I'm not a Mozilla insider or anything but I took a look at their bylaws and afaict they have a self-perpetuating board, which means they're not formally accountable to anyone.
I prefer a member elected board (like the PSF has). It's hard for leadership to stray too far from member values when they're elected by members.
I know too many self-perpetuating boards who destroyed what they were supposed to be safeguarding, or even enabled abuse.
Governance matters.
@shauna add another wrinkle and MZLA (the Mozilla entity that houses Thunderbird) - has a co-governance model between a board and a Council, elected from contributors. This gives the community immense power (we can't approve a yearly budget without the Council's input, for instance). While it has been hard to have so many different stakeholders, I believe it has kept us honest and true to the mission of great open source communication software that champions open standards.
@ryanleesipes is MZLA part of Mozilla Foundation or legally separate?
@shauna we're a subsidiary. But we have our own distinct board and bylaws.
@ryanleesipes gotcha, so there's accountability and community governance in this subset of the MF. Actually I'd love to interview you (& anyone else involved in MZLA who'd be up for it) about your model sometime.
@shauna absolutely, I'd love to share our story. When we started doing things this way (after Thunderbird nearly died), folks were skeptical of this model. But we've seen revenue grow 1108% under it, and we've grown our daily active users by more than 1 million in the past year alone. So I'd say that something is working right.
Ping me at ryan@thunderbird.net
@ryanleesipes Awesome, I've written down your contact info and will follow up soon
@shauna Looking forward to it!
@ryanleesipes @shauna can't wait to read about it!
@ryanleesipes what is MZLA's business model? Is it just donations or something else? I was always confused if donations covered everything or if I was missing something.
@wwahammy @ryanleesipes Currently, we're 100% funded by donations.
@ryanleesipes @shauna amazing achievement! I would love to read this interview! If you could tag me or something like that, it would be amazing!
@ryanleesipes @shauna Hmmm maybe I should use Thunderbird again
@ryanleesipes @shauna Sounds like MZLA should take over Firefox from Mozilla...