The general consensus is not that IE was a bad thing in the long run. Perhaps nobody likes IE today, but that does not mean it's a bad thing at all. Certainly it was the impetus for Firefox being born and they introduced XmlHttpRequest. Those are important (and GOOD) things.

Also, Netscape certainly did not open source their product until they were thoroughly beaten in the market, ~1998. Before that, they were still trying to make money by selling the software. So, regardless of what you or anyone else says about why Netscape did it, we all know why they did it.

Netscape open sourced their browser so the browser would survive, not so they would. They were continuing to make money off their server products, but they couldn't justify the large investment in a browser anymore.

Correct. That's exactly what I said and that's what the original commenter said too I thought.

Looking at the comment again I guess you can read it either way, though to be honest it reads more like he was talking about Netscape the company, not Navigator the browser.

As for long term, after taking out Navigator the browser market stalled for 6 years until Firefox started gaining traction. That's why it was a Bad Thing long term.

MS entire strategy was to hold up the development of the web as it made less from that than desktops, thin clients running web apps frightened it silly. It worked. Hence long-term bad thing due to stagnation.

Who knows what version HTML we'd be on if the browsers had stayed competitive for those 6 years. Instead we're almost at a point where maybe rounded corners will be available to all soon.

I never said I thought IE5/6 was crap when they came out, I myself have rolled out the old XmlHttpRequest innovation defence.

The stagnation of IE was the impetus for FF to rise and start MS developing IE again, not Navigator's open sourcing. Had someone been able to make good money on browsers I'd argue we'd be further down this path.

Yes, I'm the original commenter. I was talking about the browser. Actually, my point had very little to do with Netscape itself. I was merely pointing out that an analogous situation has happened before, and ultimately, the browser market (can we call it a market) didn't turn out to be that monopolistic distopia. On the contrary, from the consumer point of view, many browsers are easily available for free. What's to say that it won't be the case with the online maps and GPS systems?

Maybe it's my fault, I expressed myself awkwardly. Or maybe it's the fact that you'll always find some pedantic know-it-all on the web to accuse you of implying a certain position or harnessing some theories by "reinventing history".

No, I take that back, I read it as you meaning the company!