History of Mozilla Application Suite

The history of the Mozilla Application Suite began with the release of the source code of the Netscape suite as an open source project. [cite press release
title = Netscape announces mozilla.org, a dedicated team and web site supporting development of free client source code
publisher = Netscape Communications Corporation
date = February 23, 1998
url = http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease577.html
accessdate = 2005-06-12 ] Going through years of hard working (with the help of the community contributors), Mozilla 1.0 was eventually released on June 5 2002. While the suite is no longer developed, its backend code base, most notably the Gecko layout engine, has become the foundation of a number of applications based on Mozilla, including the Mozilla Foundation's flagship product Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Open sourcing of Communicator

In March 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation released most of the code base for its popular Netscape Communicator suite under an open source license. [cite press release
title = Netscape accelerates communicator evolution with first release of next-generation communicator source code to developer community via mozilla.org
publisher = Netscape Communications Corporation
date = March 31, 1998
url = http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease591.html
accessdate = 2005-06-12 ] The name of the application developed from this would be "Mozilla", coordinated by the newly created Mozilla Organization, at the mozilla.org website.

The open source release, which came at the height of America's late-1990s economic boom, was greeted by the Internet community with a mixture of acclaim and skepticism. In some circles, Netscape's source release was seen as both a victory for the free software movement and an opportunity for Netscape to tap the power of open source development. This view was particularly popular among users of Linux and other free software. Other observers, including many outside of the free software business community, interpreted the move as Netscape's surrender in the face of the ascendancy of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

Regardless of the public's opinion, development with the Communicator code base proved harder than initially hoped:
*The Communicator code base was huge and complex.
*It had to be developed simultaneously on many operating systems, and therefore to cope with their differing libraries and idiosyncrasies.
*It bore the scars of many rapid cycles of closed-source development on "Internet time". The short development cycles had led programmers to sacrifice modularity and elegance in the scramble to implement more features.
*Several parts of Communicator's code were never released as open source, due to licensing arrangements with third parties.

As a result, the initial Communicator open source release did not even build cleanly, much less run. This presented steep challenges to the Mozilla core developers (most of whom were still on Netscape's payroll), and even steeper challenges to independent developers wishing to contribute to Mozilla on their own.

Rewriting from scratch

Ultimately, the Mozilla core developers concluded that the old code could not be salvaged. As stated on the October 26 1998 development roadmap, [cite web
title = Mozilla development roadmap
publisher = Mozilla Organization
date = October 26, 1998
url = http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap/roadmap-26-Oct-1998.html
accessdate = 2005-06-12] it was decided to scrap the whole code base and rewrite it from the ground up. [cite web
url= http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html
title= resignation and postmortem. (nomo zilla)
accessdate= 2007-05-29
author= Jamie Zawinski
authorlink= Jamie Zawinski
date= March 31, 1999] . The resulting plan included, among other things, the creation of a whole new cross-platform user interface library and a new layout engine.

Few observers foresaw the result. On December 7 1998, Netscape released a special "preview" based on the Gecko layout engine. [cite press release
title = Netscape delivers "Gecko" browsing engine incorporating advanced features for internet browsing anywhere
publisher = Netscape Communications Corporation
date = December 7, 1998
url = http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease711.html
accessdate = 2005-06-12] Gecko had already been in development for some time at Netscape under the internal name "NGLayout" (short for "Next Generation Layout"). It was noticeably faster and smaller than its predecessor (known as Mariner). One widely publicized feature of the first Gecko preview release was that it fit on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk, making it about one tenth the size of most contemporary browsers.

The prompt release of Gecko led many to believe that a complete browser could not be far behind. However, the first release of the layout engine was far from bug- and crash-free, and even further from being ready for the prime-time. Producing a fully functional web browser required much more than the nascent rendering engine: the Mozilla developers soon envisioned a project more ambitious than a simple web browser. The new Mozilla (internally codenamed "Seamonkey") would be a "platform for Internet applications", with a fully programmable user interface and a modular architecture. This Mozilla would function equally well as a host for email client, instant messaging client, news client, or any number of other applications.

Due to the effort required for this massive rewrite, the project fell far behind its original projected deadlines. In the years that followed, skepticism about Mozilla grew widespread, and some doubted that a finished Mozilla browser would ever see the light of day. However, the project persisted, continuing uninterrupted through both the purchase of Netscape by AOL and the end of the dot-com boom.

By June 5 2002, the Mozilla project had produced version 1.0 of the browser that worked on multiple operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, and Solaris. The browser was praised for introducing new features that Internet Explorer lacked, including better support for user privacy preferences and some interface improvements. Additionally, the Mozilla browser became a "de facto" reference implementation for various World Wide Web Consortium standards, due to its strong support for those standards. Recent versions of Mozilla are highly customizable and include advanced features such as cookie, popup, password and image management, and tabbed browsing.

