I'd like to rant about what having exposure and good sponsors meens to an open-source project. Specifically, while the FreeBSD Foundation is happy when it gets $300,000 a year (which is peanuts if it actually were a normal, non-charity business of its scope), a company which is basically developing a web browser manages to get more than $78 million a year! It just isn't fair.
I'm not against Mozilla and Firefox as they are but I do think developing an operating system is a little bit more complex than developing a web browser. Draw your own conclusions about the relative qualities of the products involved, but I will suggest that, given the relative dollar-to-productivity ratios of the projects, FreeBSD would, with that kind of funding, be in serious danger to start the technological singularity all on its own.
#1 Re: Donate to the FreeBSD foundation!
From the Mozilla link: "The majority of this revenue is generated from the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox from organizations such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and others." The FreeBSD Foundation needs to get a piece of that action! Is there not some way to use a special search page or set your browser search to direct the referal revenue elsewhere? FreeBSD has many friends and supporters, such a thing might really work well.
#2 Re: Donate to the FreeBSD foundation!
Unfortunately probably not - Firefox already sets Google as the search provider by default, and we use the default Firefox, so I don't see a way to make Google pay for what it already gets.
And its not like we can make a huge "We Love Google" banner displayed every time FreeBSD boots since Google already uses Linux practically exclusively for everything from servers to Android...
#3 Re: Donate to the FreeBSD foundation!
I still think this is feasible. I need to do more research, but look here:
http://www.google.com/cse/manage/create?Get+Started=Customize+Your+Own+Search+Engine
Now, the Foundation only needs to set-up an AdSense account and use it with the above. And, if that can be accessed through an in-browser search engine (see here: http://bsdpants.blogspot.com/2007/10/opensearch-plugin-for-firefox.html for example (my site)), then so much the better. And, if the in-browser search engine can be installed as part of the default port/package (with a compile-time option to leave it out, of course) -- then better still.
Imagine every default install of Firefox on FreeBSD benefitting the FreeBSD Foundation. Wow!
#4 Re: Donate to the FreeBSD foundation!
Your proposal might be ok. try sending it to ports@freebsd.org and advocacy@freebsd.org.