward?

The Mozilla Corporation will have approximately 36 employees. The Mozilla Corporation is not a typical commercial entity and will not offer stock options and other traditional ownership interests to its employees.

Where will the Mozilla Corporation be based?

The Mozilla Corporation will be based in Mountain View, California, at the same address as the Mozilla Foundation.

When will the Mozilla Corporation begin operations?

The Mozilla Corporation will begin operations immediately.

What is the management team of the Mozilla Corporation?

Mitchell Baker has become the president of Mozilla Corporation. Brendan Eich, a co-founder and long-time technical leader of the Mozilla project, is now the chief technical officer of the Mozilla Corporation.
The board of directors of the Mozilla Corporation includes Mitchell Baker, Christopher Blizzard, and Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn. Mitchell Baker is president of the Mozilla Corporation.

Who will go to the Mozilla Corporation?

Most of the current employees of the Mozilla Foundation will move to the Mozilla Corporation. A complete list of Mozilla Corporation employees and their respective roles will be maintained on the Mozilla Corporation Web site.

Will the income from the Mozilla Corporation (or a percentage of it) be poured back into the Mozilla Foundation to further its mission?

All income generated by the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation (whether through charitable donations to the Mozilla Foundation or revenue generated by the Mozilla Corporation) will be used to further the goals of the Foundation, whether that income is retained by the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Corporation.

Who made the final decision to make this change?

The Mozilla Foundation board of directors made the decision to establish the Mozilla Corporation.

Organizational

What is the mission of the Mozilla Foundation going forward?

The mission of the Mozilla Foundation is the same as it always has been, namely to promote choice and innovation on the Internet. This mission is shared by the Mozilla Corporation as well.

What does this mean for Mozilla Foundation employees?

The Mozilla Foundation employees whose primary responsibilities involve developing, testing, and productizing the branded products (Firefox and Thunderbird) and assisting with development of their underlying code (e.g., the Gecko layout engine) will move to the Mozilla Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation retains oversight over the Mozilla open source project, and its employees will be responsible for project governance, promotion of the project, and other activities to ensure the future success of the project as a whole.

Who will remain with the Mozilla Foundation and who will lead it going forward?

The board of the Mozilla Foundation includes Mitch Kapor, Brian Behlendorf, Mitchell Baker, Brendan Eich, and Joichi Ito. Employees of the Mozilla Foundation (as opposed to Mozilla Corporation) include Frank Hecker, director of policy, Gervase Markham, and Zak Greant. A complete list of Mozilla Foundation employees and their respective roles will be maintained on the Mozilla Foundation's Web site in the near future.

What will the Mozilla Foundation's role be in developing or managing code going forward?

The Mozilla Foundation's primary role will be to oversee, direct, and promote the Mozilla open source project. The Mozilla Foundation will not be responsible for developing Mozilla code (although some Foundation employees may do so on a part-time basis), but will leave that to other organizations and individuals participating in Mozilla development, including the Mozilla Corporation.

How many employees does the Mozilla Foundation now have?

The Mozilla Foundation currently has three employees.

Who will lead the Mozilla Corporation and who will lead the Mozilla Foundation, and why?

The Mozilla Corporation will be led by Mitchell Baker. Mitchell Baker has been "Chief Lizard Wrangler" of the Mozilla project for many years, and for the past two years has been president of the Mozilla Foundation. Mitchell is extremely focused on the delivery and adoption of end user products like Mozilla Firefox in order to change the web, and is a natural choice to head the Mozilla Corporation. Technical direction of the project will be determined as it always has: through the collaborative work of contributors, led by Brendan Eich (who will move to the Mozilla Corporation).
Activities of the Mozilla Foundation will be overseen by Frank Hecker. Frank has been involved in the Mozilla project since before its official beginning; he was one of the key Netscape employees contributing to the decision to release the source code for Netscape Communicator, and since then has been a member of mozilla.org staff, the governing body of the Mozilla project. Over the years he has been heavily involved in Mozilla project policy and governance issues, a major focus of the Mozilla Foundation going forward.

