Re: NCSA's un-free browser

Gavin Nicol (gtn@ebt.com)
Sat, 27 Aug 1994 09:14:22 +0500


While I'm not very happy about such licensing practices, I don't think
this is all that important because:

1) Mosaic isn't all that great. A large part of it's functionality is
built on top of the code from cern, which is still free. I hope to
see more and better browsers appear in the future. (This is an
honest opinion, not flame bait. )

2) Even if Mosaic moves out of the picture, the laws of social
dynamics will ensure that *something* will evolve to fill it's
place, just as it is evolving to fill a marketplace need. In some
ways, it will be better if Mosaic *is* removed from circulation,
because for many people, WWW equals Mosaic, which is simply not true.

How many ex-NSCA people are at Spyglass? This might be quite similar
to BSDI, though I suspect the potential for making money is *much*
larger... (and no, this is not a rub against BSDI either).

The older I get the more cynical I become...