“A YEAR AGO Netscape Communications, losing the battle of the
browser to Microsoft, cracked open its programming “source code”
and offered it to the world, inviting programmers to analyze it,
change it and help build a better browser than it had been able to
make on its own.”
“The move seemed radical in an industry built on intellectual
property–the equivalent of Coca-Cola’s publishing its secret
formula and soliciting advice from the soda jerks of the world.
Could the open source movement save the marketplace victims of Bill
Gates?”
Forbes looks at the Mozilla project and summarises the
pitfalls that Netscape fell into. –dw