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Netscape goes GPL.
On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Eli Marmor wrote:
(sorry for the long post earlyer, I wasn't aware the PR was already
posted to linux-il)
> > Netscape is going to release Communicator 5 under the GPL!
>
> and Netscape is going to be dead, too :-(
they are either very dumb ("Tamut Nafshi 'Im Plishtim") or very clever.
Netscape are being crushed by Microsoft slowly but surely. History has
shown that the longest surviving software is freeware, and many companies
make really nice revenues (and sometimes profits too!) from supporting or
repackaging freeware. See Caldera, Cygnus, RedHat, and the various porters
of apache like stronghold and others.
Netscape's revenues from the Navigator product branch was about 18%.
for me this means chopping off a large chunk of profit and diverting it
into marketing budget. True, it is a VERY large chunk, but difficult times
call for big action. I've spoken to people who saw Microsoft code, either
legally or illegaly along the years, and they all say what we all knew by
intuition - they write pretty badly. they will never release their sources
like that to the public in a great act of trust.
Netscape made some wrong choices lately, and I believe they have skipped a
few opertunities for not very apperent reason. I still see their main
problem against microsoft in the OS-server integration (both on the
technical level and the marketing-packaging level) and it is something
they will have to solve REALLY soon, if indeed they wish to become
profitable again. in the meantime, the only way to undermine Microsoft's
"free browser" strategy was to sink to something below their offering, and
actually "pay people to take it". I think this payment comes as the added
value of the free source code. Navigator will now become the most
widespread GPL product EVER. second to it are only apache in second place
and Linux in third. Thsi means wider and better beta testing and bug
resolving, plus the psychological effect, which puts Netscape again as
Luke skywalker and Microsoft as Darth Vader.
Mr. Barksdale, I salute you!
Jimalaya, Jim Jim Jim!
I'm hungry, let's eat.
--
Ira Abramov <ira(a)scso.com> whois: IA58
** Linux is like a Vorlon. It is incredibly powerful, gives terse,
cryptic answers and has a lot of things going on in the background.