My guess is, GP is referring to the significant amount of funding that Mozilla gets from Google. Not sure if it's still the case, but I believe at least for a time, it was actually their main source of funding and basically what kept the whole organisation alive.
So by "don't bite the hand that feeds you" logic, they couldn't be interested in being too adverse with Google, because in the end, this could threaten their whole existence.
Not sure if this is still the case though, or if they managed to diversify.
Mozilla is two parts, the Mozilla Foundation and a subsidiary which is Mozilla Corporation. Neither of those are "funded" by Google.
I'm guessing you're referring to the search partnership between the two? That doesn't mean that Google owns Mozilla, unless you're really unclear about what "partnership" or "deal" means. Mozilla have multiple deals with search engines, not just Google.
> The only reason Firefox exists is because Google wants something they can point to in court and say "look! we're not a monopoly!"
A competitor that survives at the charity of a monopoly is evidence of a monopoly, not evidence of the opposite. A court might see a non-profit that is directly dependent on Google for ongoing operating cash very differently that how it saw Gates' one-time personal investment in Apple.
At a much lower price, because search deals are paid based on number of searches done (so indirectly, the number of active users), and because Google has 90%-ish market share, it means a 90% drop in revenue.
Also, Bing has on average twice higher RPMs, so, a 50% of drop in income after rev-share.
So, you remove 90% of the revenue, and you divide by 2 what is remaining.
Technically it might even be healthy for Mozilla to loose 90% of the budget as they are spending that on bs projects that has nothing to do with Firefox. Maybe it would force them to spend the money on the Firefox team, and all the money hungry top management would go somewhere else where they can waste money.
A little nitpick: Mozilla has no shareholders. Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit, while Mozilla Corporation is 100% owned by the Foundation. Your point still stands though.
If Google turned off this money faucet, Mozilla would be severely impacted. Unfortunately as Firefox's market penetration gets lower, the value of that deal gets lower, should Google stop paying it and someone like Bing takes over.
They have no motivation to "turn off the money faucet" since the payment is effectively lead generation -- bringing eyeballs to their ads that pay them more.
It's true that Mozilla gets the vast majority of their income from Google and has, IMO absolutely squandered most of it.
If Mozilla had put most of its income into an endowment fund instead of hiring tons of staff for a miriad of now-mostly-canceled projects, they'd be in a much better position today. (Hindsight is 20-20 and all that.)
But I think it's an overstatement to say that Google owns Firefox. I donate monthly, and I think a smaller form of Mozilla could survive completely without Google.
If you have a customer who pays more than 50% of your income that’s not a customer that’s a controlling interest. Track record shows the relationship looks the way google wants it to look and behaves the way google wants it to behave.
I don't know where you got that idea from (accepting money to make the Google search engine the default?), but Firefox is made by the Mozilla Corporation which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation.
