Apple Creating iBrowser on Mozilla Code?

louismg writes "The Register is claiming there may be a browser mutiny in Cupertino. The Mozilla-based Chimera browser was featured by many speakers during this month's WWDC, which may constitute a backhand endorsement, and could be used as a weapon in the 'negotiations' with Bill Gates and Co. over IE ..." Chimera is beginning to turn into a usable browser, favored by many Mac OS X users. Who knows? Update: 05/28 15:33 GMT by P : Chimera 0.2.8 was released today.

Comments

Hyatt Responds

[Johnny Mnemonic]

From Hyatt's blog:

Monday, May 27, 2002 Posted 1:12 PM by David Hyatt

Eep. Sometimes I forget that people are actually reading this thing and developing grand conspiracy theories. I especially like the part where I'm referred to as a "long-time Mac nut." Until about 3 months ago, my Mac desktop was a glorified paperweight, Cocoa was something you drank, and Objective-C... well, I would have just blinked and responded with "Objective what?"

Just to set the record straight on this conspiracy theory... all Netscape employees who were hired before AOL took the company over are eligible for a six-week sabbatical after four years of employment. You also have to take the sabbatical within one year of becoming eligible for it, or you have to go through the hassle of filing for an extension. As of July 5, I'll have been working for Netscape/AOLTW for 5 years, so I had to take the sabbatical now. It also seemed like a good time to do so since Mozilla 1.0 is wrapping up (and in very good shape). This sabbatical has absolutely nothing to do with Chimera.

Although an iBrowser would be an interesting development--IE is only one of three third party apps that ships with OS X, and the use of Mozilla in a Beta version of a Mac AOL client gives this some weight, I don't think Hyatt is working on it.

New version of Chimera released today

[Eslyjah]

David Hyatt, Chimera's principal developer, said that since he was on sabbatical no new builds were in the works until July. However, the demand for more development was so high, and the rumors were so rampant, that he released a new build this morning. See for yourself. David has denied the rumors repeatedly, and I doubt that Apple will take Chimera and rename it iBrowser or (even better) iBrowse. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually became the default browser and shipped with future versions of the OS.