Firefox is open source, of course (based on the opening up of old Netscape code), but the company behind it is banking tens of millions of dollars a year from Google. The New York Times has some interesting details:
According to Mozilla's 2006 financial records, which were recently released, the foundation had $74 million in assets, the bulk invested in mutual funds and the like, and last year it collected $66 million in revenue. Eighty-five percent of that revenue came from a single source -- Google, which has a royalty contract with Firefox.
Despite that ample revenue, the Mozilla Foundation gave away less than $100,000 in grants (according to the audited statement), or $285,000 (according to Mozilla itself), in 2006. In the same year, it paid the corporation's chief executive, Mitchell Baker, more than $500,000 in salary and benefits. (She is also chairwoman of the foundation.)
Ms Baker, a lawyer who has worked for Silicon Valley companies since the mid-1990s, said her compensation "is yet another example of Mozilla as a hybrid," adding that it made her "a poor stepchild, not even," compared to the leaders of other equally influential Silicon Valley companies.
Poor Ms Baker. Google's co-founders are worth about $20 billion each and even their masseuse is a multimillionaire....
