Netscape opens up its browser: Mozilla is born
Summary
On 31 March 1998 Netscape released the source code of its Communicator browser and founded mozilla.org for it, having announced the step on 22 January. For the first time a major software company opened the code of a core product, in the middle of the browser war against Microsoft. The project gave rise to the Mozilla Suite, Firefox and Thunderbird, and the step gave the newly named open source movement its best-known early example.
A corporation opens its code
In 1997 Netscape was losing market share to Internet Explorer, which Microsoft shipped free with Windows. On 22 January 1998 Netscape announced it would publish the source code of the next Communicator generation freely on the net, and on 23 February mozilla.org followed as a dedicated team and website. “Mozilla” had already been the internal name of the Netscape browser.
The released code proved hard to maintain, and the project rewrote major parts, including a new rendering engine, Gecko. The Mozilla Suite 1.0 only appeared in 2002, followed in 2004 by Firefox 1.0, which noticeably took market share from Internet Explorer.
Ideas
- Open code can be an answer to an overpowering competitor.
- A project needs its own organisation, not just an archive of source code.
- Released legacy code often has to be rewritten before others can join in.
- Licences decide who may later use the code and how.
Insights
- Success came late: more than six years passed between the release and Firefox 1.0. Open source is not a quick fix, but a way of keeping a product alive beyond the end of one’s own company.
- The Netscape release gave the open source movement a tailwind; shortly afterwards the term open source was coined and the Open Source Initiative founded.
Facts
- Netscape announced the release on 22 January 1998, and mozilla.org was created on 23 February 1998.
- The source code was published on 31 March 1998.
- Mozilla Suite 1.0 appeared in 2002, Firefox 1.0 in November 2004.
References
Remarks
- The linked page is a 2008 snapshot of mozilla.org with the project’s historical documents.
Recommendations
- For your own software, think early about the licence under which it could live on if the project ends.
- Before releasing legacy code, clarify dependencies on third-party code and licences; Netscape had to remove parts before the release.
Links to the original source and the Web Archive open in a new tab.