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Cyhist Dec 10 1996 A
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 21:27:14 -0800
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Nathan Newman <newman@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Netscape, Mosaic & Licensing Fees
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
While looking into the rise of Netscape, a key part of their success was giving their version away for free. A lot of folks treat this as a brilliant strategy (which is was) but from what I've researched, it was based on the fact that they were the only major browser company refusing to sign a license agreement with NCSA and with their commercial partner, Spyglass. Jim Clark at Netscape relates that the reason he refused was that the standard license was on a per copy basis, which would have barred his plan to flood the Internet with free copies (against the wishes of NCSA which wanted free copies to be the NCSA standard.)
But what this also means is that all the other browser companies couldn't duplicate Netscape even if they wanted to, since they were all signing license agreements with NCSA which made free "dumping" prohibitively expensive.
I wanted to confirm this sequence of events. Does anyone know counter information?
NCSA did eventually give up on per-copy licensing (notably in the case of Microsoft) but does anyone know of any other browsers being given away free by commercial provider in the late 1984, early 1985 period?
--Nathan Newman, UC-Berkeley
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Nathan Newman <newman@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Netscape, Mosaic & Licensing Fees
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
While looking into the rise of Netscape, a key part of their success was giving their version away for free. A lot of folks treat this as a brilliant strategy (which is was) but from what I've researched, it was based on the fact that they were the only major browser company refusing to sign a license agreement with NCSA and with their commercial partner, Spyglass. Jim Clark at Netscape relates that the reason he refused was that the standard license was on a per copy basis, which would have barred his plan to flood the Internet with free copies (against the wishes of NCSA which wanted free copies to be the NCSA standard.)
But what this also means is that all the other browser companies couldn't duplicate Netscape even if they wanted to, since they were all signing license agreements with NCSA which made free "dumping" prohibitively expensive.
I wanted to confirm this sequence of events. Does anyone know counter information?
NCSA did eventually give up on per-copy licensing (notably in the case of Microsoft) but does anyone know of any other browsers being given away free by commercial provider in the late 1984, early 1985 period?
--Nathan Newman, UC-Berkeley
______________________________________________________________________
