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Mozilla The Internet

Drink Coffee, Support Mozilla 271

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-isn't-that-special dept.
MikeCapone writes "Heavy coffee-drinking Mozilla fans take notice, MozillaZine has a story on how some coffee company has dedicated a selection of gourmet coffees to helping the Mozilla foundation. Only half the profits go to Mozilla, but the coffee seems good..."
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Drink Coffee, Support Mozilla More

Drink Coffee, Support Mozilla

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  • 1/2 is HUGE (Score:5, Informative)

    by squashed ( 664265 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:47AM (#6777402)
    1/2 is a significant %, compared to the typical promotion offering a % to non-profit causes.

    • Re:1/2 is HUGE (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      yeah the usual you see around here in is like one cent per one euro of purchase.. depending on the profit margin i still would say 1/2 of the profits to be bigger than that.

      too bad i don't drink coffee though.. now some tea would be excellent but i guess i could getter better tea through my chinese flatmate.

      • Re:1/2 is HUGE (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:59AM (#6777477)
        too bad i don't drink coffee though..

        Who cares? Buy a bag and give it to someone who does. I'm not a coffee drinker at all, but I'm buying a bag right now just to show support for this endeavor. This is an EXTREMELY generous offer on the part of RJ Tarpley, and I plan on thanking them by thanking the Mozilla Foundation at the same time.

        • Re:1/2 is HUGE (Score:3, Insightful)

          by hendridm ( 302246 ) *
          It's good to encourage companies to support open source, but you could also donate [mozilla.org] the amount you paid for the coffee and be assured 100% of it is going towards Mozilla.

          On second thought, it's miles ahead of what most of these leeches who can't fathom why anybody would PAY for a Slashdot subscription yet visit this site throughout the day to bitch about it.

          • Re:1/2 is HUGE (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:34AM (#6777633)
            I thought of the 100% to Mozilla argument.

            It's good in the fact that 100% of the money goes to Mozilla, but on the other hand, where's the attention? By actually promoting Mozilla via the coffee purchase, not only are you donating to Mozilla, you're telling the company "Hey, this is a good idea. You're doing good here." and you're promoting the attention the project receives as a result. And just maybe, it could encourage others to do the same.

            Donations don't get press coverage unless they're in ridiculously large amounts. But when a company has pledged to donate a portion of its profits to a worthy cause, it gets more attention.

            Which is why this story is on Mozillazine and Slashdot. A simple donation wouldn't have done that.
        • dude, thank you SO much! I'm just now finishing up an 8 month long co-op, and i woulda forgotten to get a present for my bosses!

          I'm ordering 2 bags of EnviroZilla or whatever it's called. Thanks again man

          Hopefully we buy lots of this stuff -- and companies will begin realizing what freaks we are and support OSS so much that they'll do more stuff like this! Everyone wins with this!

      • too bad i don't drink coffee though

        Hey no problem! There's plenty of other things [google.com] you can do with the stuff.
    • I'll check this stuff out as soon as I get back to school. I've just bought a Saeco espresso machine and I really want to get a bean other than the one crappy brand at the local Wegman's (grociery store). Especially since this wegmans doesn't have a bean grinder..

      Has anyone tried this stuff yet-- know how it tastes?
    • Well, even for luxury ("gourmet coffee") products? I don't think so..

  • Not quite what I had in mind... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cnb ( 146606 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:49AM (#6777410)
    When they promised better java support for mozilla

    • And check out their privacy policy! (Score:5, Funny)

      by devphil ( 51341 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:48AM (#6777697) Homepage


      From their "Info" page:

      You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by [description of the company access procedure]. We use this procedure to better safeguard your information.

      No, the square brackets are not editing on my part. That's what it actually says. :-)

      I might just drop him a polite word...

  • Hmmm Max Havelaar... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:49AM (#6777414)
    What about the coffee farmers?

    Do they get a fair share?

    First things first, I'd say ;-)

    • Re:Hmmm Max Havelaar... (Score:4, Funny)

      by niko9 ( 315647 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:22AM (#6777588)
      I heard Juan Valdez [juanvaldez.com] got a free copy of Mozilla.

      Man that guy always seems happy to grow coffee for the gringos.
    • Considering that to be "Fair Trade" certified, coffee should be bought to farmers at a minimum(sp?) of $1.26 per pound (see here) [globalexchange.org] and normal selling price goes for $0.50 per pound... it's possible.

      But even if it's "Fair Trade" it's still quite unfair to me if the farmers only gets ~13% (in the case of $10/pound) of sale price...
      • It's an economy of scale. They may "only" get 1.26 a pound, but you gotta remember they're selling tens to hundreds of tons of beans.

