Intrigued by Raymond's speech and anxious to win back
lost market share, Netscape executives took the message
back to corporate headquarters. A few months later, in
January, 1998, the company announced its plan to
publish the source code of its flagship Navigator web
browser in the hopes of enlisting hacker support in
future development.
When Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale cited Raymond's
"Cathedral and the Bazaar" essay as a major influence
upon the company's decision, the company instantly
elevated Raymond to the level of hacker celebrity.
Determined not to squander the opportunity, Raymond
traveled west to deliver interviews, advise Netscape
executives, and take part in the eventual party
celebrating the publication of Netscape Navigator's
source code. The code name for Navigator's source code
was "Mozilla": a reference both to the program's
gargantuan size-30 million lines of code-and to its
heritage. Developed as a proprietary offshoot of
Mosaic, the web browser created by Marc Andreessen at
the University of Illinois, Mozilla was proof, yet
again, that when it came to building new programs, most
programmers preferred to borrow on older, modifiable programs.
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