Netscape has launched a grassroots-style Web site and dedicated a team of engineers to shepherd the source code of the company's Communicator client software out of corporate control and into the hands of eager developers.
The site, Mozilla.org, aims to serve as a Netscape-branded focus point and resource center for independent developers who wish to extend and customize the Communicator code.
"Mozilla.org is an organization that is a [non-profit] in purpose and charter, but it will be staffed and provided resources by Netscape Communications," said Jim Hamerly, Netscape's vice president of the client products group.
Though the site is limited in content so far to FAQs and a mission statement, it will likely be buzzing with developers in the weeks leading up to 31 March - the date Communicator's code will first be posted there. Netscape will encourage developers to download the code, post enhancements, and discuss their experiences through the new site.
And while the new .org will be owned by the for-profit company and dominated by Netscape engineers, Hamerly said that the balance and influence will eventually shift outside the company.
"Mozilla.org will be the coordinating agency," Hamerly said. "Netscape simply becomes another development arm of the Communicator source. Over time, what we see happening is that as the Net developer community evolves and matures ... we will have more and more modules inside Communicator being taken outside."
The company announced last month that it would freely license the source code for its products starting with Communicator 5.0, and make the code available via the Net. Developers praised the move for its potential to foster a developer community around Netscape. They envision quicker releases for third-party patches, bug fixes, and new browser features.
The news of Mozilla.org was received warmly by the free-source-code community.
"Massaging the community and managing the relationships in the community is going to be really important," said Brian Behlendorf, a founder of the Apache Web Project, a collaborative development project which has resulted in the Apache Web server, one of the most popular Web servers in use.
"Having a product that is going to be easy for people to contribute to is very important, having a good license is important. I think they wouldn't have succeeded if they didn't have a structure in place for managing the development of the browser," Behlendorf said.
"They couldn't just put the source code on an FTP server and magically think it was just going to get better through natural evolution," Behlendorf said.
Behlendorf said that a good next move for Netscape would be to eventually introduce a board of directors for mozilla.org that would encourage contributors from outside companies.
"It can't just feel like the Netscape show," Behlendorf said. "To really get high-volume contributors, [those developers] really need to feel like they have a stake in this. They can't just feel like unpaid engineers. That is why the Apache product is so successful. If they can emulate that, they are going to be successful."
So far, Hamerly said that Netscape has consulted heavily with Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, and other members of the Linux community, to help shape Netscape's free-code strategy. Linux is a freely available version of the Unix operating system and is widely considered a textbook success story in open software development.
Analysts praised the news and said that the company is successfully aligning with the greater Web development community to pursue a collaborative, open development process.
"This is not business as usual. This is something new and different.... there are relationships that have to become established," said Ted Schadler, software strategies engineer with Forrester Research.