        Most manufactureres / growers don't make anything near the sale price. For instance, the nutritional supplement manufacturere I worked for this summer makes things like Acidophilus and glucosamine/chondroitin. They sell them to resellers for like .50-1.00 a bottle, and the reseller in turn either sells them to someone else for a nice markup or puts them on the shelves for

  • Hmmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by vevva ( 693964 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:50AM (#6777419)
    Definite grounds for a brewhaha

  • I'm game (Score:2, Funny)

    by Idealius ( 688975 )
    Sounds like the perfect gift for my company. We're IT, and everyone I know here drinks coffee. Looks like I'll be Mr. Popular for a few days before the coffee runs out. Hmmm, mark me down for a 100 lbs, that should last for a day or so..

  • And in other news, (Score:5, Funny)

    by grug0 ( 696014 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:50AM (#6777426) Journal
    crack dealers are giving half their profits to SCO. Say dealers, "They're some of our most loyal patrons, it only seems fair."
    • I'm pretty sure even crack dealers have stopped doing business with them (look at SCO's previous business partners).

      "War on drugs? It's hard enough to go to school on drugs" -Gobi SNL

      SCO Lawyer - "You can't sue crack dealers, that's admitting guilt of drug usage and purchase"
      SCO Exec - "So, look if it's going to get a few more points on the market, I'm for it."
      SCO Lawyer - "Do you prefer the words controlled substance or are we sticking with 'Crack Rocks'?"

  • Needs a beer (Score:5, Funny)

    by idiotnot ( 302133 ) <sean@757.org> on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:52AM (#6777435) Homepage Journal
    Red Lizard Ale sounds nice to me. Anybody got some connections with Anheuser Busch, Miller, or Coors to get some real $$$ rolling into the project?

  • simpsons quote.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:53AM (#6777438) Homepage Journal
    Homer: So what do you call this stuff?
    Barney: A double tall mocha latte.
    Homer: It's not bad. (quietly spikes his drink)
    Barney: Well, it ain't beer, but at least I got that monkey off my back. (quickly gulps down four cups, then burps)

    (Cut to Moe)
    Moe: Heh, heh, nobody gets away from Moe. Nobody.

  • A good advertising strategy... (Score:3, Funny)

    by f-matic ( 643215 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:53AM (#6777441) Homepage
    ...for SCO perhaps?

    Smoke crack, Buy a SCO licence!

  • Fair trade coffee? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:53AM (#6777443)
    Does anyone know if this is fair trade coffee?
    I see that it's possible to buy organic coffee, but I can't find a word about the origin of this coffee, and the farmers that produced it.
    If this is no fair trade coffee, that I don't want to buy this: fair trade, and a right price for the farmers is still much more important to me than the Mozilla project...
    After all, the concept of fair trade is something that should go well with the Mozilla ideals, isn't it??

    • Re:Fair trade coffee? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DenialS ( 21305 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:24AM (#6777596) Homepage Journal
      The web site doesn't explicitly state that it is fair trade coffee, so you have to assume that it is not fair trade coffee. Well, I have to assume that, anyways, based on the following logic: you're not going to lose many sales to rabid capitalists if you quietly state 'All coffee that we sell is fair trade'--but you will gain sales from moderate liberals like me.

      Instead, I'll continue to get my coffee from Merchants of Green Coffee [merchantso...coffee.com], where you have a wide choice of green, fair-trade, organic coffees that you can roast to suit your own tastes.

      Oh yeah, and I plan to donate directly to the Mozilla Foundation so 100% of my money goes there.

      Don't get me wrong--the owner is trying to do the right thing, and it's a step in the right direction for the Ayn Rand-ish culture of "every ethical choice is a selfish choice"--in this case, consumers get to contribute in a small way to the Mozilla Foundation by exercising well-honed consumption skills and getting coffee as a result. It's just not a formula that suits my personal tastes.

    • Re:Fair trade coffee? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by forkboy ( 8644 )
      I used to run a coffee shop. 3/4 of the "fair trade" whiners that came in were wearing clothing and sneakers made by foreign child labor. I'm not saying you're the same way, I'm just commenting on how your average American cares about human rights only when it is trendy to do so.

      These are the same people that bitch about what bad drivers people are while they themselves are driving a truck or SUV that's 2 sizes too big for them while juggling a coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

  • How much is half the profit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bananenrepublik ( 49759 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:54AM (#6777451)
    That's great, except that they forgot to tell us how much money half the profit actually is. Prepare for the lame "Uhm, sorry, but actually we made zero profit with that coffee." excuses.

  • Great, just what we need (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:57AM (#6777467)
    a gigantic lizard jumped up on caffeine

  • Flavored (Score:5, Informative)

    by vonFinkelstien ( 687265 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @10:59AM (#6777475)
    Now if they only offered some nice flavored coffees in the Mozilla Coffee section (and cheap shipping to Sweden).

    As a side note, I have found coffee strength in different countries to be interesting. I'm from N. America, and when I moved to the Czech Republic, my collegues would allows comment on how strong I made the coffee (they would also make 1/2 liter of tea with ONE tea bag--When I makes tea, I makes tea. When I makes water, I makes water--Finnegans Wake).

    Then I moved to Sweden. My in-laws quickly informed me that they only drink Skona roast by Zeagas (a VERY strong coffee blend) and showed me how to make it at their incredibly high strength level. All of my corporate English student who have been to the U.S. complains about the piss-weakness of the coffee there.