How will the Mozilla Corporation interoperate with the Mozilla Foundation? What is the reporting structure?

In terms of overall governance the Mozilla Corporation will have a separate board of directors; members of the Mozilla Corporation's board will be appointed by the Mozilla Foundation board of directors. In terms of day-to-day project-related activities, employees of the Mozilla Corporation will interact with the Mozilla Foundation and other Mozilla project participants through the governance structures established by the Mozilla Foundation, including mozilla.org staff, drivers, modules owners, and so on. (Note that membership in these groups is open to any project participant.)

Products

Will there be multiple versions of Firefox on the market, including one from the Mozilla Foundation and others from the Mozilla Corporation?

The Mozilla Foundation will not distribute its own versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, but will leave that task to the Mozilla Corporation. However others may distribute versions of Firefox and Thunderbird in accordance with the Mozilla trademark policy; they are also free to distribute Mozilla-based products under their own brands.

Will users need to start paying for Firefox?

No. Firefox and Thunderbird will remain as they are today: free (i.e., no charge) products based on open source code.

Will the Mozilla Corporation be an exclusive distributor of Firefox?

No. Others may distribute versions of Firefox and Thunderbird under the same terms currently in effect; see the Mozilla trademark policy for more information.

How will this impact security for Firefox?

Security issues for Firefox and Thunderbird will continue to be handled as they are today: reports of potential Firefox and Thunderbird security vulnerabilities will be handled by the Mozilla security group according to the existing policies, and design and development of new security-related features will be directed by the lead developers for the various functional areas within Firefox and Thunderbird. Both the Mozilla security group and the group of lead developers (module owners") contain individual volunteer contributors and representatives of corporate contributors, as well as representatives from the Mozilla Corporation and (for the security group) the Mozilla Foundation.

Community

What role will the community have in the Mozilla Corporation?

The community will work with the Mozilla Corporation and its employees through the existing governance structures of the Mozilla project, such as mozilla.org staff, in the same manner as the community has worked with the Mozilla Foundation in the past.

What role will the community continue to have in the Mozilla Foundation?

A major priority for the Mozilla Foundation will be to work directly with community members interested in participating in the Mozilla project and influencing its future direction. As part of this process the Mozilla Foundation plans to work with the community to review and formalize the governance structures for the Mozilla project, including the role of mozilla.org staff. Formal governance of the Mozilla Foundation itself will continue to be as it has been in the past, by the Mozilla Foundation board.

How much will the community be able to contribute to Firefox going forward?

The community can contribute to Firefox and Thunderbird exactly as they can today, by contributing code to the Mozilla open source code base underlying Firefox and Thunderbird, helping to test Firefox and Thunderbird builds, reporting and/or fixing Firefox and Thunderbird bugs, promoting the use of Firefox and Thunderbird and so on. Community members can also continue to make tax-deductible donations to the Mozilla Foundation (to the extent allowed by law); such donations will be used to support and promote the Mozilla project and its associated products and technologies.

How does the Mozilla Foundation plan to reward the community for creating and improving upon the product?

The potential rewards for the community remain what they have traditionally been in the Mozilla project and other open source projects: Individual volunteers usually begin their participation in the project as a way to "scratch their own itch," for example by reporting or (in some cases) fixing bugs that affect them, or even developing new Mozilla code or new Firefox or Thunderbird extensions to perform some function important to them. Over time project participants may become professionally involved in Mozilla-related development, for example by working for one of the many corporations sponsoring Mozilla development, or starting their own Mozilla-related businesses. One of our goals in establishing the Mozilla Corporation is to further promote the success of the Mozilla project and the Firefox and Thunderbird products, which then has the effect of strengthening the commercial ecosystem around the project and providing additional opportunities for Mozilla developers.

How does life change for Mozilla developers?

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.

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