SillyDog701

[DJGM]

Netscape made the historical announcement to go open source, and release
the source code for what was originally to be Netscape Communicator v5.0.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (CK-DJGM-i.net)

[Wellander]

Hi,
Yes I do remember that.
That was not a good chioce that netscape made but what are you going to do.
That is why netscape is failing today all because of that.
Thank You.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.6 [en] (Win98; I)

[Antony]

Yeah, one of the most talk-about news back then. This announcement was actually a few days after Netscape make Navigator and Communicator Standard Edition free of charge. Few months after (Nov 98) America Online announced to acquire Netscape Communications, the biggest topic of all time.

Mozilla dot Org was full of hope, but lack of people working. It was for a long period of time, Mozilla dot Org was in fact Netscape, just slowly down their production because they have to make all codes available to public.
Okay, I know someone is going to disagree with me, it is said in a few publications, Mozilla dot Org had thirty-something full time workers (all employed by Netscape, with fifteen or so part time from outsides)
EDITED: To that guy who insist Mozilla.org is not Netscape Comm. Corp, read this: "But the fact is, there has been very little contribution from people who don't work for Netscape, making the distinction somewhat academic. " said by Jamie Zawinski.

I'd say it was all Microsoft's fault.

Well, Netscape 6 was a biggest mistake from America Online, but we are now getting Netscape 7. And gladly, Netscape 6+ and all Mozilla (Gecko based) browser is now the most popular browser (in SillyDog701).

Related article: What happened to Communicator 5
See also Netscape Version Guide

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (CK-SillyDog)

[Mandrake]

What killed Netscape was the fact that they were charging for Communicator and Navigator - when Explorer 4 was free.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030115

[Antony]

What killed Netscape was the fact that they were charging for Communicator and Navigator - when Explorer 4 was free.

Not really, when Netscape charged customers for browsers, they use the "honour system". Netscape browsers were free to evaluate and free to all educational institutes, plus, there's no features to be disabled after evalutaion if you decide not to pay for it. Netscape did not insist that you had to pay to use it.

What actually killed Netscape is more of Microsoft's Windows 98 and un-removal of Internet Explorer, and then, how many people botherd to download 15+MB file when they can access internet from Windows and even faster (due to integration).

Netscape's other income is from Netscape Servers (well, not that popular). However, most people and most magazines do not realise that another other big income source for the browser company is "traffic" (or "links"). Yes, the selling of being listed in default bookmark, being used in Netscape Search page (search button) and many other Netscape's recommendated pages...
(aside: Remember that Yahoo! used to be in Netscape's search page?)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (CK-SillyDog)

[Mandrake]

I suppose you are correct. 'Intergrating' the web browser with the desktop is ok - so long as it can be un-intergrated (Like in NT4 and Windows 95 A / OSR 2 /OSR 2.5). It was unreasonable of Microsoft to not allow us to remove their browser from Windows 95 or NT4 - but they crossed the line intergrating it into Windows 98 and not allowing users to un-intergrate it!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030122