Mozilla goes corporate!

[Newby]

http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=7085

What do you think? Good long term strategy? Or a bunch of sell outs? :P

[Mythix]

Goodbye freedom.

[Newby]

Also see: http://www.mozilla.com

[deadly7]

Sellouts.

[iago]

As much as I hate to see selling out, I do like to see open-source/for-profit companies do well.  It's proof that Open Source works. 

[rabbit]

It's what Google did (although they weren't open source) and we all love Google :D

[zorm]

Its only a matter of time now until they decide to start selling Firefox. It doesn't matter if its open source or not, look at XChat for example.

[iago]

Its only a matter of time now until they decide to start selling Firefox. It doesn't matter if its open source or not, look at XChat for example.

I doubt they'll ever sell Firefox.  They would lose their entire fanbase, and they'd be turning their back on the people that made them successful.  I don't think they'd do that. 

XChat is only sold for Windows, and anybody else is free to download the source, compile, and give it away for free if they want.  The reason they sell it for Windows is that it's such a pain to compile it there.  If Firefox did something stupid like that, I guarentee somebody would be compiling it/distributing it for free.

[zorm]

You underestimate greedy American corporations. The fanbase doesn't mean much when there is a chance for money to be had. The other item of concern is how many patches and such come from outside people. They might be able to scheme up a way to relicense firefox or make it entirely closed source.

[rabbit]

Then people would take the older sources, update them, and release them for free.

[GameSnake]

They may give crippled versions of Firefox and charge for the full versions?

[rabbit]

There will always be people willing to crack things :)