Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary

Given the context and your reference to Quake, I assume by "the older days" you mean the 90s, PCs and early Windows? If you weren't previously aware of "The Old New Thing" blog, Raymond Chen has been sharing stories about Windows 95 development for decades at this point. So many in fact, he published a book under the same name (the book is essentially a best-of collection from the blog in paper form). The os2museum[1] blog is also a gold mine. Tim Paterson at one point tried to start blogging, sharing a few anecdotes about the early days of DOS[2] Speaking of books, you might enjoy "Showstopper!" about the development of NT, even tough it is a bit shallow on the technical side. For the technical aspects, you might want to get it together with "Inside Windows NT" (first edition) by Helen Custer. You might also enjoy: "Another Boring Topic" [3] YouTube channel, covering (among other things) early Windows development in excruciating detail and "Old Computers Sucked" [4], actually trying to run the software on era appropriate hardware. "Cathode Ray Dude" is all over the place but often also covers hardware and software of roughly that era[5]. A sibling comment already mentioned JWZs blog, if you have fond memories about Netscape, you might enjoy "Project Code Rush" [6]. Btw. Netscape Navigator 3.0 has just turned 30. [1] link [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link [6] ▶ this video

▶ this video > This is bad. > What's that? > Um, well, so I connected to the, uh... The machine that- that controls the FTP push, is like, not answering. Spoiler: he had the wrong hostname. > Mm... oh. Duh!

gonna watch it over the weekend :) And re-watch this also - Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary ▶ this video

Thank you for replying, your work shaped me into what I came to be. I was a backend developer at the end of the 90’s, sadly not for Netscape Server, it was mostly C++ CGI. Have you been around during this time period (birth hour of Mozilla)? ▶ this video

There’s a fun documentary that follows some folks inside Netscape during the rush to make Mozilla open source: ▶ this video

▶ this video Project Code Rush Code Rush is a documentary following the lives of a group of Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley. It covers Netscape's last year as an independent company, from their announcement of the Mozilla open source project until their acquisition by AOL. It particularly focuses on the last minute rush to make the Mozilla source code ready for release by the deadline of March 31 1998, and the impact on the engineers' lives and families as they attempt to save the company from ruin.

Code Rush, a one-hour glimpse into Netscape Communications in 1998, just as they open source their browser: ▶ this video I get very tired whenever I watch it for some reason.

Richard Stallman still looks like one to me :), I know its from late Internet era, but see following ▶ this video

It has something to do with the 1990's dot-com culture, like the original Netscape was somehow more pure than what came after, and this causes him to view modern inheritors like YC with a jaundiced eye. You can watch this if you have an hour. ▶ this video

There's a wide community of people feeling just like you, assembling in "Maker communities", as they call it. Good entry points are the IndieHackers podcast, and conferences like MicroConf (watch their conference talk recordings here, especially Patrick McKenzie's aka patio11 [0]) The basic idea is to create a sustainable job you love for yourself, the people that depend on you, and many others. The antithesis of "Our incredible journey", aka VC sellout. Once you've done this, you can do whatever you want. Build a game company. Pursue academia [1]. Join the demoscene, tour the world, join demo party competitions and write sick 64k intros. Commit to open source and help the Haiku project. Hang around at your local hacker space and help create an independend mesh-based ISP. I know exactly what you're talking about. I watched the Netscape documentary "Project Code Rush" [2] with Jamie Zawinski and loved the spirit and the feeling of doing something important. It feels like it's in such a stark contrast to many people's reality, pushing JIRA tickets in a toxic AdTech startup. However, I think it's an illusion. There never was a "golden age", and people simply forget that bullshit jobs always existed, you just don't see domcumentaries of them, nobody would watch them. For me, what helped me was realizing that the world, or the "industry" doesn't owe me anything, and I'm completely on my own, and if I want to do something meaningful, well, I'll have to create my own sustainable job

Not parent, but I thought it were a TV stream that filmed Cloudflare teams solving problems. Similar to the documentary[1] "Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks" where they show the life of interns developing an actual product at Fog Creek, the first paying customer, bug fixes, etc. I appreciated that one, as I did "Code Rush" [3], an embedded documentary following people at Netscape in 1998, even shows the moment Jamie Zawinski bringing the source code and uploading it, or moments where they needed Apple to greenlight using proprietary code, trying to reach Steve Jobs, and ending up implementing it. Another one I liked was "Downloaded", a documentary about Napster with the main people (Sean Fanning, Sean Parker, Ron Conway, etc.)[4] PS: Since you're here, I was unable to log to my CloudFlare account for more than a week, reset my password an everything, but always couldn't log in until a couple of days ago. I would have wanted to see a video on the background of the issue and how it was resolved : ) [1]: link [2]: link [3]: ▶ this video [4]: link

> Does anyone can tell anything positive about her? She's the reason Mozilla exists today as an independent, non-profit organization. On March 31, 1998 Netscape allowed the Mozilla code base to be open sourced under the Mozilla Project. [1][2] This was the result of an intensive year-long effort to (1) remove proprietary source code that couldn't be open-sourced, (2) release the source code under a brand new license called the Mozilla Public License. This license was written principally by Mitchell Baker whose formal education is in law, with input from ESR, Linus Torvalds, VA Research, etc. [3] On July 14, 2003 AOL (which had acquired Netscape earlier) closed down the Netscape division and laid off almost everyone there, including Mitchell Baker. That very day Mitch Kapor [4] stepped in with funding and advice to help Baker and a core team of total 10 employees set up the Mozilla Foundation in an office in Mountain View that is today occupied by the Khan Academy. [5] Wikipedia [6] has a good summary of her career. The documentary Code Rush is required viewing, IMHO, to capture some of the excitement of that era. [7][8] Bonus points for spotting JWZ. :-) [1] link [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link [6] link [7] link [8] ▶ this video

> and worked on a few important pieces of software before becoming a bar owner instead. Fun documentary: ▶ this video

I really recommend the 2000 documentary Code Rush[1] about Netscape's open sourcing of the browser and acquisition by AOL. It doesn't give any major insights into the industry, but does give a glimpse of what the culture was like back then. [1] ▶ this video

It was Netscape in 1999 he got flown out. Documented in Code Rush, which is an awesome documentary for anyone interested in the history of the Web: ▶ this video

"The PayPal Wars". Also see link "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days" "Project Code Rush", a 1h documentary ( ▶ this video )

There's a good Netscape documentary filmed during their last year leading up to the acquisition. When they were working to get the Mozilla source code released. ▶ this video

News like this makes me think back to this[0] statement by jwz from the Netscape/Mozilla documentary "Code Rush" [0]: ▶ this video

Fascinating read. Thank you for this. Reminds me of a piece Jamie Zawinski did a few years ago[0][1] regarding a similar issue relating to VC's and "your one and only youth." [2] [0]: link [1]: link [2]: ▶ this video