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On Sun, 30 Apr 1995, Chip Bayers wrote:

> At 3:10 AM 4/29/95, Jeremy Allaire wrote:
> >Here's an interesting story.  The NCSA Mosaic Team has continued
> >it's innovations.  For those who don't have it, I encourage you to take
> >a look at NCSA's latest releases of Mosaic.

> >Outside of Netscape, the app is a very top notch browser.  They've
> >implemented nearly all of the HTML 3.0 tags, including alignment,
> >extra image tags, backgrounds, tables, OLE objects, and lots of other
> >goodies.  They also have a VRML extension in the works.  The
> >interface rivals Netscape, particularly their options and preferences.
Do they support external authentication?  Encryption?  Security?

What tweaks can be added to HTTPD to support these features?

> >While Mosaic will never reach a point where it is a serious commercial
> >contender (nor should it try), it points out oh so clearly why the browser
> >wars are not even close to over.

Don't blink!  Unix should never have made it to the floors of the stock 
exchanges, but it DID!  TCP/IP should never have become the protocol of 
choice for NASDAQ, LOMA, and ABA, but it DID!  Unix should never have 
displaced the Mainframe (MVS or VM/CMS) as the Enterprise Platform of 
choice, but it DID!  Unix thrives like a weed.  Commercial vendors try to 
produce proprietary competitors to GPL, and have to overschedule staff.

Meanwhile, Unix hackers (professional programmers and system 
administrators who are consumers/users) keep giving each other patches 
and enhancments they cooked up because the "proprietary flavor" product 
wasn't due for a release for 3 months.

> >Mosaic 2.0 puts BookLink, Air, Spyglass, and others to shame for their
> >incompetence and lack of innovations.

These other organizations aren't primarily in the business of 
innovation.  They are primarily in the business of distribution.
Their "Support" is primarily the "Hand Holding" that one has to do to get 
a secretary or computer phobic executive to feel comfy/cozy about using 
this "nefangled gadget".  The kind who have to be told its "A:\mosaic"
not "A colon /mosaic" :-).  at 3:00 A.M. EST (8:00 A.M. London time) I 
salute them for their efforts.

> Umm, Spyglass' product is a licensed version of NCSA Mosaic.

I'm sure they will quickly upgrade to the new release.  They might even 
put the download offer on their home-pages.

	Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue May  2 20:01:33 1995