Mozilla
An open source Web browser and toolkit from the Mozilla Foundation (www.mozilla.org). Mozilla serves as a reference platform for standards compliance and quality control. Mozilla-based products for Windows, Mac and Linux are the Mozilla and SeaMonkey suites (browser, e-mail, newsgroups and HTML editor), Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client. The Camino browser is Mac only.
Over the years, Mozilla received contributions from around the world, and both Netscape and third parties have used the code for their own purposes. Version 1.0 of the Mozilla browser was released in 2002. Gecko is the name of the rendering engine that began its development at Netscape in 1997, but was released as open source. Gecko was formerly called Raptor and NGLayout (Next Gen Layout).
What's a Mozilla?
Mozilla was originally the code name for the Netscape Navigator Web browser and Netscape's first alligator-like mascot. Mozilla stood for "Mosaic Killer," because Netscape wanted to reign supreme, which it did for a while (see Mosaic).
In 1998, the source code of the entire Netscape Communicator package was made available to developers, and Mozilla.org was created to act as a clearing house for contributions. In 2003, with the help of the Netscape division of AOL, it was turned into the Mozilla Foundation to provide support for open source projects. See Firefox, Netscape and Netscape Communicator.
| (World-Wide Web, open source) | Mozilla - The open source web browser, designed for standards-compliance, performance, and
portability, whose development is coordinated by the Mozilla Foundation.
The Mozilla project started in March 1998 when Netscape Communications Corporation released the source code of
Netscape Communicator. The now abandoned version based on
that code is referred to as "Mozilla Classic". Since then,
much has been rewritten, including the layout engine, the
networking library, and the front-end.
Mozilla 1.0 was finally released on 2002-06-05. Much of the
code was used to build Firefox.
Although a lot of Mozilla code is under the original Netscape
Public License, some parts of the code are under the Mozilla
Public License or dual MPL/GPL.
"Mozilla" was the original project code name for Netscape Navigator and, according to some of the documentation, the
correct pronunciation of "Netscape".
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