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19 November 2010, 13:13

Mozilla re-assesses its mission

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Mozilla Foundation Following the publication of Mozilla's audited financial statements for 2009, Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, has taken the opportunity to re-examine Mozilla's mission, its successes, opportunities and challenges.

Baker says "Mozilla exists to build individual empowerment, control and opportunity into the fabric of the Internet. We build great products as a public asset. Great products based on open source software, plus much, much more". Baker states that looking forwards Mozilla must remain competitive in the browser arena, should broaden its scope into mobile and apps and maintain its sustainability.

Perhaps most significant is the promise that Firefox for Android and Maemo, currently in beta, will be released in a few months. The mission statement also mentions Mozilla's Drumbeat, a new initiative started this year to expand Mozilla's scope outside the browser. Mozilla Drumbeat projects use open technologies to bring participation, collaboration and empowerment to other aspects of online life. This year Drumbeat focused on ‘education for the open web’. The first Drumbeat festival took place in Barcelona earlier this month.


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Source: Mozilla
As in previous years, the majority of the organisations 2009 revenue was generated from the built-in search functionality in its Firefox web browser from various organisations, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and others. According to the foundation, "Approximately 86% and 91% of royalty revenue for 2009 and 2008, respectively, was derived from" its contract with Google. Mozilla receives money for featuring Google as in its default home page and search bar. The deal was originally set to expire in 2008, but has been extended to 2011.

Baker points out that, for Mozilla, success is not measured by dollar amounts or the number of employees it has, but rather "by how much we are doing to improve the overall health of the open Web," adding that, "Mozilla achieves success by helping more people make choices about what software they want to use, what level of participation they would like to have online, and how to take part in building a better Internet".

The Mozilla Foundation's reported revenues for last year were $104.3 million, up approximately 34% from 2008 revenues of $78.6 million. Compared to 2008, the organisation's expenses increased from $49 million to $61 million in 2009.

The Mozilla Foundation has published its 2009 audited financial statementsPDF and IRS tax formPDF on its web site. The foundation has also posted a 2009 Financial FAQ page. A list of previous tax returns and financial information for Mozilla is available on the Mozilla Foundation Documents page.

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(crve)

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