Comment on What Ever Happened to Netscape?
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before its acquisition by AOL. Firefox was created in 2002 under the codename “Phoenix” by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle.
The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. The nascent browser was originally named Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor (in this case, from the “ashes” of Netscape Navigator, after it was sidelined by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the “First Browser War”).
On January 23, 1998, Netscape announced that its Netscape Communicator browser software would be free, and that its source code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape registered mozilla.org. The project took its name, “Mozilla”, from the original code name of the Netscape Navigator browser—a portmanteau of “Mosaic and Godzilla”, and used to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite, the free software version of Netscape’s internet software, Netscape Communicator. Zawinski said he arrived at the name “Mozilla” at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordinating the new community.
Everything that was useful in Netscape became the basis for Firefox.
See also the documentary.
Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator
False. SEAMONKEY is the actual successor of Mozilla, the software which is the actual successor of Netscape Navigator.
Everything that was useful in Netscape became the basis for Firefox.
False. Thunderbird is a thing and an important part of Seamonkey.
See also the documentary.
Ready on the (x)-to-doubt button.
Thaurin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I could’ve sworn that the browser was also called just Mozilla at one point, or was that just always the suite it was part of?
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
My memory is hazy, but I’m pretty sure Mozilla was a package and most people just didn’t install the rest of the package. Everyone called the browser Mozilla because they didn’t use the other parts. I could definitely be wrong, though.
chrisgestapo@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Mozilla (Suite) was similar to Netscape Commumicator and included browser, mail, webpage editor and maybe other functions as well. I don’t recall you could install the components separately. Later they decided to release a standalone browser (Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox) and then mail client (Thunderbird). IIRC they had standalone calendar (Sunbird) and webpage editor as well. Eventually they discontinued Mozilla and the closet thing would be the community-maintained Seamonkey.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
If I remember correctly, at one point Mozilla referred to itself as “the godzilla of Mosaic” or something like that.
Mosaic being the first widely available web browser.