Firefox appeal raises $250,000

The Mozilla Foundation announced on Saturday that it had raised $250,000 during the 10 days of its fundraising campaign, securing donations from 10,000 individuals. The money will be used to promote the final version of Firefox 1.0 when it is released on 9 November.

The campaign started two weeks ago with the goal of getting 2,500 people to donate $30 or more to the marketing fund within ten days, with the aim of placing a full page ad in The New York Times.

Within three days it had raised $100,000 -- enough to pay for at least one ad -- and the campaign has now closed with a quarter of million dollars in the kitty. The additional money will be used for other launch-related expenses, including paying the Mozilla Foundation's PR company, according to the Spread Firefox Web site.

David Hallowell, a spokesman for Mozilla, said the campaign's achievement shows the interest in Firefox.

"The success of the donation campaign shows the passion that's out there for Firefox," said Hallowell. "It's a product the open-source community can be truly proud of and they're willing to dig deep in their pockets to spread the word."

Following the early success of Firefox, Mozilla has now raised the stakes on its next target. Initially it was aiming for 10 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 within 100 days, but has now slashed the time to 10 days, according to Hallowell.

"The original target of 10 million downloads in 100 days is too easy and I've got no doubt that we can surpass that," said Hallowell.

The preview release of Firefox has already attracted a lot of interest. It beat its initial goal of one million downloads within six days, and passed the five million download mark two weeks ago. Since then it has passed the seven million download mark.

Ingrid Marson writes for ZDNet UK.