Netscape Browser (1994-2003) Died Today
Today on mozillaZine: AOL Cuts Remaining Mozilla Hackers
Hmmm… I wonder what this means for the remaining organizations out there that are still running on Netscape browsers. Hopefully, it means that software companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Netscape 4.x won’t have to do that anymore. Thankfully, the Mozilla project will continue under the new Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit that will serve as the new home of mozilla.org. Looks like this new foundation is off to a great start with funding guaranteed from AOL ($2M over the next two years) and other industry leaders, Mitch Kapor, the new Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, is making a personal contribution of $300K, and Red Hat and Sun Microsystems are also planning on ponying up.
The desired effect of this is that software companies who have to support Netscape 4.x, will no longer have to. However, an undesireable reprecussion is that developers might begin to target Internet Explorer again. That would be a huge problem. Although, with the next release of Mozilla (currently dubbed Firebird) looming around the corner and Safari becoming the most popular browser for Macs, the chances of developers focusing on Internet Explorer are probably not as good… especially since we’re probably stuck with Internet Explorer 6 for the next 3+ years.