4 votes

Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape (2000)

2 comments

  1. [2]
    lou
    Link
    Ironically, the documentary is more about "endings" than "beginnings". It's a good doc either way.

    Ironically, the documentary is more about "endings" than "beginnings". It's a good doc either way.

    1 vote
    1. pseudolobster
      Link Parent
      I haven't seen this in over a decade. Great watch. For anyone who doesn't know the history, this is the origin of Firefox. When Netscape was being bought by AOL there was a last ditch effort by...

      I haven't seen this in over a decade. Great watch.

      For anyone who doesn't know the history, this is the origin of Firefox. When Netscape was being bought by AOL there was a last ditch effort by the remaining coders to open-source the browser before the corporate takeover. Back in the late 90s this was highly unusual, as open-source was still pretty fringe and Netscape was considered to be a hugely valuable company during the dotcom boom.

      Firefox started as Project Firebird, soon renamed Phoenix, rising from the ashes of Netscape. It was an anarchistic last hurrah, a big middle finger to the unstoppable corporate machine that was AOL. I think they took a cue from Nullsoft, makers of Winamp, who also got bought out by AOL but never stopped being punk rock, releasing open source p2p filesharing software while being employed by "the man".

      2 votes