On March 31, 1998, Netscape Communications released the source code of its Communicator browser suite to the public, launching the Mozilla project. In Mozilla’s own retrospective, Mitchell Baker calls it “the day the Mozilla code is open-sourced to the world, and the day the Mozilla Project is formally launched.”
The decision had been announced earlier that year. Netscape’s archived open source FAQ states that “Netscape Communicator Standard Edition 5.0 source code will be freely available for modification and redistribution,” with developer releases scheduled to be available from the mozilla.org web site by March 31, 1998. Netscape framed the move as a way to develop better software “through integration of enhancements from a broad array of developers.”
Hitting that deadline required real work. Between the January announcement and the March 31 launch, the team removed proprietary third-party code that Netscape could not give away, created a new open source license, and set up mozilla.org as the governance body for the project.
Releasing the source code of a major commercial product was a striking act at the time, and it became one of the defining early moments of the open source movement. Although Netscape the company did not survive the browser wars, the Mozilla project it created lived on and eventually produced the Firefox browser.