Independence from AOL

On July 15 2003, AOL announced that it would close down its browser division, which was in essence Netscape's Mozilla. AOL laid off most of Netscape's employees and hackers, except for some who were transferred to other divisions. Netscape signs were seen being pulled off its building, confirming what many took as the end of Netscape. AOL will be keeping the Netscape brand for its portal, but the company will no longer pay anyone to develop the Mozilla codebase.

On the same day, the Mozilla Foundation was created. [cite press release
title = Mozilla.org announces launch of the mozilla foundation to lead open-source browser efforts
publisher = Mozilla Foundation
date = July 15, 2003
url = http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-foundation.html
accessdate = 2005-06-12] The Foundation is a non-profit organization composed primarily of developers and staff from Mozilla Organization and owns the Mozilla trademark (but not the copyright to the source code, which is retained by the individual and corporate contributors, but licensed under the GPL, MPL and LGPL). It received initial $2 million donations from AOL, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Red Hat, and $300,000 from Mitch Kapor.

Many people had been expecting this after AOL reached a settlement with competitor, Microsoft, with a deal for the AOL software to use Internet Explorer for the next 7 years. Netscape had always been seen as a bargaining chip for AOL against Microsoft.

The end of the Suite

According to the Mozilla development roadmap published at April 2 2003, the Mozilla Organization planned to focus development efforts on the new standalone applications: Phoenix (now known as Mozilla Firefox) and Minotaur (now known as Mozilla Thunderbird). [cite web
title = Mozilla development roadmap
publisher = Mozilla Foundation
date = April 2, 2003
url = http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap/roadmap-02-Apr-2003.html
accessdate = 2005-06-11] Since then, many new features and enhancements have been added to the standalone applications only.

On March 10 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that they would not release any further official versions of the suite beyond 1.7.x. [cite web
title = Mozilla Application Suite - Transition Plan
publisher = Mozilla Foundation
date = March 10, 2005
url = http://www.mozilla.org/seamonkey-transition.html
accessdate = 2005-03-10] However, the foundation emphasized that they would still provide infrastructure for community members who wished to continue development. In effect, this means that the suite will still continue to be developed, but not by the Mozilla Foundation itself. To avoid confusing organizations that still want to use the original Mozilla Suite, the new product needed a new name. On July 2 2005, it was announced that the suite is going to be named SeaMonkey, which was originally the code name of the Mozilla Application Suite. [cite web
title = SeaMonkey Project Continues Internet Suite
publisher = SeaMonkey Council
date = July 2, 2005
url = http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/news.html#2005-07-02
accessdate = 2005-07-03] The new project-leading group is known as the "SeaMonkey Council".

Branding and visual identity

Initially, the term "Mozilla" was loosely used to refer to a number of subjects, including the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Suite, the codebase of the Suite and its related technologies. Since the shifting of development focus, to distinguish the suite from the standalone products, the suite was marketed as "Mozilla Suite", or the more lengthy "Mozilla Application Suite".

It is often argued that since free software is typically only designed by programmers rather than graphic designers or usability gurus, it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI design, and a lack of a strong visual identity.

During development of Mozilla, a number of logos were used in various areas of the application. The logos are inconsistent with each other; for example, the logo used as the program's icon is different from the one used as the throbber, which is again different from the one used in the "About" window.

Release history

Parts of this table are based on the [http://www.mozilla.org/releases/ release notes of Mozilla] .

Note (1): [http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=5791 There was no Mozilla 1.7.4.] The 1.7.5 version number was selected to match the internal Gecko version number of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.

Note (2): [http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6994 Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled.] It was intended that Mozilla 1.7.9 would be released shortly after Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5. However, regressions were found in the 1.0.5 versions of Firefox and Thunderbird after they were released, so Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled. Mozilla 1.7.10 was released shortly after Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.6.

creenshot gallery

The following screenshots show the evolution of user interface in Mozilla from M3 to 1.0. The interface of Mozilla was almost unchanged since version 1.0. Mozilla M11 is not available because of program crash.

References

See also

*Mozilla Application Suite
*History of Mozilla Firefox
*History of Mozilla Thunderbird
*History of free software

External links

*Netscape Communications Corporation (April 1 1999). [http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease750.html Netscape celebrates first anniversary of open source software release to mozilla.org] . Retrieved June 12 2005.
* [http://www.mozilla.org/releases/ Mozilla 1.x Releases]
* [http://actsofvolition.com/steven/mozillabranding/ Branding Mozilla: Towards Mozilla 2.0]
* [http://community.wvu.edu/~ast002/mozilla/history.html A Visual Browser History]