[LINK] What happens when an OS becomes successful?

[Adam Todd]

At 09:39 PM 21/05/2007, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>Mozilla has 90 employees and revenue of more than $100 million in the
>last couple of years.

That's impressive.

>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.
>
>[SNIP]


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

Well the next paragraph answers that ...


>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.

Disperse it over a 5 year period and leave 30% fat a year to pick up 
the slack.  If there is more to play with, expand as required, but 
really, expansion isn't necessary.

Keep the cash, if one day it's not longer needed, there are plenty of 
ways in which those kinds of sums could change the lives of millions 
in an instant.

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

There you go, buy equipment, help those get what they need.