University helps distribute river to Microsoft browser

By SEAN WOLFE
For the Gazette-Times

If a war is over, is it still possible to take sides?

In the case of the so-called browser wars, Oregon State University has jumped into the ongoing struggle against software giant Microsoft's continued dominance of the browser market.

The university recently installed a server to deliver the latest version of a rival browser called Mozilla, which currently boasts around 1 percent of Internet users.

OSU network engineer Scott Kveton said, so far, people are flocking to the new server to download the latest version of Mozilla (www.mozilla.org), an alternative browser to Microsoft's.

Kveton said he expected more than 150,000 people to download the new version by the end of the day.

"It's a very busy server right now. I can tell you right now we're putting out 120 megabytes a second — which might impress some people," Kveton said.

OSU is one of four educational institutions around the country providing the server infrastructure for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit spinoff of Netscape and now the de facto steward of the code that started the Internet boom.

Indirectly, OSU could benefit through increased visibility and credibility in the open-source software community.

In coming weeks, OSU will play host to a number of new servers dedicated to distributing the Mozilla browser as part of the university's ongoing commitment to developing open-source software.

Mozilla has unique role in the browser market because its software is built around what used to be the property of Netscape, Microsoft's former chief rival.

First, a little history. In 1994, Netscape caught Microsoft off-guard by launching the first commercial browser using code developed by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The launch of Netscape's browser fueled the development of the World Wide Web as we know it today.

For years, Netscape's software held up against Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer.

But the browser wars ended in 1998, when Netscape was ingested by America Online in a $4.3 billion takeover. Today, most people use Microsoft's browser software — which has grown to command a whopping market share of more than 90 percent of Internet users.

This year, following America Online's acceptance of a $750 million settlement from Microsoft to drop outstanding litigation and to offer Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the next seven years, former Netscape employees decided to separate from their corporate parent.

In July, they launched a nonprofit effort, dubbed The Mozilla Foundation, based in Mountain View, Calif. Their purpose was to continue the work on the rival browser, but not in a commercial environment.

"I think what we realized was that the initial public offering was not the right way to go for open-source efforts," said Bart Decrem, who handles marketing for Mozilla. "What we're looking at right now is what kind of services we can offer that can generate revenue without endangering our tax-exempt status. We're not trying to be a business. What we want is broad adoption."

Open source, for those who don't read computer magazines on a regular basis, is a departure from traditional models of how software gets made. Typically, companies employ a small army of programmers to write lines of code, then test and debug it. A lot of full-time employees with benefits mean developing software in this fashion gets expensive fast. That leads to high sticker prices on retail shelves, and thrifty businesses and consumers often avoid buying when they can.

By contrast, open source is free. The code is available for anyone to look at and work on. This practice is in stark contrast with Microsoft's proprietary approach, which exposes only small segments of its software to the developers it licenses.

Kveton said OSU is supporting Mozilla's efforts because it has seen the value of using open-source tools.

"We use open source — not exclusively, but heavily. Our entire e-mail infrastructure and all of our anti-spam software has been run by open-source software for the last year. It's reduced spam and viruses, I would say, about 40 percent for the entire campus. It's been a huge win for us, and it's all been free to use," he said.

"Another big application is a Web mail program that all the students use. We have about 20,000 unique users a day, and we've helped to develop the program. Because we have complete control of the application, when we want to add a feature, we just do it, and then we take that feature and give it back to the community. Other schools that use this application, they love it."

Reporter Sean Wolfe can be contacted at sean.wolfe@lee.net or 812-6077.