March 7, 2006
Posted by beltzner
It’s a gas
When I was telling people that I was leaving IBM for Mozilla, I would play this little game where I’d count the number of questions people asked about my new job before they got to the _Question About The Money_, which went something like:
>So, uh, if the software is free, and if the code is open source … uh … how does Mozilla make money?
Rarely was more than a single hand needed for this counting game.
As Chris Blizzard — a man I’ve had the very good fortune to become chummy with since starting at Mozilla — has recently pointed out, now that it has become clear that [we _do_ make money][1] the question has changed to be something more like:
>So, uh, if the software is free, and if the code is open source … uh … what does Mozilla do with all the money?
Chris recently [answered that question][1] very well, but I’d like to take a second to reiterate two of his points. First and perhaps foremost, we don’t use that money to make more money. Instead, we use that money to make better software and to ensure that better software is available freely to users. That translates to big things like Intel Mac Developer Kits to ensure that we can continue to provide builds to all platforms, and little things like the coffee that props us up at all hours. It includes new expenses like PR and marketing to ensure we’re getting our voice heard in various forums, as well as traditional ones like rent, offices and salaries. All the money we earn is reinvested in our capability to produce more, produce faster, and produce better.
The second big point I want to reiterate is that when we develop our software, we’re _not_ doing it with the goal of making more money. I have quite honestly been in a meeting where a company was all but asking where the loading bay was for the dumptruck of money they wanted to drop off, and witnessed our _business development guy_ (that’s [John Lilly][2], who is, incidentally, about 40 different shades of awesome) say “yeah, money is something we deal with after the fact, let’s talk about what we can do to make things better for our users.” It was a sincere effort on my part not to leap up from my seat and hug everyone in the room. It was, to say the least, a departure of the way things worked at my old job.
Now, to say “we’re just making software for the users, aw, shucks, and we don’t like to think about the money part” might make it sound at first blush like we’re all eating granola, wearing tie-dye shirts, and walking around with socks and sandals. However, I think even the staunchest of objectivists will be able to get behind what we’re doing when I express it this way: We are making great software that is meeting the needs of users, we are ensuring the vitality of the internet economy by promoting competition and choice, and we are being rewarded for succeeding to a degree that seems amenable by those willing to partner with us.
[1]: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=182
[2]: http://johnolilly.typepad.com/blog
9 Comments
March 8, 2006
Not worrying about the money is a great attitude to have, though it generally is only feasible until you run OUT of the money. Then suddenly you have issues like you can’t pay the heating bill.
March 8, 2006
How apt that this is the first entry of yours that I’m reading in Mozilla. Finally.
March 8, 2006
As a staunch Objectivist, I am sold on the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, but wonder what the deal with all the apologizing for making money is about. Congratulations are due to the MoFo and MoCo (and its staff) for doing so well!
March 9, 2006
I don’t have any tie-die shirts (had one). There is granola in the pantry (which a number of us eat) but I think I’m the only schmuck that walks around with sandals AND socks.
There’s nothing wrong with socks and sandals (Keen’s my preferred sandal used to be Birkenstocks) but thanks for pointing that out.
See you at Yoga class.
March 9, 2006
I also wonder why Mozilla seems so apologetic about making money, when that money in turn helps you create better and better products. I also have two other questions:
1) Why does Mozilla create the products it does? What is (or was) the driving factor, and was is the intended outcome?
2) How would Mozilla feel about making a product that is so good, it renders all competition obsolete?
March 9, 2006
Hopefully you all understand that I don’t speak for all of Mozilla, just my little part of it
But in answer to your questions, Matej:
1. The driving factor of all Mozilla projects is to promote “innovation and choice” on the web. The focus on browsers is partially historic (we were born out of Netscape, after all) but also because there seems to be the most opportunity to influence both innovation (in terms of browser features and promoting web technology) and choice (in terms of ensuring that users didn’t live in a world where a single browser vendor controlled > 90% of the market).
2. I don’t know how my colleagues would feel, but I’d feel pretty bad about that. Competition is vital to innovation, although I think there’s room for “collaborative competition” where the innovators work together to ensure that the technologies they are creating are open and can be built upon by all.
March 9, 2006
I think the reason Mozilla is sensitive about making money is that they come from open source roots in the open source community. A lot of people work or have worked for Mozilla for free, and that’s part of what makes / made it so great. They don’t want people to stop giving some of their valuable time for free because there’s a perception that some people are taking advantage of the free labour and laughing all the way to the bank.
There are a lot of geniuses providing input into both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but there aren’t a lot of them doing it for nothing with IE.
March 9, 2006
Pfft, enough of the intelligent discussion — let’s get back to the warm-and-fuzzies. Grab the hand of a loved one and join Beltzner in a rousing chorus of ‘Kumbaya’! (You *know* you want to.)
But seriously, B, it’s good to see you enjoying your work so much.
March 11, 2006
Mozilla provides a fascinating model that many for-profit innovators would be wise to understand. Belief and passion in the community produces a remarkable product. Users passionately remark about and engage with that product and spread the word. Along the way, an unobtrusive stealth revenue model is developed. The “excess value” (let’s not call it profits) can be reinvested in the community that spawned the innovation, ensuring the long-run health of the innovation “eco-system”. You’re lucky to be part of it.
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