    • Re:Flavored (Score:2, Informative)

      by CableModemSniper ( 556285 )
      Acording to the article you can actually get any of the coffees on the site and make a note about Mozilla and they will still get the money. Can't help with the shipping.

    • Re:Flavored (Score:4, Funny)

      by Seehund ( 86897 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:29AM (#6777619) Homepage Journal
      When I makes tea, I makes tea. When I makes water, I makes water

      And when I makes coffee, I makes coffee-flavoured coffee. :)

      Re. your spelling-flame PS below, it's "skanerost" (=Scania roast) from e.g. Zoegas. And it's not very strong. Here endeth today's Swedish lesson. ;)

  • This is the right way! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ksheka ( 189669 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:02AM (#6777496)
    I'm surprised no one has thought of this before. We should support those that support open software.

    A retailer brands a product with Mozilla (or Linux, etc.), gives a large portion of the profit to the community, and advertises that they do it.

    The problem with previous implementations is that people don't buy too many T-shirts or mugs or things.

    Those that buy coffee buy lots of it. How about a bottled water for OpenOffice.org, or a line of soda for AbiWord?
    • How about a line of painkillers for Windows?
    • You need to look closely at these deals. You may have seen the yogurt ones. You return some piece of the container, and they donate $X to Y. However if you read the fine print, there is a maximum they will donate. The basic effect of this is if they sell 50,000,000 yogurts during the time period, there's a good chance only a hundred thousand or less will actually end up counting for any kind of donation.

      In the yogurt case, I'd advise not to use the ploy as a decisive reason to buy yogurt, but perhaps

  • Great but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MoeMoe ( 659154 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:16AM (#6777552)
    I'm glad to see our addiction become our support, but I won't be satisfied till they release the source code to that "Worldly Lizard" blend, and pass it under the GPL...
  • The whole exaggerated excessiveness of gourmet food advertising sometimes just makes me laugh. Does this description (from the RJ Tarpley site):

    We start by selecting 100% arabica beans from the worlds finest coffee growers. The coffee beans are then carefully roasted in small batches by our Master Roaster according to his exacting specifications and delivered to your front door.

    ...remind anyone else of the Simpsons's Good Morning Burger?

    We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in ri

  • mozilla coffee (Score:5, Funny)

    by sfraggle ( 212671 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @11:32AM (#6777631)
    Man, I cant drink that mozilla coffee. It bloats me up.

  • Great Marketing. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Soaps ( 628818 )
    So they donate some of their profits in turn have an endless number of slasdot readers see their name, we buy a bag, i think they are banking on the number of bags sold making up for the lost profits. then they get great publicity on slashdot. somebody in their marketing will either get a fat bonus if it works or a boot to the curb if it flops
  • When's the last time you went to starbucks? Their whole bean coffee is about 15$ a bag around here.

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by uarch ( 637449 )
    On University of Michigan's central campus alot of students raised a fuss and got the local coffee shops to offer fair trade coffee.

    Maybe someone should do the same for Mozilla coffee on the engineering campus. There are only two coffee shops up there and they go through ALOT of coffee. Besides, its all the EECS kids loading up on coffee before the shops close anyway ;)
  • Isn't this a great way to advertise? Instead of spending $500,000 a week for a TV spot on a national network, which is impossible for such a small business, you devote a small portion of your profits to an open-source software project, let Slashdot hear about it, and several million geeks have heard about your coffee and visited your website. People like your ethos, so they'll buy your coffee regardless of whether it's good or not.

    Then again, maybe I'm just a cynical little shit with no faith in American b
    • Either way, the Mozilla Org gets money that it probably wouldn't have got otherwise, and you've got coffee.

      I think this offsets any problem...

  • Netcraft says... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mr.henry ( 618818 ) * on Sunday August 24, 2003 @12:48PM (#6777940) Journal
    They are running [netcraft.com] FreeBSD [freebsd.org]. This sort of pandering doesn't really do much for me, but at least these guys aren't pitching their 'Mozilla Coffee' with IIS [freeyellow.com].

  • Microsoft did this, too. (Score:5, Funny)

    by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @01:44PM (#6778244) Homepage
    Before the launch of Windows 98, Microsoft did had a promotional thing where they sold "Windows 98 Roast" at Borders bookstore locations. Here's a good article [bedope.com] about it. When I saw it at the counter, it was too good of an opportunity to not crack a joke.
    "Who the hell wants coffee with bugs in it?
    The clerk wasn't amused, but I was chuckling for the rest of the evening.

    So, don't let anyone ever tell you that Microsoft didn't support java.
  • 1 pound = 453.59237 grams, so at $9.50/pound a kilogram would cost over 20 bucks.

    Holy shit...at such prices, that coffee'd better be damn good! I buy coffee for like $6 - $8 or something.

    However, it's a nice publicity stunt, and hopefully a good way to earn some bucks for the Mozilla foundation.

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