The Marketleap Report
Vol. 1 - Issue #14 - July 9, 2001

Blame it on Netscape: Life Before Windows and the Web
A Quick History of the Internet and Open Source Software
by Keith Boswell

The topic of freedom stirs something in people. Not quite the passion that it used to, but in this inundated world it's easy to understand why. We don't have time to consider all the options. Too busy earning a living and surviving, we allow the markets to guide our needs.

Instead of learning and teaching ourselves about technology and its wide reach into every aspect of our economy, we push forward faster than most can keep up. What's the rush? Technologists aren't even giving themselves time to rest and enjoy what they've accomplished. What other helpful appliance in your house loses relevancy about every three months? Take five boys, let us play with this for a while before it's an antique.

Some of you corresponded with us about last week's coverage of the new operating system from Microsoft - Windows XP. The new OS demands your full time attention because it controls your access to the Internet. The plan is to gather as much information as possible about the majority of computer users, especially those who go online. This will establish Microsoft as an all-knowing parent who can "help" you with everything.

You pay at the door and hope the other side is worth it. The bonus for Microsoft is that they reap a small profit from everything you do. Using software, shopping, banking, taxes and more, they'll help with all of it. And they'll know everything.

The consensus from our readers was that people want choices that don't involve one company like Microsoft controlling their personal information, tied up in a tightly-wrapped digital cloud. No one wrote back in favor of letting Microsoft continue to extend its reign over the operating system and beyond. No one.

It's strange to think that within a ten-year period the Internet will have been transformed from a government-sponsored, open community network of computers that shared software and grew together, into the pulse of the digital economy complete with Big Brother features pre-installed in certain sectors. How did it change so fast?

History of the Internet Timeline Click to enlarge

The Internet grew out of technology and necessity. In the late sixties, universities with large computer science departments realized they had the technology and knowledge to share information using the earliest forms of networking and file sharing.

E-mail showed up as an early hack of the network, riding on top of research data, delivering its message discreetly. Scientists soon recognized e-mail's usefulness, and e-mail traffic surpassed other types of data transfer as the most popular use of the system. Communication and freedom to innovate were common beliefs. Everyone benefited as new software improved on protocols and functionality.

Private companies established by academic heavyweights worked with the government to create and monitor standards the entire Internet community could benefit from. Software was usually free unless it was bundled with support and hardware sales from a company like Sun Microsystems.

By the mid 90s, computer scientists were creating easy-to-use text interfaces for searching the Internet. Software such as the University of Minnesota's Gopher helped to organize and link information on the Internet in a user-friendly file system.

Up until this point, the government had always exercised its weight to help create, monitor, and enforce protocols that the entire Internet community could abide by. The government had an interest in maintaining order and control since the Department of Defense now used the Internet as a serious means of sharing data.

Then the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) released Mosaic, the first graphic-enabled Internet browser. Graphics and data could be tied together to present and link information faster and easier than ever before using a new programming language called HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Within months, Internet web pages using HTML were spreading like communion plates at Easter.

An entrepreneur at 3com named Jim Clark realized Mosaic's potential to tie the power of networked computing into everyone's life. That realization led him to hire some of the team that had built Mosaic and create a commercial company named Netscape. Clark realized that if they could build commercial software that would make it easy for everyone to get online, they could control all of computing.

The Mosaic browser complied with the standards that the NCSA helped to create and monitor. Netscape Navigator, the web browser released by Netscape Communications, introduced some proprietary features that Mosaic did not support. These custom tags allowed for Navigator to perform like an enhanced version of Mosaic. Netscape allowed anyone to download the software, and before the government could react, the web had been commercialized.

The attractiveness of the custom features and the popularity of the software made Netscape the #1 web browser by the end of 1995. Netscape was everywhere, and it caught the attention of others.

By introducing custom tags and by the government failing to stop it or attempt to regulate it, the commercial web explosion began. Microsoft now had good reason to step into the marketplace. Before, when the Internet was heavily monitored by the government, Microsoft saw no commercial reason to enter the market. It was content to push software that helped run localized networks, its various operating systems and office productivity software.

Now that Netscape was getting away with introducing and controlling new standards without government interference, Microsoft could leverage its already deep relationship with 85% of computer users to assist them in getting online. Microsoft Internet Explorer was soon being bundled with copies of Windows 95, and the push toward a monopolized future was underway.

Microsoft is often described as the villain who ruined the Internet. In reality, they simply did what they have done with almost every other market they have come to dominate: they followed someone else's lead. If you want to blame someone for taking us away from an open, free network built around the idea of community and toward a tollbooth for getting online, blame Netscape.

Next time, we'll look at alternative software and operating systems for moving ahead. We consumers must help guide the markets; the choices we make with our money acknowledge the direction we will go. Without choices, in ten years we'll all be writing one check to a single company to pay all our bills.

In helping to overcome the mountain of knowledge in learning about alternative forms of computing and working online, the Marketleap Report will spend the next few issues addressing alternatives and options for moving forward in the networked world. 

We need your feedback as well. 

Do you mind giving up your privacy to a single company? Does it matter anymore, or is it an inevitable consequence of the convergence of society and technology? We want to know what you think: report@marketleap.com.