They already spend more on developing the browser now than at any point in the entire history of Firefox, and that's after adjusting for inflation. They ship millions of lines of new code every year and apply thousands of patches. It's probably one of the biggest and most active open source projects in the entire world.
And just so we're clear, are you suggesting they shouldn't have an endowment at all, or that they shouldn't use the endowment to create any lines of long term revenue, or that they should but spending a fraction of a percent of it on a VC fund would not be successful? Whichever one you pick, there's at least one person who's exactly as upset at Mozilla for the opposite reason.
Edit: I would go so far as to say I think the VC fund is the single best idea Mozilla has ever had for long term financial independence. It builds on the success they've had thus far (such as it is) raising money from search licensing, and then using that search licensing money to stand up the endowment. Now, the VC fund leverages the endowment in a way that's the most serious path to financial independence they've ever had.
You started this thread by falsely claiming Mozilla had no endowment. You were fully possessed by the certainty that this was simply more proof of their bad management. Can you acknowledge you were wrong about that instead of just shifting to new accusations?
And just so we're clear, are you suggesting they shouldn't have an endowment at all, or that they shouldn't use the endowment to create any lines of long term revenue, or that they should but spending a fraction of a percent of it on a VC fund would not be successful? Whichever one you pick, there's at least one person who's exactly as upset at Mozilla for the opposite reason.
Edit: I would go so far as to say I think the VC fund is the single best idea Mozilla has ever had for long term financial independence. It builds on the success they've had thus far (such as it is) raising money from search licensing, and then using that search licensing money to stand up the endowment. Now, the VC fund leverages the endowment in a way that's the most serious path to financial independence they've ever had.