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Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary

Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary

The Documentary Network
13 HN recommenders · discussed 2015–2026
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About this video

Code Rush is a one-hour documentary following Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley through the company's last year as an independent firm. It covers the Mozilla open-source announcement, the frantic push to ready the source for release by March 31, 1998, and the toll on engineers' lives before the AOL acquisition.

Why it appears in the archive

HN commenters recommend it as an intimate, embedded look at late-90s web history and the spirit of building something important under pressure.

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From the Hacker News discussion

jwatt · 2019-08 · strong rec

It was Netscape in 1999 he got flown out. Documented in Code Rush, which is an awesome documentary for anyone interested in the history of the Web: [VIDEO]

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e15ctr0n · 2020-04 · strong rec

> Does anyone can tell anything positive about her? She's the reason Mozilla exists today as an independent, non-profit organization. On March 31, 1998 Netscape allowed the Mozilla code base to be open sourced under the Mozilla Project. [1][2] This was the result of an intensive year-long effort to (1) remove proprietary source code that couldn't be open-sourced, (2) release the source code under a brand new license called the Mozilla Public License. This license was written principally by Mitchell Baker whose formal education is in law, with input from ESR, Linus Torvalds, VA Research, etc. [3] On July 14, 2003 AOL (which had acquired Netscape earlier) closed down the Netscape division and laid off almost everyone there, including Mitchell Baker. That very day Mitch Kapor [4] stepped in with funding and advice to help Baker and a core team of total 10 employees set up the Mozilla Foundation in an office in Mountain View that is today occupied by the Khan Academy. [5] Wikipedia [6] has a good summary of her career. The documentary Code Rush is required viewing, IMHO, to capture some of the excitement of that era. [7][8] Bonus points for spotting JWZ. :-) [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] [LINK] [5] [LINK] [6] [LINK] [7] [LINK] [8] [VIDEO]

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Reedx · 2018-11 · rec

There's a good Netscape documentary filmed during their last year leading up to the acquisition. When they were working to get the Mozilla source code released. [VIDEO]

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mtmail · 2019-07 · rec

"The PayPal Wars". Also see [LINK] "Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days" "Project Code Rush", a 1h documentary ( [VIDEO] )

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lancebeet · 2019-10 · rec

I really recommend the 2000 documentary Code Rush[1] about Netscape's open sourcing of the browser and acquisition by AOL. It doesn't give any major insights into the industry, but does give a glimpse of what the culture was like back then. [1] [VIDEO]

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ragle · 2020-03 · rec

> and worked on a few important pieces of software before becoming a bar owner instead. Fun documentary: [VIDEO]

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Jugurtha · 2020-06 · rec

Not parent, but I thought it were a TV stream that filmed Cloudflare teams solving problems. Similar to the documentary[1] "Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks" where they show the life of interns developing an actual product at Fog Creek, the first paying customer, bug fixes, etc. I appreciated that one, as I did "Code Rush" [3], an embedded documentary following people at Netscape in 1998, even shows the moment Jamie Zawinski bringing the source code and uploading it, or moments where they needed Apple to greenlight using proprietary code, trying to reach Steve Jobs, and ending up implementing it. Another one I liked was "Downloaded", a documentary about Napster with the main people (Sean Fanning, Sean Parker, Ron Conway, etc.)[4] PS: Since you're here, I was unable to log to my CloudFlare account for more than a week, reset my password an everything, but always couldn't log in until a couple of days ago. I would have wanted to see a video on the background of the issue and how it was resolved : ) [1]: [LINK] [2]: [LINK] [3]: [VIDEO] [4]: [LINK]

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purerandomness · 2020-06 · rec

There's a wide community of people feeling just like you, assembling in "Maker communities", as they call it. Good entry points are the IndieHackers podcast, and conferences like MicroConf (watch their conference talk recordings here, especially Patrick McKenzie's aka patio11 [0]) The basic idea is to create a sustainable job you love for yourself, the people that depend on you, and many others. The antithesis of "Our incredible journey", aka VC sellout. Once you've done this, you can do whatever you want. Build a game company. Pursue academia [1]. Join the demoscene, tour the world, join demo party competitions and write sick 64k intros. Commit to open source and help the Haiku project. Hang around at your local hacker space and help create an independend mesh-based ISP. I know exactly what you're talking about. I watched the Netscape documentary "Project Code Rush" [2] with Jamie Zawinski and loved the spirit and the feeling of doing something important. It feels like it's in such a stark contrast to many people's reality, pushing JIRA tickets in a toxic AdTech startup. However, I think it's an illusion. There never was a "golden age", and people simply forget that bullshit jobs always existed, you just don't see domcumentaries of them, nobody would watch them. For me, what helped me was realizing that the world, or the "industry" doesn't owe me anything, and I'm completely on my own, and if I want to do something meaningful, well, I'll have to create my own sustainable job

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