Mozilla Celebrates Its 10th Birthday

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Mozilla has turned 10 today. It's been a long, strange trip from being the once-dominant browser, going down to almost nothing, and returning to something like 25% of the browser market. 'With a sliding market share, Netscape decided to focus on its enterprise oriented products and gave away the browser but most importantly allow volunteers to work on the product. Mozilla was nothing but Netscape's user agent (the name a browser uses to contact the web server), a reminder of the first Netscape code name. Over time, Mozilla would become the name of the open source project, AOL would buy Netscape and Internet Explorer would get up to 90%+ of market share leading to the worst period in web browsers' history where innovation was a niche for Opera and IE remixes users.'"

Comments

Good Software Takes Ten Years to Write

[colmore]

There's an apropos Joel on Software article from a few years back

Re:Good Software Takes Ten Years to Write

[moosesocks]

Mozilla only gained mainstream acceptance once a developer independent of the Mozilla organization took the codebase, and discarded a large portion of the code to create Phoenix (later FireBird, now FireFox).

Prior to that, it was a slow, ugly bloated mess.

Ironically, now that the old Mozilla devs are managing the project, it's once again becoming a slow, bloated mess.

Had the project been properly managed, I don't think it would have taken 10 years.

Re:Good Software Takes Ten Years to Write

[kv9]

I'd say it's faster then any other browser at this point. it ain't faster than Opera.

Re:Good Software Takes Ten Years to Write

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Blake Ross and Dave Hyatt were already related to Mozllla by the time the mozilla/browser (pre-Phoenix) project started. They did start the project separately from the main Mozilla work, but they could hardly be called independent from the Mozilla organization. Blake Ross was an intern; Dave Hyatt was a Netscape employee.

The project started mainly because the monolithic Mozilla suite was heavily influenced by America Online. Ross and Hyatt pretty much discarded the old chrome and started with a fresh one. Rendering engine wise it was pretty much the same thing.

The project would have taken 10 years regardless. Since Netscape released the source code, the engine code was pretty much rewritten. Then, the old chrome was pretty much discarded.

The modern Firefox could hardly be called a 'slow, bloated mess' if you consider the pre-mozilla/browser standards. Mozilla 2 is not perfect, but the Firefox 3 beta shows that the features can be there with a 1.5 era responsiveness.

Once dominant browser?

[eln]

Mozilla as spun off in 1998 was never the dominant browser. By the time Mozilla was open sourced 10 years ago, IE was the dominant browser by a significant margin. If the browser was still dominant, I doubt Netscape would have ever open sourced it.

Re:Once dominant browser?

[stefanlasiewski]

The summary doesn't make this clear, but the actual article is referring to Netscape as the the dominant browser from Early 1990s to 1998.

Thems was the REAL browser wars. Do you have your Windows 95 Plus Pack yet?

Re:And what a great ride it's been

[gEvil (beta)]

What was that 'hidden' page again with the quote from the 'book of mozilla'? Ahh memories :)

That'd be this guy.

Re:Congrats

[Amorymeltzer]

Still can't drink, drive, vote or fuck tho' Yeah well, that 10 year old's done more to Microsoft than you ever will.

In fairness....

[Otter]

Internet Explorer would get up to 90%+ of market share leading to the worst period in web browsers' history where innovation was a niche for Opera and IE remixes users.

Putting aside the fact that users who were sufficiently upset by this "worst period in web browsers' history" could always go back to Lynx and Viola...

This seems a bit unfair to kfm and Konqueror, which made web browsing on Unix tolerable while Mozilla was still in shambles, Galeon, which put the first decent browser around the Mozilla engine, and whatever that Mac browser was called ... OmniWeb? Plus CyberDog!

Re:In fairness....

[webmaster404]

Before Firefox started getting popular in the middle-late age of IE6 the web was stagnant, very little innovation that people could see was being done with MS finally killing off Netscape, yes there was progress but in the grand area of things most code had to be checked on like 3-4 browsers to make sure it could render (IE5, IE6, Opera and Netscape/Firefox) correctly. Now, with Firefox/Safari/Konqueror/Opera all being mostly standards-compliant very little testing needs to be done except with IE5-7. I would call it the worst age of the internet from a developers standpoint, with non-standards following browsers being the norm.

Re:In fairness....

[The One and Only]

and whatever that Mac browser was called ... OmniWeb? Plus CyberDog!

I was there so let me elucidate. Mozilla began in 1998, so let's say Netscape died by 1998. On the Mac, the main available browsers were IE and Netscape at that point. Some people still used Netscape despite it not being supported, some used IE, some used minor players such as iCab and Opera. OmniWeb was a NeXTStep browser, not a Mac browser, at that point. CyberDog was a demonstration of Apple's OpenDoc technology, which died in 1997. CyberDog itself was only supported from 96 to 97, and never really caught on.

