“Netscape Communications and open source developers are
celebrating the first anniversary, March 31, 1999, of the release
of Netscape’s browser source code to mozilla.org — the
organization that manages open source developers working on the
next generation of Netscape’s browser and communication software.
This event marked a historical milestone for the Internet as
Netscape became the first major commercial software company to open
its source code…”
“There was a lot of excitement when we first announced we were
going to open our code up to the world,” said Brendan Eich,
principal engineer of mozilla.org. “One year later we are in the
middle of a revolution. Open source software is gaining momentum,
as shown by the growing popularity of Linux and the number of major
companies now embracing the open source development model.”