Why Capitalist Pigs Would be Good for Mozilla

From CNET News.com:

won't go into the economics, but suffice it to say that I think there's little hope of Mozilla making Firefox (or any of its other software) into true public goods of any note. The best it can hope for, here on planet Earth, is for software in the public interest. Mozilla Chief Executive Mitchell Baker suggests that the Web would be better off with robust public-interest aspects. She's 100 percent right. Where she may be wrong is in how she thinks we get there: ...I don't want to live in a world where the only thing the Internet is useful for, or effective at, or pleasant or fun, are activities where someone is making money from me. In addition, I want public benefit to be provided by both public and private actors. I hope the Mozilla project can push more actors, including commercial players in the Internet space, to provide more public benefits. And so Mitchell argues that Firefox is a public asset with this feeling guarded by a nonprofit nature (or something) inherent in the Mozilla Foundation. I'm not buying it. Literally.

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