Mozilla 2006 Financial FAQ
This FAQ supplements the Mozilla Foundation 2006 Form 990 and the consolidated financial statement for the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation.
Your contract with Google ends in November 2008. What happens then?
We have a range of options. We may continue to work with Google which has so far provided a good fit with what our users find useful in the product. If for some reason that doesn't make sense then we could look at other potential partners. We have significant retained earnings, which allows us a good degree of flexibility.
Your partnership with Google accounts for over 85% of your 2006 revenue. How does this affect your independence?
We develop our product and technical direction as part of an open process unrelated to the search relationship with Google. We talk to Google about the parts of the product that offer Google services (i.e., the Firefox Start Page) and the services they provide, like anti-phishing. Otherwise Google does not have any special relationship to Mozilla project activities. We do not vet our initiatives with Google. We spent months talking to Google and Yahoo! before entering relationships with them to make sure they understood the separation between a search relationship and the rest of our activities.
You have a sizable cash reserve on hand (relative to your revenue). What plans do you have?
First, the cash reserve is of course a form of insurance against the loss of income. We will continue to maintain enough of a reserve to allow us flexibility in making product decisions. Second, our main expenses to date—people and infrastructure—are increasing, and we'll continue to spend to meet needs in these areas. Third, our grant and grant-like funding are increasing as well. Fourth, our financial resources allow us to launch significant new programs, such as our mobile initiative we've started recently. And fifth, we expect the Mozilla Foundation to undertake significant new programs shortly.
Mozilla Foundation spending in 2006 seems low, especially the $80,000 in grants. Can you say more?
We planned 2006 spending on a conservative basis to make sure the Foundation remained sustainable amid the growth and change of becoming a much larger project. This meant we planned to spend income but not the basic principal of the Foundation in 2006 and perhaps 2007, until we have a good plan for the appropriate programs to put in place, and the people make good programs happen. It turned out that our investment income was greater than budgeted in 2006 as well.
The total spent on grants and grant-related expenditures was approximately $285,000 in 2006. "Grants" has a very precise meaning in the tax and accounting world, and this is narrower than the funding programs we have in place. So our forms show $80,000 in pure "grants", comprised of assistance to the Mozdev Community Organization (mozdev.org) and to Seneca College. We also funded travel for a number of primarily non-employee Mozilla contributors to meet and work face-to-face; this shows up in a line item marked as "travel" and "conferences" (but not as "grants") and totaled approximately $40,000. Mozilla also funded technical work aimed at improving web accessibility to people with disabilities; this work was implemented via contracts with the people doing the work and totalled approximately $47,500. We also made additional grant-related program expenditures totaling $52,500, including a donation to the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects and covering the expenses for a representative to the IETF. Finally, through our Community Giving Program we committed about $65,000 for machines (both individual PCs and hosted servers) for a number of community members and projects.
Any further corrections?
Mitchell Baker's 2006 salary is over-stated by 20%. The amount reported in the Form 990 includes approximately $100,000 for a salary increase and one time bonus for 2005 that was not finally approved and paid until 2006.