In 1997, Apple buys NeXT and Steve Jobs takes over. Jobs makes a deal with Microsoft to settle remaining patent disputes (the residue from the "look and feel" lawsuits of the late 80's). That deal includes such provisions as MS investing $150 million into Apple, MS promising to develop just as many Mac versions of Office as Windows versions for the next five years, and IE becoming the default browser on the Mac, although not being built in the way it was built into Windows 98. Until 2003, Apple is contractually obligated to bundle IE and set it as the default browser.

By 2000, the user base is fractured between just using IE, trying to get old Netscape to work, trying to get Mozilla or new Netscape to work, and trying out fringe browsers. (AOL made a few customized releases of Mozilla under the Netscape branding at the time.) In 2001, Mac OS X comes out. A new version of IE is bundled and set as the default browser. Mozilla eventually gets ported over. iCab and Opera get ported over. OmniWeb gets ported from NeXTStep (which is closer to Mac OS X than Mac OS 9 was).

In 2002, some people, including Dave Hyatt, separate out the browser parts of Mozilla from all the other cruft, put it in a Cocoa wrapper, and release it on Mac OS X as Chimera. Chimera gains a significant userbase. It is now known as Camino for the same types of reasons that Mozilla Phoenix became Mozilla Firefox. Despite having similar goals to Firefox, Chimera's initial release was actually months before the first release of Phoenix (as Firefox was then known). At this point there is competition between IE, Chimera, and OmniWeb. Eventually, Firefox becomes available on Mac OS X as well.

In 2003, Apple releases Safari, some months after hiring Dave Hyatt to make them a browser. Safari is built around WebKit, which is a fork of KHTML, the rendering engine of Konquerer. Later in 2003, Microsoft discontinues IE for Mac, and ever since then the main browsers on the Mac are Safari, Camino, Firefox, and to a smaller extent, OmniWeb and other fringe players.

Re:Congrats

[kemushi88]

But it can view porn.

Re:And what a great ride it's been

[Anti_Climax]

about:mozilla

Honest Question

[FiveLights]

You'll want to mod me down so as not to attract attention to this issue, but I'd honestly like to know... I usually browse at a level of 4 or higher but sometimes, when there are still few comments to a story, I'll drop down to -1. My question is, does every story have all of this racism and homophobia nonsense attached to it, or is this something new? If it's a long standing thing, are there any theories as to why people bother with stuff like that on a site like Slashdot? They just get modded down and aren't even seen by most people (I, of course, assume most people are like me), so why do they bother? Hope someone answers before I get modded into oblivion with the trolls :)

Re:Honest Question

[heinousjay]

Assuming most people are like you is dangerous, foolish, and typically invalid. You have no reason for making such an assumption.

Also, is there a way to block submitters? This imaginary property zealot is starting to get on my nerves with the editorializing. I don't like my stories assuming I'm a dipshit hippie.

Open Source ...

[apathy maybe]

Should mention that this was the project that began the "Open Source" concept (as compared to Free Software), when a certain gun nut took the Debian guidelines for "free" and worked with Netscape and eventually created the Open Source Initiative.

Personally, I prefer the term Free Software... :P

Anyway, I'm using Firefox now, have done for a while. But my mother is still on Mozilla (a version that is getting on now, I can't remember which one though). One thing I've taught her, Firewall, no MSIE and much less problems (she also has a virus checker that does some small good, not sure if it outweighs the bad though...).

I remember something nasty happening to IE years ago and having to download Netscape, and then slowly learning about this Free Software idea and eventually installing Mozilla.

Ah, the memories.

Re:Open Source ...

[STrinity]

My introduction to free software was in 1986 when my father bought a Commodore 64 and one of his friends came over with an extra disk drive so we could copy all his games.

Re:And what a great ride it's been

[morgan_greywolf]

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.
But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.
The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire
and thunder upon them. For the beast had been
reborn with its strength renewed, and the
followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

IE Dominance wasn't always bad....

[Jason Levine]

I was a Netscape user back in the 3.x and 4.x days. I was also a web developer. NS 3.x beat IE 3.x hands down when it came to web development. The 4.x models showed IE pretty much even with Netscape. Then Netscape did something monumentally stupid. They stopped releasing browsers. Sure, they claimed that they were working on something big in the back room, but that didn't help use users and developers. Meanwhile, Microsoft came out with IE 5.x which blew NS 4.x out of the water when it came to development ease and usage. Of course, IE6 was even further ahead of Netscape 4.x. Meanwhile, the back room development was still progressing, or so they said.

