Netscape to use Gecko to put developers' minds at rest By Emily Fitzloff InfoWorld Electric Posted at 6:38 AM PT, Dec 7, 1998 Netscape this week plans to allay developer fears that its acquisition by America Online will hamper its Mozilla.org open source development project: Netscape will release its Gecko Web browser engine to developers at no charge. Originally code-named Next-Generation Technology, Gecko offers high performance, modularity and support for HTML 4.0, Extensible Markup Language, cascading style sheets, and Resource Description Framework standards. Netscape designed the engine to be extremely small; it fits on a floppy disk so it can be embedded on multiple devices such as fax machines, televisions, palm devices, and cellular phones, company executives said. "[Gecko] will let anyone access Web content from any operating system, device, or application," said a Netscape representative. Gecko will be released initially on Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and Linux platforms, but is designed to be easily ported to any operating system. According to Netscape executives, AOL's interest in moving to set-top boxes will boost Gecko's momentum, and AOL will be one of the first to use the engine by incorporating it into the next version of its Internet chat software. "Bringing the browser to multiple devices will help maintain its value," said Michael Sullivan-Trainor, an analyst at International Data Corp., in Framingham, Mass. Gecko was developed in conjunction with Mozilla.org and can be downloaded from www.mozilla.org. Netscape Communications Corp., in Mountain View, Calif., is at www.netscape.com. Emily Fitzloff is an InfoWorld senior writer. From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Mon Dec 7 21:22:45 1998