Netscape was indeed bought by AOL, and my greatest long term concern for
Netscape is the AOLization of its products and services. This is evident in the
6.0 browser. Netscape 6.0 used as its core the Gecko engine, version 0.6.
(Yes, that means AOL/Netscape was shipping finished software with an unfinished
beta at it's heart.) Gecko itself is tiny and fast, but after AOL loaded it
down with all it's co-branding bells and whistles it's as porky and slow as MSIE
5.5.
So what is Gecko? It's the product that the Mozilla Project produces. The
Mozilla Project is an interesting experiment funded mostly by Netscape to
produce an open source browser with mostly volunteer programmers. The goal is
to produce small, fast, stable, standards compliant open code that can be used
by Netscape or anyone else. It's not just a neat idea; Netscape has put all its
eggs in the Mozilla Project basket and now Netscape's future about depends upon
Mozilla's success. Originally Netscape donated its 4.x code to the Mozilla
Project to be used as a starting point... and Mozilla rejected it as worthless
and chose to code from scratch, which shows you how badly Netscape needs some
new code.
BTW, don't confuse Mozilla (Netscape's code name for their original browser code
way back when) with the Mozilla Project or it's Gecko product. Same name,
different code.
Netscape isn't the only company using Gecko. There are a few new browsers
sprouting up using it. The ones I've seen (don't ask me for names; I've
forgotten them) seem to be skins of beta Geckos, but I expect to see some real
enhancements once the core Gecko code gets cleaned up. If AOL can't be
convinced to make 6.x less obese, I may try one of these Gecko Lite browsers
someday.
Warren
The1LadyHawke wrote:
>
> > Are you aware that Netscape 6 is AOL in sheeps clothing?
> > Remember the buy out?
>
> Oh yes! In fact I read somewhere that Netscape 6 is not really Netscape (and
> if you saw the GUI interface you'd wonder) but that it is Mosilla, the
> original Netscape 1 basic browser (with a few extras, of course).
**********Footer message for &LIST mailing list***********
To unsubscribe from cybercafe, send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(NOT to the list itself .. cybercafe@....). In that e-mail type:
unsubscribe cybercafe <your e-mail address (optional)>
end
for details: <http://www.owt.com/users/jlewis/unsub_faq.html>
