[Offtopic] What happens when an OS becomes successful?

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Link by Link
Firefox and the Anxiety of Growing Pains 
By NOAM COHEN Published: May 21, 2007

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/technology/> +free-sign-in

The open-source people behind Firefox have a dilemma: what happens — and 
what is owed to volunteer contributors — when an open-source project 
starts to become successful? 

Some 1,000 to 2,000 people have contributed code to Firefox, according to 
the Mozilla Foundation, which distributes the Firefox browser.

An estimated 10,000 people act as testers for the program, and an 
estimated 80,000 help spread the word ..

The Firefox campaign has been very successful, according to Mitchell 
Baker, the chairwoman of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation that directs 
the project.

“The best we can figure, 75 to 100 million people are using Firefox,” she 
said. “Those people did not get it in a box. That is, 75 million 
decisions, somewhere around the world to put this piece of software on 
someone’s machine.” 

According to outside estimates, Firefox has about 15 percent of the 
market, Internet Explorer has more than 78 percent, and Apple’s Safari a 
little less than 5 percent. 

Mozilla has 90 employees and revenue of more than $100 million in the 
last couple of years.

Mozilla plans to make enough money to keep growing. But a windfall came 
in the form of a royalty contract with Google, which, like the other 
search companies, is always competing for better placement on browsers.

Under the agreement, the Google search page is the default home page when 
a user first installs Firefox, and is the default in the search bar. In 
the last two years, the deal has brought in more than $100 million. 
(Google has a similar placement with Apple’s Safari.) 

So far, no one has figured out how to balance keeping an open-source or 
collaborative project fully financed while remaining independent and 
noncommercial. 

Wikipedia, for example, holds occasional fund-raisers. Its leaders debate 
if it should take steps toward some sort of sponsorship or advertising. 
(snip)

Finally, there is the problem of what Mozilla should do with the money, 
at least the portion that isn’t being reinvested in the Firefox. 

Throwing money around among volunteers can backfire, Ms. Baker said, 
though the foundation has been quietly assisting contributors who are 
hampered by poor equipment.

Instead, Mozilla’s solution is to put money into what Mr. Kapor 
calls “community purposes.” 

To that end, the foundation is looking for a new executive director who 
would focus on worthy projects, although no decisions on what constitutes 
a worthy project has been made. “We go out and ask,” Ms. Baker said, “and 
even the community is not actually clear where large amounts of money 
should go.”
--

Cheers all ..
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia