Mozilla Foundation launches ethical venture capital fund

Mozilla has announced the successor to the Mozilla Builders incubator: Mozilla Ventures. Mozilla defined the project in a post as an investment fund for early-stage internet startups that Mozilla feels align with the Mozilla Manifesto. The fund will officially open next year, but has already made some preliminary investments …

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird play, but OK

So they still have a pile of cash that they are watching slowly disappear, so they are going to invest it in startups with a clearer road to profits.

Not totally crazy, but they should be crystal clear where that money came from. People might get cranky. But both Mozilla and Apache have fostered projects that have had a real impact, so the clearly have at least some eye for this stuff. My initial reaction was to worry this was an excuse to drain what was left of the warchest and shunt it to the friends of the current management, but looking at the list of companies, I have to say this may be a good play.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn’t Mozilla funded by Google?

Therefore…

[Updraft102]

How about working on that browser thingy that is now at such a low market share (3%) that websites don't even bother to test with it anymore, making your alternative rendering engine (something we all agree is needed on the web) rather irrelevant?

[Loyal Commenter]

That "browser thingy" that is actively being worked on, gets regular updates, and which I am using to type this message?

The one whose market share is only a little behind MS Edge, the default browser in the world's most uses general purpose operating system?

It's not my fault (or theirs) that most people are too short-sighted to question whether they should be using Chrome everywhere and letting Google slurp up all that metadata. Or indeed, that people let themselves into Apple's walled garden and can't get out again.

[Terry 6]

Ethical

That sounds great. But I'd like to see how it's defined and identified, especially in the tech world. Every new development has a potential for harm. And possibly harmful developments have potential for significant good. e.g. sharing patients' medical records with medical researchers..

[amanfromMars 1]

AWEsome is as AWEsome does.

Thanks for the heads-up, El Reg. You know what they say of little acorns and great oaks? One begets the other via the chicken/egg root.:-) .... which is quantum field, where a this is a that and together able to be something else again completely different.