[June 06, 2002]

[June 06, 2002] "Mozilla.Org Launches Mozilla 1.0. Open Source Browser Suite Powered by Gecko Enables Developers to Create Standards-Based Web Applications and Devices." - "Mozilla.org, the organization that coordinates Mozilla open-source development and provides services to assist the Mozilla community, today announced the release of Mozilla 1.0, the first major-version public release of the Mozilla software. A full-fledged browser suite based on the latest Internet standards as well as a cross-platform toolkit, Mozilla 1.0 is targeted at the developer community and enables the creation of Internet-based applications. Mozilla 1.0 was developed in an open source environment and built by harnessing the creative power of thousands of programmers and tens of thousands of testers on the Internet, incorporating their best enhancements. Built on the Gecko layout engine, Mozilla 1.0 is cross-platform and integrates a core set of applications that allow users to access the capabilities of the Web, including a web browser, an email reader and a chat client... Mozilla 1.0 also expands the range of developers who can write complex applications since Mozilla's architecture enables the creation of such complex applications by building upon the same technologies that are used to create web content. For instance, Gecko displays web content on the user's screen and parses and renders HTML and XML content, and this ability to understand and display HTML and XML is valuable in numerous applications beyond the browser. In addition, Mozilla's cross-platform component implementation, Mozilla's cross-platform XML-based user-interface development technology ('XUL'), its networking libraries, its ECMAScript (JavaScript) implementation, and its security and encryption libraries are all part of the Mozilla 1.0 cross-platform toolkit for application development... By virtue of embedding Gecko, Mozilla 1.0 and products based on Mozilla code support more web standards, more deeply, more consistently across more platforms than any others. Mozilla 1.0 features full support for HTML 4.0, XML 1.0, Resource Description Framework (RDF), Cascading Style Sheets level 1 (CSS1), and the W3C Document Object Model level 1 (DOM1). Mozilla 1.0 also has the industry's best support for Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 (CSS2), the Document Object Model Level 2 (DOM2), and XHTML. Standards support also includes XML data exchange and manipulation of XML documents with SOAP 1.1, XSLT, XPath 1.0, and FIXptr, as well as support for display of mathematical equations using MathML. Finally, it features a solid foundation of support for data transport protocols (HTTP, FTP, and SSL/TLS), multilingual character data (Unicode), graphics (GIF, JPEG, PNG and MNG) and the latest version of the world's most popular scripting language, JavaScript 1.5..."

[March 07, 2001] Mozilla.org XML Extras - The XML Extras module contains several features that allow developers to treat XML as a data i.e. not as just another document format. The module is structured as a drop-in component and exposes its XML-as-data features both to JavaScript and C++/XPCOM users. At this point, the XML Extras module is not part of the projected Seamonkey package, though it is part of the nightly builds. The current high-level feature list for the component includes: (1) Simple XML Serialization - Serialization to string or stream of a XML Document or Node. (2) HTTP-based GET and POST of XML documents - Equivalent of the IE XMLHttpRequest object. (3) XML parsing - Parse from string or stream to a DOM document. (4) A SOAP-based RPC calling mechanism - The ability to make individual SOAP-based RPC calls from JavaScript without creating a proxy of the server-side object. (5) Persistence of XML data - A XML cookie mechanism."

On December 7, 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation "delivered the first version of "Netscape Gecko," its next-generation browsing engine, to thousands of Internet developers. Netscape Gecko - formerly code-named 'Raptor' - reaches a new milestone for browser technology in speed, smaller size, and full standards support. The revolutionary technology is designed to Internet-enable virtually any application, operating system or device. Netscape Gecko is the first software product from Netscape based on contributions from mozilla.org, the organization chartered with managing Netscape's open source initiative among thousands of Internet developers and Netscape."

On Friday, March 27, 1998 (Seattle XML Developers' Day), Ramanathan Guha supplied details about the public release of source code for Mozilla (an "early version of Netscape Communicator 5.0"), and about the existing/planned code support for XML. The source code was released on March 31, 1998, and new integration work began, including the use of James Clark's expat XML parser. As of April 14, 1998, it was reported that a "steering group" [would] "provide guidance on what to do and how to proceed with XML in Navigator. This group [then] included Tim Bray, Jon Bosak, James Clark, Nisheeth Ranjan, Greg Kostello, Rick Gessner and [Ramanathan] Guha."

