> I didn't even imply that, so don't suggest that I did. It's dishonest, and rude.

I'm very sorry!

I hope I wasn't putting words into your mouth. I was reacting less to your comment and more to the repeated use of the word "funding" in all sorts of articles on this topic. I think it both reflects and affects how (some) people perceive Mozilla. For example, the business press would not say that the Defense Department is "funding" a contractor like Raytheon, no matter how big a customer they are.

I'm probably feeling overly defensive after all the articles trying to create drama by claiming Mozilla was in imminent danger of Google "pulling the plug" (when actually a deal was still in place, and both parties were actively negotiating the new one but just couldn't talk about it yet). Within the Mozilla project, we know our userbase is still growing, and the market for search traffic is as strong as ever. But outside, friends are still asking me about these baseless scary stories in the press.

> Bing. I have no doubt, but I don't know that.

Yes I believe Mozilla earns revenue from Bing, and also several other sites, including regional search engines in various locales. In some of our localized builds, Google isn't even the default search engine.

> You make it sound like Mozilla doesn't need my donations, and doesn't need the Google deal. Could it do everything it does without donations or Google as a customer? Could it? If so, great!

Not at all! As I mentioned, donations are very important to Mozilla -- disproportionately important, because in addition to the financial resources, they give us individual support that's important to our existence and activities as a non-profit public service foundation. And income diversification (your stated goal) can't hurt either.

And you're correct that Mozilla would be impacted hugely if for some reason Google stopped paying search affiliates. (But of course, Google would be greatly impacted too, which is one reason I'm not actually worried about this right now.) I have no doubt that Mozilla will grow other sources of revenue if it needs to -- but that's a matter of long-term contingency planning. And no matter what Google does, our own priorities are clear: Make great software that serves our mission and our hundreds of millions of users. As long as we do that, we have leverage and we have control of our fate.

Many successful open source projects run on volunteer contributions, individual donations, sponsorships, and other sources of support. If revenue did decrease for some reason, Mozilla could continue to exist as a smaller organization -- even a much smaller one if necessary, like it was when Firefox was first developed. We wouldn't have the same reach we do today, but we're already used to competing with companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft that have literally hundreds of times more money than us. Mozilla's biggest strengths have always been in the community and the source code. Steadily-growing Firefox revenue is a lever that helps amplify those strengths, but remember that the success of Firefox created the revenue streams, not the other way around.

I'm glad you're concerned, because these are challenging times for Mozilla and the open web. We do need all the support we can get. But I hope Mozilla gets support based on the great things we've done and will do -- not based on fear that someone else will come along and squash the movement. We will not be squashed so easily!