Vincent

The licensing fee you mention is purposely fuzzy

I mean, depending on what you mean by "purposely", I just think there's no good way in general to determine the exact worth of the use of a trademark.

The restricted assets remain the same as last year: a “tax reserve fund” established in 2005 for a portion of the revenue the Mozilla Foundation received that year from the search engine providers. As noted last year, the IRS has opened an audit of the Mozilla Foundation.

Since the Corporation was founded on August 3, 2005 - this might've been the reason? Before the Corporation existed, the Foundation had to receive the money from the search engine providers directly (and the "tax reserve fund" sounds like creative accounting to hold on to that money, potentially leading to the audit), whereas later, the Corporation could hold on to it and pay taxes over it like a regular corporation does.

I’m a Mozilla fan, but I’m not a fan of income inequality, and Mozilla is contributing to it.

I'm with you here, and I'm not saying that the ratio CEO pay:employee pay is a good one. All I'm saying is that the money used to fund the CEO pay could not have been used to fund Foundation projects like Common Voice, as far as I'm aware.

AFAIK the only way money flows from the Corporation to the Foundation is by the Co paying royalties to the Foundation for the use of the Firefox trademark. Obviously exactly how that number is determined is a little fuzzy, but I don't think it (legally) can be just any number - it has to be justified somewhat. In any case, the Corporation is not short of money, so if the Foundation wanted more money to flow from it to the Foundation, a shortage of money due to CEO pay is not the reason.

(You are definitely right in the sense that Co money could be used to fund more Co projects. Those are not the same initiatives that would be funded by donations to the Foundation though, as money doesn't flow from it to the Co. Think Common Voice, MozFest, lobbying, Privacy Not Included...)

They wouldn't. The Corporation is a separate entity, I believe for tax reasons, allowing them to hold more money. I don't think that it's allowed to use it as a loophole to avoid regulations that apply to foundations, while still using that money to fund Foundation projects.

Of note is that the Corporation CEO is paid from Corporation revenues, i.e. primarily the Google search deal. Firefox development very likely could not be supported by donations alone, and the Corporation can't take donations for it.

Donations to the Foundation go to the Foundation's advocacy work, and projects like Common Voice.

Perception check

Well, yes, except that those X11 developers agree that Wayland is better.

Notably absent: X11 developer saying Wayland is bad, not X11.

I think it's just because some things have country-specific formats. For example, if you want to prefill credit card details, you have to figure out how the credit card fields are labelled.

Hehe, I can be more explicit: why would Chromium "resist" MV3 when the Chromium developers are the ones pushing it?

The spirit of Christmas future.

Just wait until corporate finds out what the Dutch Krampus looks like 🙈