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AOL Lays Off 50 Netscape Coders
xcable points out a CNET story which begins "America Online on Tuesday said it has laid off 50 employees involved in Web browser development at its Netscape subsidiary amid a reorganization of its Mozilla open-source browser team," and offers a reminder that "AOL recently made a deal with Microsoft to use IE in future AOL releases." This adds a bit more detail to yesterday's (updated) story about the establishment of the Mozilla foundation.
You've got a pink slip!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I'm amazed those people still had jobs. What were they doing, anyway?
Software Engineer, AOL/Netscape 1999-2003 : Contributed bloat and bugs to massive failed project. Managed to continue to get paid for years beyond useful function. Perfected art of staring at monitor and 'zoning out' while pretending to work.
I heard how you just got screwed by AOL. Please call me next week; I think I may have some work that will interest you!
Signed,
Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute
P.S. Bring a raincoat.
Trying to stuff as many AOL icons in as possible.
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
We have to complete our assimilation of the Alpha quadrant.
Wrong. MS does not support alpha chips anymore. Hey, even Compaq/HP does not support them anymore!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Given the layoff of the 50 programmers at AOL, I think that the newly-formed Mozilla Foundation (the "MF"...heh) should hold a bake sale and use the proceeds to hire 50 programmers from New Dehli to replace them. the MF will need to raise at least $50 or $60 bucks to get started...
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
I was confused too, I not-so-accidentally, accidentally pronounced it as "mozilla".
The parent comment is proof that Slashdot needs a "+1 Troll" moderation.
where's the time Netscape was a cool company and everyone wanted to work there..
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It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Mozilla is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Mozilla community when IDC confirmed that Mozilla market share has dropped yet again. Now it is down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all browsers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Mozilla has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Mozilla is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Mozilla's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Mozilla faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Mozilla because Mozilla is dying. Things are looking very bad for Mozilla. As many of us are already aware, Mozilla continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Netscape is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Netscape developers only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Netscape is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Due to the troubles of AOL, abysmal sales and so on, Netscape went out of business and was taken over by AOL who sell another troubled service. Now AOL is also nearly dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Mozilla has steadily declined in market share. Mozilla is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Mozilla is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Mozilla continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Mozilla is dead.
Fact: Mozilla is dying
(With apologies to the original *BSD is dying troll).
"AOL recently made a deal with Microsoft to use IE in future AOL releases."
Honestly, don't they change this every AOL version?
I'm amazed at the amount of AOL users that do not know they can minimize AOL and use whatever browser they want. Wait, no I'm not.
Bob Slydell: The Netscape developers.
Bill Lumbergh: Who're they?
Bob Porter: You know, squirrely looking guys, mumble a lot.
Bill Lumbergh: Oh, yeah.
Bob Slydell: Yeah, we can't actually find a record of them being current employees here.
Bob Porter: I looked into it more deeply and I found that apparently what happened is that they were laid off five years ago and no one ever told them, but through some kind of glitch in the payroll department, they still get paychecks.
Bob Slydell: So we just went a ahead and fixed the glitch.
Bill Lumbergh: Great.
Dom Portwood: So um, the Netscape developers have been let go?
Bob Slydell: Well just a second there, professor. We uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So they won't be receiving paychecks anymore, so it will just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem solved from your end.
--- What
Sorry, that was supposed to be:
The letters A O L undergo a shift of +12 +4 +2.
Must...drink...more...coffee! [sigh]
Netscape, the one good American software that really scared the shit out of MS
:)
Hee hee hee. You're cute
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
All 50 employees spent their morning moderating...
You are exactly what is wrong with the world.
Exactly.
I'm exercising my karma-burning perogative baby...
Fuck AOL.
Fuck those cockmunching peabrain shiteating worthless motherfuckers.
Thank you.
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