[WikiEN-l] Lies, damned lies, and statistics

[David Gerard]

2009/4/19 Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name>:

> From my own (admittedly limited) knowledge of the history of the
> Mozilla project, I don't think the above is a correct description.
> Netscape (presumably the "for-profit company" you're talking about
> here) spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a nonprofit entity way back
> when they first open-sourced what was originally the partly-completed
> Netscape 5 version of their browser.


No, they started using "mozilla.org" as a domain name, but it wasn't a
nonprofit until AOL dumped it in 2003 and supplied $2m for them to
form the Mozilla Foundation.


>  Development then proceeded as
> an independent open-source project with both volunteers and Netscape
> employees doing it as a side project, first to try to finish
> "Netscape 5", then to scrap that and rewrite the rendering engine as
> "Gecko" and make it part of a new "Mozilla suite".


No, Netscape heavily directed the development. Being a good
independent developer was a good way to get hired by Netscape, too.


- d.