Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation is an American nonprofit organization that supports and leads the open source Mozilla project. It was founded in July 2003 to manage the development, infrastructure, and trademarks of Mozilla products. The foundation owns two subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation, which handles the development and release of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and MZLA Technologies Corporation, which works on the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

The Mozilla Foundation was created by the Netscape-affiliated Mozilla Organization and is based in Mountain View, California, a city in the Silicon Valley. It aims to promote openness, innovation, and participation on the Internet. The foundation follows the Mozilla Manifesto, a set of ten principles that guide its work and emphasize the importance of the Internet for the public good.

History

On February 23, 1998, Netscape created the Mozilla Organization to help build the Mozilla Application Suite. When AOL, Netscape's parent company, reduced its support, the Mozilla Foundation started on July 15, 2003, to keep the project going. AOL helped by giving tools, property, and money to the new foundation.

In September 2019, the Mozilla Foundation worked with Creative Commons and Coil Technologies to start a $100 million fund called Grant for the Web. This money aimed to support new technologies and ideas using the Interledger Protocol. By 2021, managing this fund moved to the Interledger Foundation.

Subsidiaries

Mozilla Corporation

Main article: Mozilla Corporation

The Mozilla Foundation created the Mozilla Corporation in 2005 to handle product development, marketing, and business relationships. This subsidiary is responsible for the Firefox web browser and its partnerships. For many years, Google was the default search engine in Firefox, but in 2014, Yahoo took over this role in the US. However, in 2017, Mozilla ended its agreement with Yahoo early to focus on other opportunities.

Mozilla China

Main article: Mozilla China

Mozilla China was a subsidiary of the Mozilla Corporation, based in Beijing.

MZLA Technologies Corporation

In 2020, the Mozilla Foundation started MZLA Technologies Corporation to manage the Thunderbird email client. This new subsidiary allows Mozilla to explore new products and services and collect revenue through partnerships.

Mozilla Ventures

In 2022, Mozilla launched Mozilla Ventures, an impact investing fund to support startups that align with the values in the Mozilla Manifesto. The fund began with $35 million to help early-stage companies.

Financing

The Mozilla Foundation is funded by donations and a share of the money it receives from the Mozilla Corporation. In 2016, this funding was over US$8.3 million.

Initially, the foundation received money from AOL and Mitch Kapor. It also has tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. For many years, a big part of its funding came from Google Search being the default search engine in the Firefox browser. Later, Yahoo! Search became the default for a while, but Mozilla later switched back to Google. In some countries, like Russia, the default search engine was Yandex, and in China, it was Baidu.

People

Nabiha Syed became the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation on May 15, 2024.

As of May 2025, the Mozilla Foundation board of directors included nine members: Nicole Wong (Chair), Brian Behlendorf, Helen Turvey, Amy Keating, Mark Surman, Alondra Nelson, Edwin Macharia, Raffi Krikorian, and Zain Habboo.

Donations

In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation donated $10,000 to support the development of OpenSSH. This helped make sure that developers could keep their work safe and secure. The money came from the income provided by Google.

In 2010, the Mozilla Foundation worked with the Knoxville Zoo to help raise awareness about endangered red pandas. Two red panda cubs, named Spark and Ember by online voters, became part of the Mozilla community. Mozilla even broadcast a live video stream of the cubs for several months.