:54:00
I'm not sure exactly when Jim and
the other senior managers
:54:04
made the actual decision,
:54:07
I believe it was in early January sometime.
:54:10
Netscape actually announced that it was gonna
release the source code on Jan 22nd,
:54:16
the same time it was going to give
Communicator away for free.
:54:21
When Netscape decided to release the source code,
:54:24
people sort of got a wake up notice and said
:54:27
"Hey, maybe there is something to this idea
of releasing source code
:54:31
and doing development with people
outside your company."
:54:36
So Netscape's decision brought a lot of
public attention to the idea of Free Software,
:54:42
what became known as Open Source,
:54:45
and brought a lot of attention to
the Linux operating system,
:54:48
which was one of the most prominent examples of
Open Source software at that time.
:54:59
This is our first office, Mountain View, California.
:55:03
We moved here in early 1995.
:55:06
This is 4,000 square feet.
:55:08
It was an incredible leap of faith for us to
move out and take the company to our own office.
:55:16
Now what's really important about this place
:55:20
is that this is the office
where the term "Open Source" was invented.
:55:24
If you walk in to an executive's office
and say "Free Software",
:55:30
OK, If you're lucky, the response
you'll get is something like,
:55:35
"hmm, hmm, Free Software, must be
cheap, shoddy, worthless."
:55:42
Uh, and if you're not lucky,
it has associations with, uh.
:55:49
with the Free Software Foundation's
wholesale attack on intellectual property rights,
:55:54
which regardless of what
you think about the ethics of that,
:55:57
it's lousy marketing, it's not something
that businesses want to hear.