References:

• Mozilla.org
• Mozilla FAQ document
• [June 06, 2002] "Mozilla Finally Turns 1.0." By Paul Festa. In CNET News.com news (June 05, 2002). ['More than four years after the launch of the Mozilla.org open-source project, Mozilla 1.0 is ready to browse.']
• [June 06, 2002] Mozilla 1.0 - CNet Review. By Rex Baldazo.
• XML in Mozilla - Information from Mozilla.org, including a diagram of the "planned architecture for XML in Navigator."
• [December 07, 1998] "Netscape Delivers "Gecko" Browsing Engine Incorporating Advanced Features for Internet Browsing Anywhere. Small, Fast Browsing Engine for Virtually Any Application, Computing Platform, Device or Developer." - "Because Gecko is the first and only browser technology to fully implement the latest W3C standards, it enables developers to build rich, dynamic web pages and web-based applications that look and run as intended across a variety of platforms and devices. This saves developers time and money while allowing them to deliver state-of-the-art content. Gecko features full support for open Internet standards such as CSS, HTML4, DOM1, RDF and XML. In addition to supporting these standards in the layout engine, a component of Gecko enables the user interface of applications to be built using these standards. See also "The Habits of Gecko" and "'Gecko' Crawls Out of Mozilla."
• [November 21, 1998] "Netscape Raises the Bar. Company Hopes New Features Will Beat Competitors." By Emily Fitzloff. In InfoWorld Volume 20, Issue 46 (November 16, 1998). "Netscape last week took the wraps off of its Next-Generation Technology, code-named NGT, that is designed to facilitate the development of smaller, faster, and more modular applications for multiple computing platforms and devices. NGT will be the foundation for all Netscape client products after Communicator 4.5, according to company officials. At the core of NGT is a browser layout engine that interprets data from Internet sites and displays the content on a user's screen much more quickly than current browser products. . . benefits include: extensive support for standards including HTML 4.0, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1 and CSS2), Document Object Model, Resource Definition Framework and Extensible Markup Language; modularity and a small footprint for easy download in multiple environments including handheld devices; table-layout speed that is four to five times faster than that of Communicator 4.5 and competitors' browser products; and open source code that was developed in conjunction with Mozilla.org."
• mozilla.org Home Page [Source code as of March 31, 1998]
• [July 20, 1998] "Source Code Giveaway Proves To Be A Hit For Netscape." By Connie Guglielmo. In Inter@ctive Week (July 13, 1998). "Since Netscape Communications Corp. began its source code giveaway March 31, Web developers have downloaded more than 250 thousand copies of the client technology - a number that has taken even Netscape by surprise."
• [May 08, 1998] The Raptor Document Object Model (DOM) Roadmap - "The Raptor engine will implement a union of the Communicator 4.0 and and W3C Level 1 Document Object Models. . ."
• [April 19, 1998] "Mozilla Freeware Developers Get XML Ammunition from Netscape." By Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld Electric. Posted at 4:21 PM PT, Apr 17, 1998. Excerpt: "This week, Netscape added two more modules to the code available from the http://www.mozilla.org site. They include: (1) an XML parser, code-name Expat, developed by James Clark. . . (2) a 'technical preview' of a next-generation layout engine, formerly code-name Raptor. . ."
• [April 16, 1998] "Netscape's mozilla.org Releases Additional Source Code To Developers Including XML Parser And Technical Preview Version of Next-Generation Layout Engine."
• [April 14, 1998] "Netscape Rallies Content Community Around Leading Web Development Technologies of Today and Tomorrow - JavaScript, XML and RDF. JavaScript Now Used on 3.5 Million Web Pages. Several of the Largest Internet Sites Deploy RDF-Based Sitemaps; Netscape Adopts Most Advanced XML Parser Available Today." [local archive copy]
• [April 01, 1998] Press release: Netscape Accelerates Communicator Evolution with First Release of Next-Generation Communicator Source Code to Developer Community via mozilla.org." ". . . The source code also includes XML support, user interface enhancements, modular Java support through Netscape's recently announced Open Java VM Interface, and integral software components from various third parties who have given Netscape the right to release their source under the terms of the Netscape Public License (NPL)." [local archive copy]
• "Netscape Opens Mozilla Code." By [Seybold Staff]. In The Bulletin: Seybold News & Views on Electronic Publishing Volume 3, Number 26 (April 1, 1998). Now: Surprise! Netscape Puts XML Support in Mozilla. New version supports XML document markup as well as a data and metadata syntax." By Liora Alschuler and Mark Walter. Updated from The Bulletin: Seybold News and Views on Electronic Publishing, Vol. 3, No 26.
• [April 19, 1998] XML & CSS examples for Mozilla
• [July 27, 1998] "Netscape works out kinks in Mozilla." By Michael Moeller. In PC Week Online (July 24, 1998). "NGLayout [the rendering engine] was to be a ground-up rewrite of Communicator 4.x's HTML, XML and document rendering features. Instead, Netscape has urged developers to work on ways to enhance the current rendering engine under an ongoing project, code-named Mariner. It will support the World Wide Web Consortium's Document Object Model specification and will improve how the engine handles table and text layouts."