Today AOL cut the remaining Mozilla programmers from their payroll and announced that they will no longer be directly supporting its development. A separate, non-profit Mozilla Foundation that will oversee future development of Mozilla, Firebird and Thunderbird. AOL and other corporations have announced that they will provide substantial funding for the foundation, thereby ensuring its immediate survival.

I started using Netscape in 1995; it was a great product, and easily better than Mosaic. After Netscape was purchased by AOL, the browser's development slowed and has never quite been the same. Commercial interests and branding took place where innovation and progress should have been. Hopefully now that AOL/TW has removed any direct influence from Mozilla's development, Mozilla will take up where Netscape left off years ago. Hopefully this will be the beginning of some interesting changes for the web.