“Ten years ago, Netscape announced it would release to the
public the code of its flag ship product, Netscape Communicator 5,
making it an open source product. The action came at a time when
Netscape was still the dominant web browser: 65 million users and
90% market share in the educational segment according to Netscape’s
own accounts. But Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was grabbing share
at a furious pace thanks to it being free (at a time Netscape was
about$30) and specially the fact that it came bundled with Windows
95 and upcoming Windows 98 (released on June 1998).“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…”