Up until this point, IE's dominance was a good thing. It proved that sitting on your laurels won't win you the browser wars. Even if you've got a grand plan, you've got to get regular releases out there or people will just forget about you.

It's just too bad that Microsoft didn't learn this lesson. With their browser safely at 90%+ market share and no real competitors in sight, they stopped development (except for bug fixes, of course). Over time, the wonderful, easy to use browser started showing its age. Alternatives like FireFox started popping up, showing people that a more standards-compliant browser could make development a lot more fun. FireFox started to take off and wonder of wonders, Microsoft decided that maybe they should update cranky old IE6. The IE6 languishing years were the really bad time to be a web developer. Now I'm hoping that IE6 dies off rapidly (though not as much as I kept hoping that Netscape 4.x would die off).

Mozilla's dead

[monopole]

Just read the Suck.com article

Netscape really had a soul

[Misanthrope]

Back when I first started browsing with Netscape 1.0, it really appealed to me because of the obvious fun the developers were having.
Take for example the Amazing Netscape Fish Cam
http://wp.netscape.com/fishcam/
You used to be able to hit ctrl-alt-f and it would load up a webcam with their office aquarium.

Thank you, /., for showing me Firefox

[eepok]

I remember when Firefox was covered by Slashdot about 7 years ago. It was described as some itty bitty beta based vaguely on Netscape (which I personally hated), but it was mentioned that it was only some 5MB download. I thought, "Hey, it's free (my favorite price), it's small (I seriously needed better hardware), and it's cutting edge (geek factor)."

I downloaded it, installed it, learned I could move the buttons around and fell in love. Since then, I would always install Firefox on every computer I fixed. I require all friends to use it. I carry around FireFox portable (and thunderbird) on a thumbdrive so I can use it wherever and however I wish.

While in beta, it worked. The release candidates worked. The final versions worked. Tabs and middle click CHANGED what the internet was to me. Java control, add-ons, everything -- Thank you Firefox!

Bug fixes

[Kelson]

It's just too bad that Microsoft didn't learn this lesson. With their browser safely at 90%+ market share and no real competitors in sight, they stopped development (except for bug fixes, of course).

And only bug fixes that they considered critical -- security, crashers, etc. Nothing that would have fixed rendering bugs. And I don't just mean spec violations, I mean outright bugs that would make content disappear. When they did IE7, they combed the net looking for descriptions of known rendering bugs so they could fix them.

Re:And what a great ride it's been

[BeeBeard]

Thanks for the link. I was drawing an about:blank there, too. ;)

Re:Thank you, /., for showing me Firefox

[bckrispi]

I've found that it's not the browser that causes frequent crashes, but the plugins (or themes). My home install uses the default theme, and only about 1/2 dozen "must have" plugins. My browser seldom, if ever crashes. However, there was a certain theme I installed some time ago that apparently caused a crash at least twice a day. Once I deleted the theme, I was stable again.

Re:I always hated the name 'Mozilla'

[InvisiBill]

I wasn't there, but I've always understood 'Mozilla' to be a funky portmanteau of 'Mosaic Killer', stemming from Marc Anderson's dream of Netscape reigning supreme over Mosaic, the ground-breaking NCSA-developed graphical browser. Anyone out there who was close to the action?

As a result, I never shed a tear for Netscape when IE wiped the floor with them, as it seemed to me that Netscape got exactly what they had set out to do to Mosaic.

It's a bit more complicated than that, as Netscape really was Mosaic in a way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)

Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina originally designed and programmed NCSA Mosaic for Unix's X Window System at NCSA.

...

Marc Andreessen, the leader of the team that developed Mosaic, left NCSA and, with Jim Clark, one of the founders of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), and four other former students and staff of the University of Illinois, started Mosaic Communications Corporation. Mosaic Communications eventually became Netscape Communications Corporation, producing Netscape Navigator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator

After his graduation from Illinois in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met with Jim Clark, the recently-departed founder of Silicon Graphics. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and provided the seed money. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen appointed as a vice-president. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so "Mosaic Communications Corporation" changed its name to Netscape Communications (thought up by sales representative Greg Sands) and its flagship web browser was the Netscape Navigator.

In other Mosaic/IE news...

Spyglass licensed the technology and trademarks from NCSA for producing their own web browser but never used any of the NCSA Mosaic source code. Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic in 1995 for US$2 million, modified it, and renamed it Internet Explorer.

In other words, you're happy that Mosaic killed Mosaic because they wanted to kill Mosaic.